Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Canadian Refugee Policy
This dissertation is an inquiry into the politics of the frame in Canadian refugee policy. It is focused on "framing," thereby taking up the stance of critical policy studies while pressing the contribution of Donald Schön and Martin Rein in a critical and politically inflected direction. The dissertation unfolds as a political history of Canadian refugee policy that provides a "contextual mapping," relevant to both inquiry and action in regard to the framing of refugees. The main argument is that twentieth- and twenty-first- century refugee policy in Canada is a story of three shifting meta-frames: beginning with humanitarianism (in the inter-War years and the post-World War II period); shifting to neo-humanitarianism (beginning in the late 1970s, in connection with the rise of neoliberalism); then shifting again (beginning in the 1990s) to securitization. The concept of a meta-frame here is analogous to that of a "metacultural frame" in Schön and Rein, but accents political rather than cultural dimensions. This concept is developed in a manner suitable to a political history by illustrating how meta-frames both become stable and change. With humanitarianism, the refugee was typically portrayed in ambivalent terms - both deserving of and entitled to protection, while also posing a burden for the national interest. In the context of neo-humanitarianism, this ambivalence began to wane, and the refugee was more typically portrayed as a potential criminal. With securitization, especially as it has become entrenched and intensified, the refugee has been more typically portrayed as a potential terrorist. The analysis includes a focus on the particular importance of ambivalence and contingency in the politics of the frame. Securitization has become so deeply entrenched since September 11, 2001 that it appears virtually fixed in place. However, it may still become possible in moments of contingency for refugee advocates to destabilize the securitization meta-frame and help shift the framing of refugees into a more hospitable register. Author Keywords: ambivalence, contingency, humanitarianism, neo-humanitarianism, refugees, securitization
Abject Utopianism and Psychic Space
This dissertation utilizes the psychoanalytic theories of French psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva as a lens through which to read the novels of American author Samuel R. Delany. I argue that concepts proper to Kristeva's work--namely abjection and/or the abject--can provide a way to think what it might mean to be utopian in the 21st century. Delany's novels are received historically, which is to say his work speaks from a certain historical and cultural viewpoint that is not that of today; however, I claim that his novels are exceptional for their attempts to portray other ways of being in the world. Delany's novels, though, contain bodies, psychologies, and sexualities that are considered abject with respect to contemporary morality. Nonetheless, this dissertation argues that such manifestations of abject lived experience provide the groundwork for the possibility of thinking utopianism differently today. Throughout, what I am working toward is a notion that I call Abject Utopianism: Rather than direct attention toward those sites that closely, yet imperfectly, approximate the ideal, one should commit one's attention to those sights that others avoid, abscond, or turn their nose up at in disgust, for those are the sites of hope for a better world today. Author Keywords: Abject, Delany, Kristeva, Literary Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Utopia
Not In Their Classrooms
This dissertation examines the rise of teachers' union militancy in Ontario through a case study of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) and the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation (OPSTF) between 1970 and their amalgamation into the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) in 1998. It uses the archival records of the two unions, relevant legislation, media records, personal collections, and interviews to explore how these two professional organizations became politicized, militant labour unions able to engage with the state and the trustees of boards of education. The Introduction situates the public education project within nation building in a capitalist-democracy and outlines the theoretical influences informing the dissertation. Chapter 1 follows the two unions during the 1970s as they developed into labour unions. The 18 December 1973 one-day, province-wide, political strike achieved the right to strike and established a unique labour regime for teachers. Chapter 2 examines the advance of the unions during the 1980s as they developed labour militancy. At the same time, neo-liberalism was ascending and the post-war social accord was coming to an end resulting in attacks on unions and cuts to social programs. How gender affected the elementary teachers' unions between 1970 and 1990 is developed in Chapter 3. The FWTAO campaigned for women's equality on a platform of liberal feminism while the OPSTF followed a unionist path in an effort to convince women teachers to join them. Chapter 4 scrutinizes the effect of neo-liberal ideology on education during the 1990-1995 Bob Rae NDP government and the impact the Social Contract had on teachers. The development of teacher resistance to the neo-liberal state is explored in Chapter 5. Alliances with other labour organizations during the Days of Action campaign culminated in a two-week, province-wide strike in the fall of 1997 against the Mike Harris Conservative government. The Conclusion brings together the findings of the dissertation and suggests future research exploring teacher union strength in the Canadian context. Author Keywords: Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario; FWTAO, neoliberalism, Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation; OPSTF, teachers' strikes, teachers' unions, women's union
