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The Community School Initiative

Laurier EdTalks: Mitigating Gaps in Low Income Communities

VIRTUAL

Laurier EdTalk: The Community School Initiative: Mitigating Opportunity Gaps through Extra-Curricular Community Programs for Racialized Low Income Communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted delivery of education. Many extracurricular programs were shut down or offered remotely. This research project partnered with Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education a non-profit community organization in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood in Toronto to explore “How can community-based programming be mobilized during COVID-19 and post-pandemic to close opportunity gaps for Black, Indigenous, people of colour, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds?”. YAAACE partnered with Spirit of Math to deliver a structured curriculum to students in grades 2 to 8. 33 parents and students were surveyed along with a focus group with 7 teachers. A blog for the research project has been created for knowledge mobilization and dissemination.  

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Ardavan Eizadirad is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is an educator with the Toronto District School Board, author of Decolonizing Educational Assessment: Ontario Elementary Students and the EQAO (2019), and co-editor of Equity as Praxis in Early Childhood Education and Care (2021). Dr. Eizadirad is co-editing two books forthcoming in 2022 titled Counternarratives of Pain and Suffering as Critical Pedagogy: Disrupting Oppression in Educational Contexts and the International Handbook of Anti-Discriminatory Education. He is also the founder and director of EDIcation Consulting (www.edication.org) offering equity, diversity, and inclusion training to organizations.

Sally Abudiab is a Palestinian Canadian who recently completed her Master of Science at the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute (2019) and a Bachelor of Science in Mental Health Studies at the University of Toronto (2016). Currently, she is doing her Master of Social Work at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. She has experience working with organizations at various levels including non-profits such as the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation and Daughters for Life, and governmental agencies such as the Department of National Defence. Her research interests include disability studies, equity and social justice, health and wellbeing, and the experiences of athletes.

Brice Baartman is a Canadian/South African student in his 2nd year in the Master of Teaching program at the University of Toronto. His BA in Sociology is from Ryerson University, and he has a College Certificate in Pre-Health Sciences from George Brown College. He has been working and volunteering with children and youth in under-resourced communities for over 10 years through the Community Healing Project, People's Elite Basketball, Stella's Place, the Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club, Green Thumbs Growing Kids, the Toronto District School Board, and other organizations in the Greater Toronto Area. His research interests include financial literacy education, mental health, anti-discriminatory practices, asset-based community development (ABCD), and social justice education.

This program is part of the Laurier EdTalks series and is presented in partnership with the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of Education.

Registrants will receive an e-mail 24 hours before the start of the program with an invitation to join. 

Programmer: Mariah

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