Black or white? In Brazil, a panel will decide for you

2016/12/13 1 Comment

While the policy intent was understandable, implementation is another matter. Having officials develop an assessment table was bound to end up like this (like the history categorizing Blacks by their percentage of Black bloodline):

Public-service jobs in Brazil pay significantly better than private-sector ones and come with a host of generous benefits such as meal and transport allowances; workers are rarely fired and can retire at age 55 with large pensions. Competition, consequently, is fierce. Candidates must pass a gruelling exam that some study for and take repeatedly for five or six years.

Until August of this year, the quota system relied on candidates’ self-identification of their race. That system was being abused, by white people claiming to be mixed-race (although researchers estimate that no more than 5 per cent of applicants were lying).

Under pressure by some advocates from the black community, the government decided the solution was “commissions of verification” – tribunals that would evaluate each candidate. Guidelines from the Ministry of Planning said that panels should consider only physical attributes: “The forms and criteria for verifying the veracity of self-declaration should only consider the phenotypic aspects of the candidate, which will be checked in the presence of the candidate.”

That means that a panel of assessors (three, five or seven people) would look at each candidate and decide if their appearance matched their self-declared race.

Last August, officials in Para, Ms. Chaves’s state, released a chart of criteria for investigators to use, with a point system for physical characteristics such as “lips: thick,” “gums: pink,” “hair: frizzy.” It caused such an uproar that it was hastily withdrawn. But no information has been disclosed about what criteria examiners are using instead. Some tribunals work purely from physical appearance; some panelists apparently see race as more than that and ask candidates about their experience of discrimination, or their families.

The end result, frequently, is confusion. Ms. Chaves has no idea how the three people who made up her tribunal concluded she was white.

Eduardo Sobral, 30, a geologist who says he is mixed-race, was rejected for a reserved position with the Ministry of Planning in Brasilia. He was examined by video-conference, then asked about his “day-to-day life as a brown person.” He replied that it was “normal,” the interview ended and he was rejected. He is suing the ministry.

Rodrigo Campos, an electrician in the central state of Minas Gerais who says he is black, never even got before the assessors: They rejected him based on photos they asked him to submit. Meanwhile Igor Anatoli, a mixed-race police officer from Rio who is trying to join the diplomatic corps, went before a panel of seven in Brasilia in September; they chatted at length about his family and his experience of prejudice and ruled that he is, as he had declared, black.

Source: Black or white? In Brazil, a panel will decide for you – The Globe and Mail

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An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas – The New York Times

2016/12/12 Leave a comment

Good long-read on white supremacist groups:

The deceptively benign phrase “alt-right” now peppers the national conversation, often in ways that play down its fundamental beliefs, which have long been considered intolerant and hateful. The term’s recent prevalence corresponds with the rise of President-elect Donald J. Trump; alt-right leaders say his inflammatory statements and Twitter habits in the campaign energized, even validated, their movement.

The movement is also acutely image-conscious, seeing the burning crosses, swastikas and language of yesteryear as impediments to recruitment. Its adherents talk of “getting red-pilled,” a reference to the movie “The Matrix,” in which the protagonist ingests a tablet that melts away artifice to reveal the truth. New, coded slurs have emerged. Fewer pointed hoods, more khaki pants.

But the alt-right movement is hardly monolithic, despite a well-publicized gathering last month in Washington — one that might have been mistaken for just another corporate conference were it not for the white-nationalist sentiments and the Nazi salutes. The factions within its ranks can differ on any number of subjects: white supremacy versus white nationalism, for example, or the vexing “J.Q.” — the “Jewish Question.”

James Edwards, a far-right talk radio host who describes himself as a “European-American advocate” — and who interviewed the president-elect’s son Donald Trump Jr. this year — wrote in an email that the alt-right movement was “a group of marauding conservatives who reject both the failures of establishment conservatism and the false gods of political correctness.”

Race is the uniting factor, Mr. Edwards wrote. “One fundamental element of the Alt-Right that brings the disparate factions together is the awareness of the reality of race and the need for European Americans to have organizations and spokespeople that explicitly advocate for our unique group interests.”

For many years, the mix-and-match gaggle now called the alt-right existed in the shadowed alleys of American culture, sharing views through newsletters, online radio and crude websites. The news media often debated whether to cover their sparsely attended rallies, considering that any attention might grant the groups a veneer of legitimacy.

Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi, alt-right website The Daily Stormer, described the current moment in a recent essay as “a reboot of the White Nationalist movement” — one infused with youthful energy. The foot soldiers of the movement are not old white supremacists marching under a new banner, Mr. Anglin explained, but a mostly younger generation drawn from various online cultures, including conspiracy theorists and that misogynistic stratum of the internet known as the “manosphere.”

Then came Mr. Trump, whose opening gambit as a presidential candidate included his promise to build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants, whom he called rapists and criminals. The alt-right raised its collective head to listen.

“I’d been waiting to hear those words from a mainstream political candidate all my life,” said Gerald Martin, a retired public-school teacher from Dallas who grew up in a family that opposed desegregation.

He is a veteran of both the Army and a number of white supremacist movements, and name-drops the likes of William Luther Pierce III, a white supremacist who wrote “The Turner Diaries,” a novel about an underground band of white Americans who fight a liberty-crushing government controlled by Jews.

Before the Trump candidacy, Mr. Martin said, few in the alt-right were talking about politics; the movement was more about winning the battle of ideas. But once Mr. Trump began to talk, he said, “suddenly we’re all talking politics and we’re politically energized.”

“We’re almost intoxicated,” Mr. Martin continued. “We don’t have any power — but now we’re close enough to smell it.”

Mr. Trump brushed off his sharing of alt-right messages on social media as inconsequential — the sort of thing that just happens on Twitter. He also denied at one point the existence of any alt-right movement.

“Nobody even knows what it is,” he told CNN in August. “This is a term that was just given that — frankly, there’s no alt-right or alt-left.”

As if to clarify matters, members of the alt-right movement gathered in Washington about two weeks after Mr. Trump’s election for a conference sponsored by the National Policy Institute, an organization that describes itself as being “dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent.” Its president, Richard B. Spencer, 38, is a prominent alt-right leader who wears his brown hair in an undercut style once popular among the Hitler Youth. It’s called a “fashy,” as in fascist.

Mr. Spencer said in an interview that as he saw it, the principles of American conservatism throughout most of the 20th century had been wrongly defined within the context of capitalism and its ideological battle with communism. The matter of European identity, he said, was assumed, but never stated outright.

“Race is real,” he said. “Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity.”

Not everyone in the movement appreciated the moment at the end of the conference when some in the audience raised stiffened arms, echoing the Nazi salute. Discussions afterward reflected the divisions in the loosely aligned ranks, as well as an acute awareness of public perception and the need to make their messages somehow more palatable.

…Indeed, the movement has the feel of a dispossessed youth rising up. Hours of interviews with young alt-right leaders suggest a pattern toward their white-nationalist radicalization. Seeing domestic and global strife often rooted in racial and ethnic differences. Finding validation from like-minded people on the internet. Hearing a major presidential candidate echo their grievances.

“The political establishment has made an entire generation of young white men and women into fascists, and that’s a beautiful thing!” said Matthew Heimbach, 25, who runs the Traditionalist Worker Party out of his trailer in Indiana. His group advocates replacing the United States with nation-states based on races, ethnicities and religions.

In Northern California, a university student, felon and Marine veteran, Nathan Damigo, oversees a group called Identity Evropa, which he described as a “fraternity” of mostly young, college-educated men who celebrate European heritage — that is, an embrace of white identity and a rejection of multicultural coexistence.

Ever conscious of the importance of marketing, Mr. Damigo, 30, pointed out that Identity Evropa’s website “looks completely mainstreamed.” And it does, featuring men in business suits who also happen to be sporting the Hitler Youth-style haircut.

But for all the fresh approaches — the slick marketing, the internet savviness — the message remains the same. It is one of separation, of supremacy, of a refusal to recognize the equal worth of others who do not have the same skin tone or share the same religion.

The ascension of the alt-right has lifted some familiar names from the muck of the past, including David Duke, the white nationalist, Holocaust denier and former Louisiana state representative whose national profile has been resurrected.

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Pico Iyer on the meaning of home, in a post-Trump world

2016/12/12 Leave a comment

Interviews with Pico Iyer always are interesting:

Q: Perhaps that’s why you’ve been such an admirer of Canada for so long, since before your paean in The Global Soul?