Pausing Encounters with Autism and Its Unruly Representation
This dissertation seeks to explore and understand how autism, asperger and the autistic spectrum is represented in Canadian culture. Acknowledging the role of films, television, literature and print media in the construction of autism in the consciousness of the Canadian public, this project seeks to critique representations of autism on the grounds that these representations have an ethical responsibility to autistic individuals and those who share their lives. This project raises questions about how autism is constructed in formal and popular texts; explores retrospective diagnosis and labelling in biography and fiction; questions the use of autism and Asperger's as metaphor for contemporary technology culture; examines autistic characterization in fiction; and argues that representations of autism need to be hospitable to autistic culture and difference. In carrying out this critique this project proposes and enacts a new interdisciplinary methodology for academic disability study that brings the academic researcher in contact with the perspectives of non-academic audiences working in the same subject area, and practices this approach through an unconventional focus group collaboration. Acknowledging the contribution of disability studies approaches to representation, this project will also challenge these methodologies on the grounds that the diverse voices of audiences are, at times, absent from discourse focused research. Chapter One offers an explanation of disability studies scholarship and the history of autism as a category of disability and difference. Chapter Two looks at how disability and specifically autistic representations have been understood academically and introduces the rationale and experiences of the focus group project. Chapter Three explores retrospective, biographical diagnosis, the role of autism as technological metaphor, and contemporary biography. Chapter Four looks at the construction of autistic characters in Canadian literature and film. Chapter Five interrogates documentary and news media responses to autism and the construction of autism as Canadian health crisis, and also explores how discourses that surround autism are implicated in interventions and therapeutic approaches to autistic individuals. Key Terms Autism; Autistic Spectrum; Asperger; Disability; Representation; Media; Interdisciplinary Research; Focus Group; Retrospective Diagnosis; Biography; Academic Method; Academic and Representational Responsibility; Literature; Film; Diagnosis; Disability Studies; Therapy Author Keywords: Academic Method, Autism Spectrum, Biography, Disability, Interdisciplinary Research, Representation
Growing Up in Postwar Suburbia
Growing Up in Postwar Suburbia: Childhood, Children and Adolescents in Canada, 1950-1970 This dissertation explores the intersections between the suburban landscape both `real' and imagined, childhood, children and adolescents. I contend that there was a richness and diversity in the experiences of children and adolescents in postwar Canada that resists simplistic stereotypes that often depict suburbia as primarily middle-class, dull, homogeneous, conformist, and alienating for residents of all ages. Suburban living has become the definitive housing choice for the majority of Canadians since the end of World War II. Suburban homes and communities were critical in shaping the everyday lives of young people in this period. These young lives were predominantly safe, comfortable, and enriched in their homescapes. Yet this was not a universal condition. While class and gender were important factors shaping childhood and adolescence, my research findings also show that children and adolescents exercised their agency in this period, and they were active participants in their lives on personal, educational, community, and municipal levels. Young people were monitored, regulated and disciplined, but they were not passive receptacles in a world dominated by adults. This interdisciplinary study uses a wide range of archival, visual and documentary sources, and also integrates oral histories as a key methodology. These oral histories have added important reflections on childhood and adolescence in postwar suburbia, providing insight into how memory constructs multiple meanings associated with the dissertation's key themes. Ultimately, I offer a pan-Canadian view of changing images and constructions of childhood by delving into more specific topics to children and adolescents using postwar Calgary suburbia as a focal point in order to understand the heterogeneity of suburban life. In studying the intersections of place, space, age, class, sexuality, `race,' and gender, I demonstrate that the lives of children and adolescents are woven into the fabric of postwar Canadian social and cultural history in a profound and meaningful way. Author Keywords: adolescence, adolescents, childhood, children, history, suburbs
