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Addressing polarization in the classroom

Fall Institute - October 4 to 6, 2024

Politically speaking, classrooms have never been a more challenging space to navigate. Students come to school armed with new and ever-changing conspiracy theories with which to provoke their classmates and teachers. Anti-vax parents demand that their scientifically suspect views be aired and given respect. Teachers find themselves under fire from local communities and politicians when they attempt to give instruction on politically tense topics like climate change, or respect for gender diverse people.

Exemplifying these trends, provincial and state governments in Canada and the United States have enacted policies to prohibit the inclusion of critical race theory and gender-affirming language, and to implement book bans or threats to defund school libraries when librarians resist the removal of challenged or banned books.

Teachers, parents, and administrators find themselves unsure where to turn for insight and strategies to address these problems and school stakeholders across the spectrum stand in urgent need of theoretically informed and evidence-based guidance and support in addressing problems of political polarization in schools.

In response, we will convene a Fall Institute to address urgent theoretical and practical questions and solutions about the role of education in politically polarized societies. Jointly organized by McGill University and Concordia University, the Institute will be held at McGill University from October 4 to 6 and feature two days of knowledge mobilization activities designed to further understanding of what problems arise when political polarization infiltrates schools and classrooms, and how teachers and schools can productively address these problems.

Sessions will catalyze collaborative research creation by bringing together a range of stakeholders - including scholars, educators, K-12 students, and school administrators - to think together about how creative practical solutions may be shaped and informed by existing and emerging theoretical frameworks. The Institute will provide opportunities for in-depth engagement among legal scholars in education, school officials, teachers, and students.

Program (in progress)

Download the official PDF of the programme.

October 04

The Institute will begin with a welcome reception (invitation only) on Friday, October 4, from 5 to 7pm  at the Thomson House (3650 McTavish Street). Regular sessions will take place at the Learning Commons, McGill Faculty of Education, 3700 McTavish St, Montreal.

October 5

08:30 - 09:00 Meet & greet
09:00 - 10:10

The Nature of Disinformation - Zoom link

This session explores theoretical perspectives that explore the systemic, social nature of belief in disinformation among students and parents.

Presentation by Maya Goldenberg (University of Guelph), response by Lana Parker (University of Windsor)

10:10 - 10:20 Coffee break
10:20 - 11:30

The challenges of teaching climate change - Zoom link

Speakers will discuss the challenges of teaching climate change in hostile political contexts as teachers fear negative parental and community reactions.

Presentation by Noah Weeth Feinstein (University of Wisconsin-Madison), response by Blane Harvey (McGill University)

11:30 - 12:00

Strategies for addressing disinformation

Small group discussion focused on making connections with challenges teachers face related to disinformation and teaching climate change.

Small group discussions.

12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 14:10

Polarization and civic trust - Zoom link

Trust in key social institutions such as higher education and scientific establishments is at all-time lows. The presenters in this session will lay out new ways of understanding the challenges for the school’s role as an instrument of democratic and civic trust renewal.

Presentation by Bryan Warnick (Ohio State University), response by Vivek Venkatesh (McGill University)

14:10 - 14:20 Coffree break
14:20 - 15:30

Sex education under fire - Zoom link

Sex education is a site of great tension in schools. This presentation considers recent controversies and strategies schools may pursue to prepare students to understand tensions and challenges in discussions about sex education.

Presentation by Casey Burkholder (Concordia University), response by Jaeden Wilson (McGill University)

15:30 - 16:00

Strategies for ‘depolarizing’ pedagogy

Small group discussion focused on depolarizing pedagogy in practice and challenges teachers encounter in practice when teaching sex education.

Small group discussions.

October 06

08:30 Meet & greet
09:00 - 10:10

The prospects for a consensus about the political role of the school - Zoom link

This presentation aims to evaluate the erosion of consensus regarding the role of public education in North American democracies. Participants will survey some prospects for generating a renewed public consensus about the legitimacy of public education.

