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Dr. Claudine Bonner receives Harrison McCain Foundation Emerging Scholar Award


Dr. Claudine Bonner receives Harrison McCain Foundation Emerging Scholar Award to support her research:

Diversity & Equity in Education – Reality or Rhetoric?

Claudine Bonner

Sociology/Women’s & Gender Studies

The project explores the ways in which schools are prepared to address having children from diverse racial/ethnic (and linguistic) backgrounds in their classrooms. The differences that exist between educationally diverse students and many students in an educational setting are educationally relevant in terms of equity and outcomes. Teachers and schools are constantly being asked to provide fairer treatment to diverse students and their communities, but rarely do practicing teachers and school administrators know how to do this, as their training may do little to prepare them to address these issues. By looking at teacher education programs in Nova Scotia, this project explores both structural and individual barriers to achieving equity in education teaching programs, with the goal of making recommendations for improvement. It will probe the structural factors such as equity policy, and the curriculum for pre-service students. It will further ask what teachers understand to be the needs of equity in diverse classrooms, and whether teachers believe they are adequately prepared in their education to address diversity in the classroom. 

 


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