Rewiring the State
ABSTRACT Rewiring the State: The Privatization of Information Technology in the Ontario Public Service (1972-2003) David Rapaport Senior managers in the Ontario Public Service (OPS) and neo-liberal public policy advocates rationalize the privatization of Information Technology (IT) as an organizational quest for new efficiencies, specifically efficiencies imported from market economies. The findings of the research for this study indicate that IT privatization frequently results in inefficiencies, dependencies and a loss of core skills. The explanation for widespread IT privatization must be sought elsewhere. This study researches and depicts two related IT developments. The first development is the evolution of IT privatization from the earlier practice of body-shopping, i.e. the hiring on contract of IT consultants to the more complex public private partnership. This evolution is a reflection of the maturation of privatization. Body-shopping informs the alienation of IT skills from the public sector, the shaping of a labour hierarchy based on skills distribution, and the foundation for the public-private partnership. The second development, the evolution of OPS management attitudes towards IT privatization, is a reflection of growing neo-liberal hegemony. Archival research indicates middle management disdain towards excessive IT privatization in the early 1980's; particularly its high costs, loss of skills and growing dependency on external private sources. By the ii late 1990's, parliamentary committee transcripts indicate IT management acceptance of more excessive IT privatization. As neo-liberal practice became more accepted and as governments and central ministries pressured line ministries through budgetary and organizational controls, IT managers accepted their new roles as authors of RFP's and tenders of public sector work. The IT service providing industry gladly bid on contracts and acquired the new skills required for future IT projects, exacerbating the provision/dependency cycle. Furthermore, the new technologies provided an ideological smokescreen of technological necessity to conceal the market forces that promoted and benefitted from IT privatization. "Why do managers in the Ontario Public Service privatize the production of Information Technology systems?" The dissertation has two tasks when answering this central question. First, it must refute the efficiency arguments. Second, it must formulate an answer within the context of neo-liberal state transformation, new investment strategies of IT service providing corporations and a restructured IT labour hierarchy. Author Keywords: neo-liberalism, New Public Management, Ontario, privatization, public private partnership, public sector
Pursuing Different Policy Paths in Long-Term Care
Because federal funding for long-term care was not included as part of Canada's publicly-funded universal health care system, provincial governments have been free to determine how much, or how little, they will rely on the for-profit sector to meet the long-term care needs of their senior populations. The proportion of beds in the for-profit sector differs in each province, demonstrating that policy approaches to this type of care have developed according to distinct provincial political contexts. In this dissertation I explain why governments in two provinces, Manitoba and Ontario, have come to rely on the proprietary sector to markedly different degrees. While in the federation Manitoba stands out for its restrained reliance on this form of care, Ontario stands out for its exceptional dependence on commercial provision. In the chapters that follow I employ an historical institutionalist framework of analysis to explain why these neighbouring provinces initially pursued different policy paths in long-term care and how these paths have been sustained over time. Following an introductory chapter in which I explain the reasons for the marginalization of long-term care within national health policy making, I provide in-depth analysis of these case studies in policy divergence. I argue that contemporary policy differences between these neighbouring provinces cannot be understood in isolation from long-term historical processes. Focusing largely on the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, I emphasize that present differences in ownership are a reflection of the different constellation of actors, events, ideas and institutions that came together at critical junctures in time, and the lasting legacies that these early windows of opportunity for reform have had on subsequent rounds of long-term care policy-making. In each province, diverging ideas about the appropriate role of the for-profit sector in meeting the long-term care needs of an aging population rose to prominence on the political agenda. Over time, rigidities developed in each system, making it difficult for actors advocating for new directions in ownership to realize their ambitions. In both provinces policies put in place at earlier times greatly influenced future political dynamics, altered the guiding principles of government departments and policy makers, provided incentives for different interest group formations, and led to contrasting public expectations about the proper balance of the for-profit and non-profit sectors in long-term care provision. I conclude this dissertation by arguing that its findings can contribute in important ways to present discussions about long-term care reform in Canada generally and about the future role of for-profit providers specifically. Author Keywords: Comparative Politics, Health Policy, Historical Institutionalism, Long-Term Care, Path Dependency, Provincial Politics