Presentation by Campbell Scribner (University of Maryland), response by Daniel M. Cere (McGill University)

10:10 - 10:20  
10:20 - 11:30

Case study: Censorship – administrative oversight - Zoom link

Polarization and increasingly present censorship are not conducive to fostering an inspiring vision of the school's role in promoting capacities of democratic deliberation. This session will explore various cases and propose strategies for addressing this challenge.

Presentation by Wayne Journell (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), response by Bruce Maxwell (Université de Montréal)

11:30 - 12:00

Strategies for addressing censorship in classroom

This small group discussion will focus on examining how teachers and students can utilize legal resources to enhance their understanding of their rights, especially when it comes to freedom of expression and academic freedom.

Small group discussions.

12:00 - 13:00 Lunch break
13:00 - 14:00

Cataloging our main conclusions and solutions

The objective of this session is to engage in a targeted retrospective reflection on the preceding sessions, aiming to systematically document the most impactful conclusions proposed throughout the two-day conference. Graduate student facilitators will present key insights garnered from the three preceding sessions, including notable unresolved challenges underscored by both speakers and participants. 

14:00 - 15:00

Group Discussion

The conference will conclude with a comprehensive large-group discussion, delving into these insights and encapsulating the overarching themes that have emerged over the course of the event.

Featured Speakers and Respondents

Casey Burkholder

Casey Burkholder (she/her) is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Social Justice in Youth and Child Studies and an Associate Professor at Concordia University. Previously, Casey worked as an Associate Professor at the University of New Brunswick (2017-2024). In choosing a research path at the intersection of resistance&activism, gender, sexuality, DIY media-making, art production, queer joy, and participatory archiving, Casey engages in research for social change through participatory visual approaches to local issues with 2SLGBTQ+ youth, adults, elders and teachers. She is the co-founder of the Fredericton Feminist Film Collective, and is the PI of Pride/Swell+ and SexualityNB.

Daniel Cere

Daniel Cere is Associate Professor of Religion, Law, and Public Policy in the Faculty of Religious Studies. He also chairs the CREOR Religion and Globalization committee as well as the Catholic Studies committee in the Faculty of Arts. Cere collaborated with former Dean Ellen Aitken in forging a McGill partnership with an international network of universities, the Faith and Globalization Initiative. He has directed the international summer course for the Faith and Globalization Initiative that networks with over 30 universities across the world. He also helped to design and direct the Birks Forum on the World’s Religions and Public Policy launched in 2011. His work on religion and public policy has focused on debates over issues related to gender, sexuality and marriage. He is the director of the Institute for the Study of Marriage, Law and Culture, and a founding director of the Newman Institute of Catholic Studies.

Noah Feinstein

Noah Weeth Feinstein studies how people make sense of science in their personal, social, and political lives - and how educational platforms such as schools and museums can help. He recently contributed to a National Academies report on science literacy, and he is currently studying how science museums seek to become more equitable institutions. Dr. Feinstein also writes about environmental and sustainability education, public knowledge, and educational responses to the "post-truth era," and has become increasingly interested in the role of education in climate change adaptation.

Maya Goldenberg

Maya Goldenberg is a professor of Philosophy whose research addresses the fundamental epistemic question, "How do we know what to believe?" (or when are knowledge claims justified) in health care. Her past scholarship has addressed this question in the pressing context of evidence-based medicine, the decision-making framework that relies on clinical trial evidence to inform individual patient care. While evidence-based medicine is the standard of best practice in health research and health care, there has been inadequate attention to the philosophical assumptions underlying this transfer of knowledge from the laboratory to the bedside. More recently, she had broadened her research into the science-values complex to investigate vaccine hesitancy as illustrative of poor public trust in scientific institutions.