A: One thing that has long hit me about Canada, ever since I started making annual visits there in 1994, is that people in the cities there are constantly—some would say obsessively—talking and thinking, every day, about diversity and refugees and the future and how to turn a culture made of many disparate parts into something greater than their sum.

The other countries I know—from Britain to the U.S.—have all backed into multiculturalism; it’s taken them by surprise and they’ve tried to adapt or stretch their current society into something that will accommodate new visitors. Only in Canada has there been a strong sense of vision about creating an entirely new kind of society to match the age of movement. And Canada has been addressing that issue for half a century—ever since Pierre Trudeau hung a sign that said “World Citizen” outside his door at Harvard and began travelling the world.

Of course, those who live in Canada are keenly aware of everything that’s going wrong and moments when optimism has been unfounded. But my impression is that the more people travel—whether it’s Salman Rushdie or the spokesperson for the UN High Commission on Refugees—the more they admire Canada, and see something coming to light there that we don’t find so often in Australia or South Africa, in Singapore or Hong Kong.

Whenever my friends there say that their country is no utopia, I agree—but ask them if they really want to move to Dubai or L.A.

Q: You love the inclusive, cosmopolitan vibrancy of Toronto, and you wrote that in Toronto, “the average resident today is what used to be called a foreigner, somebody born in a very different country.” In late 2016, it’s top of mind for many: what does finding home mean in a less immigrant-friendly world?

A: From the beginning, I’ve stressed that home is something internal, invisible, portable, especially for those of us with roots in many physical places; we have to root ourselves in our passions, our values and our deepest friends. My home, I’ve always felt, lies in the songs and novels that I love, in the wife and mother that I’m never far away from, in the monastery to which I’ve been returning for 25 years. Precisely because I don’t belong entirely to Britain or the U.S. or India or Japan, I build my foundations in some way deeper than mere passports, and more in the light of where I’m going than of “where I come from.”

Of course, the Brexit vote, the victory of Mr. Trump, what’s happening around the world represents a backlash against precisely people such as myself, blessed with many homes. But I don’t think that changes the fact—the inarguable reality—that for many in Toronto, say, “home” means a question they’ll always be refining and adding to (and may never answer), while home also means a place like Toronto, where they’re surrounded by people entertaining just the same questions.

We may be joined these days more by the questions we have in common than by the answers we share.

Some people will always ground themselves very strongly in a piece of soil, a grandmother’s property, a tiny plot of land, and that’s great. But in the Age of Movement, there’s no question that the number of people who don’t—or can’t—is growing exponentially.

And on Leonard Cohen:

Q: How did Cohen embody Canada’s best qualities, the homely qualities that make it one of your favourite countries?

A: Somehow Leonard could only have come from Canada, I feel, and it’s no surprise that he held it so firmly in his heart till his dying day.

One of his sovereign graces was always to mix a sense of irony with a sense of passionate quest, to sound as if he never took himself too seriously, yet took many other things (and other people) very seriously indeed. That mix of an Old World sense of drollness and respect for tradition with a New World hunger for something better and fascination with the horizon is, to me, the illuminating beauty of Canada: it never pursues the future as if it can deny every kind of past.

Leonard was really Montreal incarnate, in so many ways, as one who mixed the worldliness and elegance of France with the hopefulness and sincerity of North America.

Source: Pico Iyer on the meaning of home, in a post-Trump world – Macleans.ca

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Where immigrants go to school is more important than where they came from | The Economist

2016/12/12 Leave a comment

More on the OECD PISA results focussing on immigrant children:

IF YOU think starting a new school is scary stuff—try doing it in a new country. Migrants can face a twin disadvantage. They are often concentrated in struggling schools. And, at least at first, they may suffer from having to toggle between languages at home and in class. Two-thirds of pupils born outside their host country use another tongue at home. Nearly one in two second-generation immigrants does so.

It is little wonder that many migrants struggle on the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. The children of foreign-born parents are on average about a year behind their peers, even after accounting for parental income.

This finding hides a lot of variation (see chart). In Australia and Canada pupils whose parents were born abroad do better on science tests than similar teenagers with native-born parents.

Meanwhile immigrants in European countries are often far behind. In Germany first-generation and second-generation migrants are respectively about 2.5 and 1.5 years behind teenagers with German-born parents, even after accounting for their different economic backgrounds. There are similar results in Finland, a country often lauded for its record of equality in education.

