In post-World War II Canada, black women’s positions within the teaching profession served as sites of struggle and contestation as the nation worked to address the needs of its diversifying population. Black women educators navigated complex spaces in their communities, activist circles, and schools in ways that exposed inequities inherent in nation-building processes.

 

Using oral narratives to tell the story of black access and education in Canada, Schooling the System provides textured insights into how issues of race, gender, class, geographic origin and training worked to shape black women’s distinct experiences within the profession. By valuing women’s voices and lived experiences, Funké Aladejebi illustrates that black women, as a diverse group, made critical contributions to the creation and development of anti-racist education in Canada. Standing as cultural mediators within Ontario school systems, Aladejebi argues that black women circumvented subtle and overt forms of racial and social exclusion to create resistive pedagogies that centered black knowledges and traditions. Merging the history of education and black Canadian studies, this book draws upon school archives, newspaper records, policy documents, and interviews to painstakingly trace the connections and contributions of black women educators in Ontario from the 1940s to 1980s.

 

As school systems continue to grapple with creating diverse educational programs for all Canadian citizens, this book offers a timely excavation of the meaningful contributions black women educators made in building equitable policies and practices in Canadian schools and communities.