Gender-based violence in Canadian schools
Gender is not the focus of my research, but gender-based violence was (surprisingly, to me) raised as an issue by some female high school students who were participating in my doctoral fieldwork. During CSSE, I took the opportunity to attend some sessions that centred feminism and gender-based violence to help me grapple with my unexpected findings. I was wondering if what my participants were voicing was a common experience and what schools were doing about it.
I chose a Spotlight session organized by CASWE (The Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education) titled Gender and Violence in Schools, which seemed like it would provide an entry point to this topic for me.
Gender-based violence hides in the play-based curriculum
I had never considered that there might be a role of gender-based violence (GBV) in early childhood settings, but the first thing I learned in this session was that the foundations of GBV in male-female school-based interactions are laid early. I now know I held an unchecked assumption that children are innocents, giving 4- and 5-year-olds the benefit of an imagined blank slate free of racist, sexist, or otherwise oppressive influence. Of course, I knew teens and even elementary school children often demonstrated implicit biases, but I suppose I had never questioned when exactly those biases were learned. Therefore, I was challenged by Dr. Jessica Prioletta’s presentation, Examining the role of play environments in the perpetuation of violence against girls at school.
In this paper, Dr. Prioletta, from Bishop’s University, shared some of the ways in which gendered power dynamics are reproduced in kindergarten classrooms. For instance, care-based or domestic-themed play—which is traditionally engaged with by girls—was physically marginalized (as in, literally situated around the room’s edge) in kindergarten classrooms. By contrast, block and building play—traditionally associated with males—was centred in the classroom and much more accessible. Boys also tended to exclude girls from their play, claimed more space in the classroom, and policed the play environment and resources. In this way, according to Dr. Prioletta, play-based kindergartens perpetuate gender-based violence.
At this point in the session, I was starting to connect the experiences of my interview participants with the broader picture of GBV in schools. Dr. Prioletta advocates for a different approach to kindergarten that would allow students to realize the benefits of child-centred inquiry learning, but where teachers would take a more active role in disrupting patterns of GBV as they arise.
Teaching about gender-based violence in and with community
The next paper, Education about gender-based violence: bringing together teacher and student perspectives by University of Windsor’s Dr. Catherine Vanner, picked up with students later on in their school experiences. In this presentation I learned that my high school participants were not alone in having experienced GBV. In fact, according to a CBC survey, 15% of Canadian high school girls say they have had a sexual act forced upon them and girls most commonly report experiencing their first acts of sexual violence in grade 9 (but some experience them as early as kindergarten). This set the stage for Dr. Vanner’s work, which focuses on the vital issue of teaching about GBV in schools.
Dr. Vanner provided an entry point when considering how teachers and students engage with learning about GBV in high school classrooms—which is understandably not an easy topic to broach. Based on interviews and workshops with teachers and students, Dr. Vanner advised that the idea of creating community was key. That is, teachers and students emphasized the importance of creating community in the classroom to establish a safe space. Respondents noted the importance of teaching in community: engaging in respectful dialogue, and valuing students’ contributions and needs. Finally, teachers highlighted the need for teaching with community particularly when the broader community holds knowledge or resources that the teacher themselves does not. This idea of empathetic teaching that foregrounds reflexivity is not novel, however it is still not the norm in most Ontario classrooms—particularly in high school. Dr. Vanner’s work provides a helpful framework for approaching GBV in classrooms.
The session put forward by CASWE taught me the extent of the issue of GBV in Canadian schools, some of the mechanisms by which it is perpetuated, and a possible path forward for beginning to address this problem. I am grateful and humbled by the important work of Dr. Prioletta and Dr. Vanner and thank them for sharing their findings with the community.
Dr. Prioletta’s doctoral dissertation is available on TSpace. Dr. Vanner’s research can be read in Pedagogy, Culture & Society and Gender and Education.
Christine Corso
PhD Candidate
OISE/University of Toronto