The Changing Face of Canada’s Classrooms (Equity and Women's Services)

Canada is changing: we are rapidly becoming a more diverse country. Our population, our  students, our communities,  and our workforce  look much different than they did a mere two decades ago.  Canada is  touted as  the  land of  fairness, opportunity, and equality. Immigrants often cite these qualities as the reasons they choose Canada as their new home. The data, however, paint a very different picture.
Despite  an  increasingly  diverse  population and  years  of  unprecedented economic growth, Canada’s  labour  market  is  colour coded.¹   Access to jobs and the wages workers earn vary according to race and ethnicity. Sheila Block and Dr. Grace-Edward Galabuzi,  authors of Canada’s Colour  Coded Labour Market: The Gap for  Racialized Workers used 2006  census data to determine that within Canada’s  labour market there is  indeed a hierarchy when it comes who gets paid how much.²

The data show that all racialized  Canadians are willing to work but that more often than nonracialized  Canadians they find themselves on the unemployment  line (with the exception of those who identify as Japanese  and Filipino). Members of racialized groups earn lower incomes and have far less access to secure, well-paying jobs. First-generation  racialized Canadian men earn only 68.7 percent of what their non-racialized  counterparts earn. For women  the gap is even bigger: for  every dollar non-racialized male immigrants earn,  racialized women immigrants  earn  only   48.7   cents.   Racialized Canadians are  overrepresented   in  the  hard-hit manufacturing  sector, working at precarious,  low- paying jobs, but underrepresented  among those who make government  policy. The vast majority –  92  percent –  of  public administration  workers are nonracialized.

Moreover, Canada has a  low birth  rate and an  aging  population,  with  more  seniors  and fewer children than in  previous decades. Nearly half of  Canada’s  17  million workers  are eligible to  retire  within  the  next  10  years. Where will the  new workers come from to  replace the  retiring  boomers? Karl Flecker, national director of antiracism and  human rights  at  the  Canadian Labour Congress, cites three sources for worker replacement:  Aboriginal people, immigrants,  and younger  Canadians.

Aboriginal communities:
Aboriginal people are the nation’s youngest and fastest-growing human resource. The Aboriginal population is  young:  48  percent are 24  years of age or younger, compared  with 31 percent of all Canadians.  Many fewer have jobs:  61  percent of First Nations adults are employed  compared  with 82 percent of non-Aboriginal adults. The median annual income for First Nations workers is $18,962, 30 percent lower than that of the non-Aboriginal population.³  At the current rate of progress, it will take 63 years for  this  income gap to be erased.

Immigrants and newcomer communities:
In  March 2007,  the  Globe and Mail  front-page headline read  “All  immigration by  2030.”   The article reported  that  Statistics Canada  projected that by 2030 immigrants  will be the sole source of our population increase.⁴ The vast majority  are racialized: currently 80 percent of immigrants  to Canada  come from the Middle East, Africa,  Asia, and the  Pacific Region. They are also a principal source of our labour force and economic growth. According to Dr. Galabuzi,  the “workers  of colour cohort will generate nearly $80 billion in real GDP growth between 1992  and 2017  despite  being underpaid by nearly 15 percent.”

Generations X and Y:
There are 7 million 18-to-34-year-olds in Canada of  whom 20  percent are racialized. Furthermore, children between the ages of five and 15 form the most racially diverse cohort in Canadian history — one in three is racially visible. Generations X andY are educated cohorts: in 1961 fewer than one in 10 of young people ages 20 to 24 attended  post-secondary institutions;  by 2001 the  number had jumped to nearly half. Racialized 25-to-44-year-olds are better educated: 40 percent of those who are Canadian-born and 31.5 percent of those are who internationally-born  have a BA  or higher degree. For  nonracialized Canadian workers the figure is 19.1 percent.

As educators, we need to make meaning of the data and ask questions. What do these  statistics  mean for our classrooms? For  our students?  For ourselves?  How  do we reach out  to  Aboriginal communities, immigrants, newcomer communities, and younger Canadians?

Given  that  our classrooms are going to look different, our assumptions, curriculum, teaching  methods, and interactions  with parents also need to look different. But what does different really look like?

Dr.  Galabuzi stresses  the  importance  of applying  an  antiracism  lens to everything we do in  our classrooms and communities. For many of us this  represents change. For example, if we use this  lens when we choose literature  we have to ask ourselves questions like: Who are the  characters in our books? Who are the  heroes/heroines? What do they look like? When decorating our classrooms the anti racism lens raises the question of who is represented on our posters. The lens affects our choice of language: Are we including same-sex families? Are we using gender-neutral terms when we communicate with students?  Are  we respecting different cultures and their histories?

There are many ETFO  resources to assist educators with the task of doing things differently.

Workshops (to access through your local):

• Beyond the Breakfast Program ( exploring poverty issues)
• Learning and Understanding:  Cultural and Relgjous Differences
• Roots of Equality (exploring equal relationships)
• Les radnes de /'egaUte
• Woman Abuse Affects Our Children
• Imagine a World That Is Free from Fear (issues related to  homophobia and heterosexism)
• Access Without Borders: Exploring Disability Issues

The following curriculum  resources can be ordered from shop ETFO:

• Imagine a World That Is Free from Fear
• Connections
• The Power of Story
• Status of Women binder
• Year of the Metis
• Roots of Equality
• Les radnes de /'egaUte
• Rascism Hurts

ETFO   also  has  numerous posters  and  pam­phlets suitable for classrooms and schools. Dr.  Galabuzi states  that  knowledge is impor­ tant  only  if  you do something  with it.  Doing something  small  is  more effective  than  wait­ing for the  revolution to  happen.  By  attending a  workshop or  using  ETFO  resources in  your classrooms, you are doing something  with your knowledge —you are validating, supporting, and empowering your students.

It is also important to recognize that  racism will not  be resolved within the  confines of our classrooms. It is  historic and  systemic and  the solutions need to be systemic. Block and Galabuzi discuss changes to  labour law and  employment standards as examples of solutions needed to bring about change. Bringing labour legislation into the twenty-first century, making it easier to unionize, and increasing minimum wage to a living wage are all imperative. Action cannot  happen  without  acknowledgement.  First,  Canadians  must  acknowledge  our racism — then we can implement action. One step at a time.

Notes
_{1 This article highlights data analyzed from the 2006 Census and from Statistics Canada, and reviews research  done by three prominent activists in the labour movement - Sheila Block, Dr. Grace-Edward Galabuzi, and Karl Hec ker. See The Canadian Workforce:A Changing Canvas, Canadian  Labour Congress; changingthecanvas.org.
2 Sheila  Block and Grace-Edward Galabuzi. Canada's Colour Coded Labour Market: The Gap for Radalized Worker.s. Toronto: Wellesley Institute and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,  March 2011. Available at wellesleyinstitute.com.
3  Daniel Wilson and  Da vid Macdonald. The Income Gap Between  Aboriginal Peoples and the Rest of Canada. Ca nadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,  April 2010. Available at policyaltematives.cajissuesjaborigin at-issues.
4  Globe and Mail, March 14, 2007.}