For sure, migrants’ origins matter a lot. Second-generation East Asian pupils in Australia are roughly 2.5 years ahead of those with native-born parents. They do even better than pupils in Singapore, the highest-performing country in PISA, even as results in Australia as a whole have fallen.

Yet the country in which the immigrant attends school is more important than the one he comes from, says the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher. Turkish-born pupils in Germany are nearly two years behind in science tests compared with those in the Netherlands, after adjusting for different economic backgrounds.

Policy makes a difference. Attending nursery or extra language tuition helps migrants catch up. Limiting selection by academic ability gives them more time to make up ground. Not making them repeat a year has the same effect.

Admissions policies matter, too. Avoiding high concentrations of migrants in particular schools would help their academic achievement. It would probably also help poorer native children.

The task of educating migrants better is urgent, especially in Europe. The share of children of foreign-born parents in the OECD that took PISA increased from 9.4% in 2006 to 12.5% in 2015. It could rise further in light of the numbers of migrants settling in Europe in 2015 and 2016.

A survey last year by the OECD found that about 80% of second-generation immigrants feel at home at school. But outliers should cause concern. In France, for example, just 40% of second-generation immigrants say they feel as if they belong in school. That is a figure to make everyone in the country sit up straight.

Source: Where immigrants go to school is more important than where they came from | The Economist

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Warsaw’s Populist Right Whitewashes Holocaust History – The Daily Beast

2016/12/12 Leave a comment

More disturbing news about Poland:

Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska was given 24 hours to clear out her office, until the end of the month to vacate her flat, and is forbidden to talk to the press about any of it.

The elegant redhead, who is credited for her knowledge of architecture and theater, was abruptly fired from her job as director of the Polish cultural institute in Berlin last week. Did her programs have “too much Jewish content,” as Israel’s Haaretz headlined bluntly? The Forward in the United States made that a question: “Was Polish Culture Institute Director Fired for Too Much ‘Jewish-Themed Content’?”

As various theories circulate in Berlin about why, one thing is clear—that this is the latest attempt of Poland’s radical nationalist government to revamp its image abroad, not least by playing down any Polish role in the Holocaust. A law proposed last summer, for instance, would make it a crime to use the phrase “Polish death camps” for, say, Auschwitz, which was a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland.

“Everything points to the fact that the dismissal [of the Polish Institute Director] was politically motivated,” Berlinische Galerie director Thomas Köhler tells The Daily Beast. “Her contract would have ended next year. This was clearly intended as a punishment—It’s really bad form.”

Together with other leading culture fanatics in the capital, Köhler signed a protest letter that expressed “dismay“ and “irritation“ at the sudden dismissal. Cilly Kugelmann, who directs the Jewish Museum in Berlin, initiated the letter.

Last year, the Polish Institute screened “Ida,” an Oscar-winning Polish film about a Catholic woman who discovers she is the Jewish child of Holocaust victims. But while showing the film may have gone down well in Berlin, it could have been another strike against Wielga-Skolimowska for Warsaw.

Since Poland’s Law and Justice Party won elections in 2015, the Warsaw government has been going to great pains to “recalibrate many of the ways in which Poles think, talk and learn about their own history.” And to some, it looks like Law and Justice wants to whitewash a lot of the country’s history, even the Shoah, by appealing to nationalist pride.

The way in which “Ida” was broadcast on public television in Poland this year has provided one ground for such suspicion. The film that had won best film prize at the Polish Film Academy in 2013 was this time accompanied by a 12-minute clip in which three critics tore into it, warning about supposed historical inaccuracies.

In October, Wielga-Skolimowska received a damning internal evaluation by the newly appointed Polish ambassador to Berlin, Andrzej Przylebski. Among other things, he warned her, “not to overdo the emphasis—particularly in Germany, which should not receive the role of mediator—on the importance of Polish-Jewish dialogue as the main example of intercultural dialogue which takes place in Poland.“

So this week, the left-leaning Berlin paper TAZ chose the provocative title “Warsaw Purges in Berlin” to report on Wielga-Skolimowska’s dismissal. Two other papers followed suit and claimed that Wielga-Skolimowska was fired for over emphasizing Jewish topics. The theme, as noted, was picked up by the Israeli press. And the Polish embassy was not happy. Both the Berliner Zeitung and the Tageszeitung received a letter demanding a correction.

