TORONTO, September 13, 2001 -- The fast and frequent movement of people, money and information around the world that characterizes the new global village brings into sharp relief the differences in social equality among us. Scholars from the four corners of the globe researching these differences will gather at York University on Friday, Sept. 14, to share their findings in a conference entitled, Perspectives on Social Inequalities: Issues of Race, Gender and Class Worldwide.

The conference will address the roots of social inequality in various countries and how they play out in a new international context. Among the topics for discussion:

• Displacement, Cultural Continuity and Change in the Diaspora of Islamic Cultures
  Displacement and migration are prominent features of the current century. York social scientist Haidegh Moghissi will discuss her research into the effects of displacement on gender relations among migrants and refugees from Islamic cultures. She notes that last year the World Immigration Conference in Geneva declared that immigration had dramatically increased to 150 million in the last decade. "It is estimated that over 60 million people, close to two per cent of the world’s population, live in a country in which they were not born," says Moghissi. In the process of migration, powerful tensions develop between migrants’ needs to adapt to their new country and their wish to maintain their own cultural identity. Moghissi questions the notion of a unitary Islamic family or Islamic woman and emphasizes the diversity of experiences of women from Islamic cultures across class, ethnicity and rural-urban lines. She is also examining whether the socioeconomic level of more advanced host countries translates into better treatment for minority groups and an improvement in gender relations.

• Africville and District VI
  Savanah Williams and Wayne Patterson of Howard University in the United States examine the issue of the forcible removal of people of colour from the two relatively stable and peaceful communities of Africville in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and District VI in Cape Town, to meet local political needs. They note that the two nations of Canada and South Africa had vastly different standings in the community of nations at the time. South Africa was becoming a pariah in the British Commonwealth for its policy of apartheid, and Canada was at the centre of international peacekeeping, its Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, on the way to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "Yet in one aspect, there was a surprising similarity between the policies of the two nations that call into question either basic assumptions about Canada, or perhaps pose a more general question about our cruelty to one another independently of the perceived benevolence or hostility of our general policies."

• Fruits of Injustice: Women in the Corporate Food System
  York professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies Deborah Barndt examines the position of women in the transnational food system, noting that women make up the majority of workers in agribusiness, food processing, supermarkets, and fast food restaurants, all increasingly integrated into a corporate food chain that is built on deeply rooted social inequalities. "Indigenous women in Mexico are often among the lowest wage field workers, picking tomatoes seasonally alongside their families and living in horrific migrant labour camps, while mestiza (mixed-blood) women work year round in packing plants, earning three-to-five times as much and living in furnished rented homes," says Barndt. "In the Canadian context, young students and older married women predominate as supermarket cashiers relegated to a growing part-time workforce with wage rollbacks. Fast food workers are also drawn from vulnerable populations, primarily youth, and increasingly, immigrant women and seniors." Barndt is editor of Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food and Globalization (Second Story Press, Toronto, 1999).

• Empowering teachers in a post apartheid educational landscape
  Lisa Lazarus of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa examines the experience of disadvantaged teachers in post-apartheid South Africa. She notes that radical changes in education policy have taken place across the board, including in curriculum development and teaching practices, but many current teachers grew up severely disadvantaged by the apartheid system. "Of paramount importance is how best to empower such teachers." Referring to her own experiences empowering disadvantaged teachers from a rural community, and to a study of a squatter community in Cape Town, Lazarus reflects on the difficulties of empowering an oppressed group. "These difficulties include an over-reliance on preconceived theoretical standpoints as well as difficulties in connecting with an oppressed group due to ‘perceived difference’ based on race."

• Textual Framing of the Access Initiative
  Yvette Daniel is vice-principal at Stanley Road Public School in Toronto. She is also in the post-doctoral program in York’s Faculty of Education, researching educational reform in the era of globalization and the implications for equity issues. She examines the admissions process for entry into teacher education programs at York, with a particular emphasis on the "Access Initiative" designed to provide access to people from groups such as First Nations, racial minorities, people with disabilities, and people from the refugee experience. "Over time, as with other affirmative action policies, this initiative has acquired negative perceptions with the general pool of applicants, where cries of ‘reverse racism’ are often heard along with the claim that members of certain groups would not gain entrance without institutional assistance." Daniel will argue that the Access Initiative is an important aspect of the admissions process that has enabled people from non-mainstream groups to gain entry. "However, the access initiative must move away from the traditional assimilationist approach."

The conference will convene from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in rooms 201 and 320 at Bethune College, York University, Keele Campus, 4700 Keele St. It is sponsored by the Tokyo Foundation and the York Graduate Fellowships for Academic Distinction. The Graduate Fellowships for Academic Distinction is a collaboration of scholars from York, the University of Toronto, the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Massey University in New Zealand, the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, and Howard University in the United States. For more information on conference participants and abstracts, check the website at www.yorku.ca/grads/gfad.

Please note that confirmation of overseas participants is pending due to the crisis in the United States.

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For more information, please contact:

Egla J. Martinez
Conference Coordinator
York University
egmar@yorku.ca

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
YU/098/01