Union Organizing in the Canadian Banking Industry, 1940–1980
In this dissertation, I examine union organizing in the Canadian banking industry between 1940 and 1980. By demonstrating that bank workers consistently sought to unionize throughout the twentieth century, I challenge claims that bank employees and other private sector white-collar workers have low rates of unionization because they are not interested in unions or suffer from false consciousness. This research also suggests, however, that many bank workers saw themselves as different from blue-collar industrial workers; the lived reality of bank work as precarious, poorly paid, and rife with gender inequality intersected with ideas about professionalism and aspirations of advancing up the career ladder. Banks, unions, and workers drew on these ideas and experiences in their arguments for and against unionization. I also look at why previous organizing efforts did not establish a strong union presence in the banking industry. Most of these attempts failed, I argue, due to several key issues, including the banks’ anti-union activity, federal and provincial labour board decisions, and labour movement disputes over ideology, jurisdiction, and strategy. The banks consistently opposed unionization and used a variety of tactics to thwart union organizing, both overtly and covertly. The state, in the form of labour legislation and labour boards, provided unions and workers with some means by which to compel the banks to recognize unions, negotiate contracts, and deal with employee grievances; however, state action and inaction more often worked to undermine union organizing. The attitudes and strategies of high-ranking labour movement officials also shaped the outcome of union drives in the banks. Between 1940 and 1980, the mostly male labour leadership repeatedly used top-down organizing strategies and appointed male organizers with no experience of bank work to oversee union drives in a sector with an increasingly feminized workforce; labour leaders’ inability or unwillingness to reflect on this approach and to support grassroots campaigns and alternative strategies hindered bank union organizing. I thus highlight the intersection of gender and class and reveal how these factors have historically shaped the labour movement bureaucracy, union organizing, and the relationship between labour and the state. Author Keywords: banks, gender, labour bureaucracy, trade unions, union organizing, white-collar workers
Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia, 1849-1900
This dissertation examines the historical relationship between settler colonialism, capitalism, and the rise of state schooling in what is now known as British Columbia between 1849 and 1900. It aims to “unsettle” conventional views of Canadian schooling history by bringing accounts of Indigenous and non-Indigenous education into one analytical frame, and it shows how the state used different forms of schooling for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children—company, common, public, mission, day, boarding, and industrial schools—to assist colonial-capitalist social formation in the Pacific Northwest. In combining interdisciplinary insights from Indigenous studies, historical materialism, political economy, and critical pedagogy, the dissertation highlights the ways in which state-supported schooling facilitated capitalist accumulation by colonial dispossession. The central argument of the dissertation is that between 1849 and 1900, colonial, provincial, and federal governments strategically took on greater responsibility for schooling as a way of legitimizing the state and supporting the emergence of a capitalist settler society. Author Keywords: Capitalism, Education, Indian Residential Schools, Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism, Violence
From Toronto to Africville
How can educators use drama to nurture an ability in their students to identify and challenge the discourses and practices that have historically perpetuated oppression and inequality within Canada — without miring them in those narratives of oppression? This dissertation discusses the work of De-Railed, a theatre group that worked with youth in Hamilton Rapids, a Toronto neighbourhood where a high percentage of residents experience racial discrimination and poverty, to create a play about the destruction of Africville, a historically Black community in Halifax, NS. Drawing from the methodologies of critical, performance, and imaginative ethnography; critical multiculturalism; theatre of the oppressed; and feminist critical pedagogy, this dissertation argues that while participants used the fictional and intersubjective nature of drama to express embodied and affective resistance to class- and race-based oppressions in Canada’s past and present, the play-building process also reproduced certain unequal disciplinary structures that De-Railed was attempting to challenge. Emphasizing the importance of creating space for young people’s expressions of negative affect and emotion, this dissertation considers both the potentialities and limitations of De-Railed’s application of theatre of the oppressed methods in enabling participants to engage in affective expressions of resistance that may not have been permissible or available in other areas of their lives. Author Keywords: Africville, feminist critical pedagogy, forum theatre, multiculturalism, performance ethnography, theatre of the oppressed