Law and Justice is not generally considered an anti-Semitic party, not least because it is very pro-Israel. And according to political scientist Janusz Bugajski, despite Poland’s shady new attitude to historical accuracy, there is also “sensitivity that Germany is still evading a full accounting of World War II war crimes and that Poles as a nation are depicted as anti-Semites.”

In his evaluation, Ambassador Przylebski also accused Wielga-Skolimowska of having done a bad job inviting guests and choosing topics. “The blind imitation of nihilistic and hedonistic trends does not lead to anything good in terms of civilization.” he wrote, rather mysteriously and apocalyptically. “Poland must resist this.”

Wielga-Skolimowska is the 14th out of 24 Polish Institute directors around the world to be fired this year, and the reasons vary. Vienna was forced to stop working with an Austrian journalist and writer after he criticised “Law and Justice” in his articles. But the director in Madrid already had to go for not focusing enough on Chopin.

“The Polish government is really celebrating national pride now,” Köhler muses, “and you can understand that: the country has a nasty history. But I expect that now they’ll be doing a very conservative backwards program, with uncritical writers, artists, and Chopin evenings. I don’t know if I’ll still feel like going.”

Bugajski, the political scientist, notes that Ambassador Przylebski, at the very least, seems to be “repeating the kind of language that communists used against ‘decadent Western bourgeois art.’  He adds, “It just shows you that politicians should not try to be culture critics.”

Source: Warsaw’s Populist Right Whitewashes Holocaust History – The Daily Beast

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Citizenship Applications: Third Quarter Continues to Show Decline

2016/12/09 3 Comments

citizenship-data-slides-010Further to my earlier analysis of the half-year numbers showing a dramatic decline (The impact of citizenship fees on naturalization – Policy Options), the third quarter numbers issued this week confirm the overall trend: only some 56,000 applications were received, compared to 112,000 for the same period in 2015, just about half.

This quarter is the first quarter one year after minimum residency requirements were changed to four years from three and so one might have expected some increase. Indeed, the July-September numbers show an increase for the quarter from 12,000 in 2015 to 20,000 in 2016. But this does not change the overall picture: the total number of applications this year is likely to be around 75,000 compared to 130,000 in 2015, a drop of over 40 percent.

Nor does it change my overall argument that the likely major factor responsible for this decline was the steep increase in adult citizenship processing fees in 2015 to $530.

Of course, the one bright spot in this decline is that the backlog has been reduced: the current inventory is just over 55,000 compared to about 250,000 at the beginning of 2015. Processing time has also declined, from 21 months for the same period in 2015 to 16 months currently.

The most recent approval rate is 91 percent, slightly down from 93 percent.

But reducing the backlog and reducing processing times by reducing demand for citizenship through higher fees and other barriers runs against the government’s overall diversity and inclusion agenda.

 

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Battle against religious persecution ‘diminished’ under Liberal government: ex-ambassador

2016/12/09 Leave a comment

Bennett’s comments are not surprising, as the intent of the merger into the human rights division was to encourage a more integrated approach to all rights, which ultimately means a lower profile for religious freedom than provided by a separate office.

Same thing happened when multiculturalism moved from Canadian Heritage to IRCC in 2008 under then Minister Kenney, where it withered away in terms of personnel, funding and importance, and has yet to recover despite its move back to Canadian Heritage:

I agree fully with his call for greater religious literacy among officials (not just diplomats), given the place that religion plays in many peoples lives:

Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom launched thinly veiled criticisms at the new Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Senate’s human rights committee, Andrew Bennett, now a senior fellow with Christian think-tank Cardus, said the “ill-defined and thoroughly vague” concept of “inclusion” could muddy the water and distract from specific religious persecution issues faced by minorities abroad.

Bennett implied the Liberal government’s new office, which replaced his Office of Religious Freedom earlier this year, has a vaguer mandate less focused on specific issues of religious persecution than it did under the Conservatives.

He said more training is needed because there is a “relative ignorance” of religion in the public-service ranks and a “false understanding of separation of church and state” still seems prevalent. To ignore the fact that religion plays a role in public life is “out of step,” “historically inaccurate” and a “very serious diplomatic blind spot,” he said.

“Allies are wondering why there has been a diminishment in focus on religious freedom,” Bennett added, arguing that religious freedom is fundamental and that to prioritize it does not deny attention to other human rights.

