Photographs, mementos and scholarly reflections inspire solutions for today’s challenges
TORONTO, October 18, 2010 – York University’s Faculty of Education will host more than 100 leading thinkers in education from across Canada and around the world at the 16th Biennial Conference of the Canadian History of Education Association (CHEA).
The conference, “Education in Tough Times: Tough Times in Education,” from Oct. 21 to 24 at the Novotel Hotel (North York), features critical historical explorations, innovative research, vivid photographic exhibitions and stimulating discussions of some of the most pressing issues for students, parents and policy-makers in education today.
“Current debates in education locally, nationally and internationally are best understood by examining the rich history of education,” says Professor Paul Axelrod, former dean of York’s Faculty of Education, who organized the conference. “This gathering is a unique opportunity to engage experts and various sectors of the education community. From the vantage point of an informed analysis of the past, we can look toward a wider array of options in policy and practice for the present and a more vibrant and enlightened future.”
Papers and presentations cover a broad spectrum of issues such as religion in schools, lifelong learning, student health, disability, learning difficulties, diversity, gender, assimilation, resistance and accommodation. These topics are reflected in such titles as:
- The Sixties Revolution and the Meaning of Higher Education
- Commies at the Chalkboard: National Security, Teachers and the Long Red Scare
- Montreal’s Little Strikers: Antisemitism, Poverty and Resistance at the Aberdeen School, 1913
- Kids Learn to Smoke: The case of Tobacco Manufacturers’ Pseudo-Anti Smoking Messages and the Pathetic Real Deal − School Curricula
- No Light Without Shadow: Education and Experience at Rochdale College
- Schoolyard Archaeology: Digging for Toronto’s African Canadian Heritage;
- Canada’s History Crisis of the 1990s: The Public Debate and Its Legacy
- Sex and Social Segregation in English Canadian High Schools: The Interwar Years
The conference features a special exhibition of photographs and short essays titled “A Picture in a Thousand Words“, showcasing education historians using visual sources. It also includes a tour of rare artifacts of the history of Ontario education, which have been preserved at the Archives of Ontario, on the Keele Campus of York University.
“York University is proud to be the home of the Archives of Ontario and to serve, in this way, as the gateway to the history of education in Ontario,” says Axelrod, whose most recent work analyzes the abolition of corporal punishment in Ontario’s schools. “This repository is an indispensable resource for all serious students of the history of education in this province.”
The Faculty of Education at York University, one of Ontario’s largest institutions for higher learning in education, has earned an international reputation for its interdisciplinary approach to research and teacher training in both undergraduate and graduate studies. Its focus on community engagement combined with a rich diversity of conceptual and applied research distinguishes the faculty as a leader in knowledge mobilization in the field of education.
For event details visit the CHEA web site at http://www.ache-chea.ca. For information about York University’s Faculty of Education, visit www.edu.yorku.ca.
York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 200,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 Faculties and 28 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Media Contact:
Garth Hardie, Faculty of Education, York University416 736 5737 / GHardie@edu.yorku.ca (Mon-Fri)
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22101 / wallsj@yorku.ca (Mon-Fri)