Securitization, Borders, and the Canadian North
Canada takes a national approach to border management. While this ensures that security practices are consistent across the country, it also fails to consider that different regions in Canada may have their own border needs. This dissertation, therefore, seeks to determine if border management priorities in Northern Canada are the same as in Southern Canada, along the 49th parallel. To make this determination, three sets of federal government documents are analyzed. First, documents associated with the current Beyond the Border Action Plan are explored to better understand security priorities and if regions are considered. Next, documents that are associated with Northern security and regional governance are analyzed in order to illuminate regional security issues and determine where borders fit within this narrative. The final set of documents to be examined are Senate reports on Northern security, as they can provide a glimpse into how regional security agendas are set. Grounded theory is used to illicit key themes from all documents and political discourse analysis is applied to the Senate reports to assess the strength of securitizing arguments for the region. Securitization theory and the Copenhagen School’s five security sectors are used to frame the analysis. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the region’s security priorities and the extent of the interplay between the sectors. The concept of regional security complexes is also addressed to determine the extent to which bilateral border cooperation exists in the North. Analysis reveals that border security priorities are not the same in the North as they are in the South. For example, in the North, greater emphasis is placed on protecting maritime borders, whereas in the South, land and air borders are prioritized. Beyond the Border aligns more closely with the needs of the Southern border, thus leaving a policy and security gap in the North. Bilateral border and security cooperation are also much more prevalent in the South than in the North. This research concludes with three policy suggestions to close this gap and addresses the extent to which it is in Canada’s interest to work more closely with the United States in the North. Author Keywords: Arctic, Borders, Canada, Policy, Regions, Securitization theory
Something out of Nothing? Place-based Resilience in Rural Canadian Youth
This dissertation explored how rural communities enhance the capacity of youth to both navigate and negotiate healthy identities and well-being in the context of social ecological resilience. Resilience refers to the capacity for individuals to have good outcomes in spite of exposure to significant adversity. Rural communities are often identified as places of deficit both in scholarly literature and in general social discourse which can constitute adversity. Given the importance of place as a social determinant of health, rural communities can have a notable impact on the positive development of adolescent identity and well-being of the youth that reside within them. Drawing on the concept of social ecological resilience which draws attention to the importance of environments and relationships to support development, this project engaged with high school aged adolescents (14 to 18 years old) from Haliburton County in Central Ontario. Leveraging mixed model methods, the project featured both quantitative and qualitative approaches. There were 63 participants (33 male, 28 female and 2 non-binary) for the quantitative phase of the research which made use of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure survey instrument. The second phase of the research was qualitative and featured 14 participants who engaged in six focus groups. The focus groups provided context specific awareness of place-based factors which participants found supportive in their development. The results indicated that while the overall resilience scores for the community were lower than the national average (t(62) = 3.20, p <0.01), some study participants found the community to be resilience bolstering. Specifically, participants recognized the importance of supportive people, an awareness of an enriched sense of community, and a powerful sense of the value of nature and the outdoors to be the most significant aspects for the development of their resilience. The results indicate that rural youth are not naïve to the complexity of their circumstances but are able to use their rural contexts to develop the capacity to negotiate and navigate towards healthy identities and well-being. Author Keywords: Adolescent, Place-based, Resilience, Rural, Social Ecological, Youth

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