“Certain human rights need to be brought to the floor and actively and persuasively championed when they’re most being challenged,” he said. His office could have been louder, Bennett noted, when it came to specific issues, such as the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetan Buddhists in China, of Christians in Saudi Arabia and of Shia Muslims in Pakistan.

Bennett said he worked with the new office as part of a transition process, including extending his own network of contacts, until June. But, in the context of a question about the transition period, he said, “unfortunately I was never afforded the opportunity to brief the minister on the work of the Office of Religious Freedom.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion’s press secretary, Chantal Gagnon, said however that the two had met earlier, on Feb. 10, when they “discussed the work of the office.”

In an emailed follow-up statement to the National Post, Bennett said the meeting was held with “no more than two hours’ notice” and that Dion requested “advice on the political sensitivities of the non-renewal of the office” and his relationship with the office’s External Advisory Committee. “But that was not a structured, formal briefing on the office itself.”

Source: Battle against religious persecution ‘diminished’ under Liberal government: ex-ambassador | National Post

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Le cours d’éthique et de culture religieuse jugé sexiste | Le Devoir

2016/12/09 2 Comments

Should have seen this coming – the challenge of how to improve awareness of different religions and their beliefs, a desirable goal in a diverse society, while placing these in the context of gender and other rights:

Le Conseil du statut de la femme (CSF) reproche au cours d’éthique et de culture religieuse d’enseigner les religions sans critiquer leur contenu sexiste. Dans un nouvel avis, il recommande que l’enseignement des religions soit séparé de celui de l’éthique, et joint au cours d’histoire.

Le cours ne « remet pas en question les pratiques sexistes au sein des religions » et se contente de décrire les récits religieux sans offrir de mise en contexte critique, déplore le CSF.

On donne l’exemple du récit d’Abraham dans l’Ancien Testament et de ses rapports avec son épouse Sarah et la servante de qui il aura un enfant (Ismaël). Certains manuels, note le Conseil, rendent Sarah « responsable du viol » de la servante et« euphémisent » la violence sexuelle subie par cette dernière.
Les textes sur l’institution du mariage catholique posent le même problème, selon le CSF. On expliquera par exemple aux enfants que les interdits et les rites visent à mettre les femmes « au service de la communauté » en favorisant notamment la « stabilité de la famille ». Or, à nouveau, c’est décrit sans regard critique, plaide-t-on.
Même chose pour la pratique du « gèt » (acte de divorce) dans la religion juive qui est réservée aux hommes, ou des règles régissant l’habillement des femmes dans les religions musulmane ou hindoue.
« Aucun élément de contenu ne permet aux élèves de comprendre que les religions sont des institutions sociales certes significatives pour un grand nombre de personnes, mais qui ont été et demeurent responsables d’un grand nombre de violences envers les femmes, ainsi que du maintien de pratiques et de représentations inégalitaires. »
Le CSF propose donc que la religion soit enseignée dans le cadre du cours d’histoire plutôt que dans celui du cours d’éthique. L’éducation à l’égalité, à la citoyenneté et à la sexualité devrait quant à elle s’insérer dans le cours d’éthique durant tout le parcours primaire et secondaire.

L’avis s’en prend en outre au cours d’histoire, qui explique mal ou peu les luttes menées par les femmes. Ainsi, dans un manuel traitant de l’obtention du droit de vote en 1940, on écrit qu’Adélard Godbout leur a « accordé » sans expliquer qu’elles ont « lutté des années pour l’obtenir ». Certains efforts sont toutefois soulignés, tel l’ajout de personnages historiques féminins dans les manuels.

Des biais sexistes

L’organisme s’inquiète en outre de la persistance de certains biais sexistes chez les enseignants. On constate que ces derniers donnent trop de place aux stéréotypes selon lesquels les garçons sont meilleurs en mathématiques, plus physiques et ont plus besoin de bouger que les filles, alors que ces dernières seraient plus à l’aise dans le monde des sentiments, des émotions et de l’aide au prochain.
« Si le corps enseignant peut tenir compte de ces différences — dues à la socialisation différenciée des garçons et des filles —, il ne devrait pas les consolider, écrit le CSF. Au contraire, l’école devrait contribuer à contrecarrer les effets de la socialisation de genre en évitant de réserver certaines approches pédagogiques ou certaines activités aux filles et aux garçons. »
Pour l’affirmer, l’organisme s’appuie notamment sur un questionnaire mené auprès de 393 enseignants. Parmi les répondants, 80 % ont soutenu que les garçons avaient besoin de méthodes éducatives plus « dynamiques et actives ». Une enseignante du primaire citée dans l’avis raconte « qu’il y a des exemples qui parlent plus aux garçons (mise en situation parlant de hockey) et d’autres qui intéressent plus les filles (décoration pour traiter de l’aire par exemple). »