Wayne Journell

Wayne Journell is Professor of Social Studies Education and Associate Chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Dr. Journell's research focuses primarily on the teaching of politics and controversial issues in secondary education, with secondary interests in teaching social studies with technology and via inquiry. Dr. Journell has received numerous awards for his scholarship, including being a two-time recipient of the Exemplary Research in Social Studies Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. He is also the current editor of Theory & Research in Social Education, which is the premier empirical journal in the field of social studies education, and editor for the Research and Practice in Social Studies book series at Teachers College Press.

Bruce Maxwell

Bruce Maxwell is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the Université de Montréal, where he is involved in the training of future teachers and school leaders on the themes of education law, professional ethics and the history of educational ideas. An ethicist and philosopher of education, his research focuses on school law, ethical development in the professions, and ethical and legal issues in education. After completing bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy at McGill University and Université de Montréal respectively, he taught at the college level until 2003. From 2004 to 2007, he was a lecturer while completing his doctoral studies at the Institute of Educational Sciences at the University of Münster in Germany. In 2008, he returned to Montreal to undertake a postdoctoral fellowship in ethics at the Centre de recherche en éthique de l'Université de Montréal. In 2009, he became a professor at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, specializing in ethics and education law, and in the ethics component of the ethics and religious culture program. He has been a professor of education law at Université de Montréal since 2020.

Campbell Scribner

Campbell F. Scribner is a scholar of educational policy, history, and philosophy. Although his work covers a broad chronological range, all of it centers on conflicting notions of democracy in American schools. His books include A is for Arson: A History of Vandalism in American Education (Cornell University Press, 2023), which explores the many meanings of property destruction; Spare the Rod: Punishment and the Moral Community of Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2021), in which he and Bryan Warnick examine the history and philosophy of school discipline; and The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy (Cornell University Press, 2016), which examines the legal and political controversies around school district  boundaries. He is currently working on a biography of Philip H. Phenix, a philosopher and curricular theorist active during the 1960s. Other interests include civic education, educational law, and conservative educational thought.

Vivek Venkatesh

Vivek Venkatesh is Dean of the Faculty of Education and a James McGill Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Since 2017, Vivek has held the UNESCO co-Chair in Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. Vivek is a filmmaker, musician, curator and applied learning scientist whose research and research-creation programs focus on community resilience and pluralism through a resolutely public pedagogical approach. His feature films include documentaries about underground cultural scenes including Blekkmetal (2015), Where in the hell is the Lavender House? (2019) and Enslaved 25. Vivek’s research-creation projects engage the multiple challenges of xenophobia at their roots through the development of four unique participative artistic projects: BANAL, Halka, Landscape of Hate and Landscape of Hope. All four projects expand knowledge mobilization activities far beyond traditional academic paths, and include film and music production, and curation of live performances by musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, and writers. These projects have reached more than 6,500 people at festivals in Canada, Norway, and Iceland with upcoming BANAL performances scheduled in Mexico (2024) and India (2025). Vivek is co-editor of the book series titled Extremity in Society and Culture, being published by Rowman & Littlefield/Lexoington Press.

Bryan Warnick

Bryan Warnick is professor of Philosophy of Education in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University. He earned his BS degree in philosophy and psychology from the University of Utah, graduating magna cum laude. After serving as a research associate in Medical Ethics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Dr. Warnick completed his MA and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Philosophy of Education. He teaches and conducts research in the area of philosophy of education, specializing in the ethical dimensions of educational policies and practices. Recent topics of interest include the ethics of school punishment, the phenomenon of school shootings, democratic education, the relationship between religion and education, the implications of capitalism for education, and student rights in school settings.

Jaeden Wilson

Jaeden Wilson (he/him) is a second year PhD student at McGill University. He completed his B.Ed. in Secondary English education at McGill and then his M.Sc. in Research Design and Methodology in Education at the University of Oxford. Through his research, he seeks to work with trans youth in the pursuit of equity in secondary schools – with a particular focus on intersectionality. Specifically, he is focused on what utopian imagination and trans youths’ agency can teach educators about improving educational practices, pedagogies, and policies.

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