Cela pousse le Conseil à faire une série de recommandations, dont l’ajout à la formation des maîtres d’un cours obligatoire sur le thème des inégalités de sexe. Or, le milieu semble réticent. Mercredi, lors du dévoilement de l’avis à l’Université Laval, la vice-doyenne à la recherche Annie Pilote a expliqué qu’il n’y avait « pas de marge de manoeuvre » pour un tel ajout dans le programme et qu’il faudrait plutôt que cela s’insère dans la formation continue.

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Bowing to public pressure, Merkel calls for partial burka ban in Germany

2016/12/08 Leave a comment

Similar approach to Quebec’s law 62 focussing on the public sector. Hard to disagree with the sentiment that parallel societies are generally undesirable, whatever the religion, ethnicity or ideology from an integration and social cohesion/inclusion perspective. However, one can question whether a ban is the appropriate response, or only requiring the face to be revealed for identity authentication (e.g., identity cards, airport security):

For months, as the Western political establishment shook around her, German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained a stolid and increasingly lonely champion of liberal values. But on Tuesday, she joined those chipping at the idea of “live and let live” liberalism, embracing a populist call for a partial ban on the head-to-toe burka.

The proposed ban comes less than three weeks after Ms. Merkel announced she would seek a fourth term as Chancellor in parliamentary elections expected next September. It also comes days after Italian voters forced the resignation of their prime minister, and in the wake of both Donald Trump’s shocking run to the White House, and Britain’s unexpected vote to leave the European Union.

Speaking Tuesday to a conference of her centre-right Christian Democratic Union – which faces a threat on its right flank from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (also known by its German acronym, AfD) – Ms. Merkel took aim at “parallel societies” that she said were forming in Germany. Borrowing from the rhetoric of the AfD and other populist parties on the rise around the continent, she said the full-face veil “should be banned wherever it is legally possible.”

“We do not want any parallel societies, and where they exist we have to tackle them,” she said to loud applause from party delegates gathered in the city of Essen. She specifically named sharia, an Islamic legal code based on a strict interpretation of the Koran. “Our laws have priority over honour codes, tribal and family rules, and over sharia. That has to be expressed very clearly.”

Ms. Merkel – who was re-elected as the CDU leader on Tuesday with just under 90-per-cent support – said the full-face veil inhibited “inter-human communication” and “was not appropriate” in Germany.

The remarks were a move away from the role many had hoped to see Ms. Merkel assume following Mr. Trump’s election win.

On a recent trip to Berlin, outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the German Chancellor as his “closest international partner,” leading to talk Ms. Merkel would – by default – become the voice and de facto leader of Western liberals.

The burka-ban proposal is a reminder that Ms. Merkel has always been a pragmatist first.

In reality, only a small minority of the estimated five million Muslims living in Germany wear the full burka. (A 2008 government-funded study found 28 per cent of German Muslims wore some kind of head covering; that figure includes those who wear the hijab, the much more common headscarf that covers the hair but not the face).

The proposed ban would likely only apply to schools, courts and other government buildings, as any wider restriction would seem to violate the country’s constitution.

The true aim of Ms. Merkel’s move against the burka is to soothe public anger over her decision last year to welcome into Germany hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and other countries. The country has struggled – both culturally and bureaucratically – to process the new arrivals.

Source: Bowing to public pressure, Merkel calls for partial burka ban in Germany – The Globe and Mail

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Canadian students are excelling: Don’t get complacent (OECD PISA)

2016/12/07 Leave a comment

Good overall assessment of the latest OECD PISA results and Canadian students and schools by Bonnie Schmidt and Andrew Parkin:

Canadians can be proud of our showing in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment report, released Tuesday. We are one of only a handful of countries that places in the top tier in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in each of the three subjects tested: science, reading and math.

Canadian students not only exceeded the international average in science performance – they were among the best in the world in this subject. This is a positive result, given the diversity of our education systems and of our student population. Canada was also near the very top in reading, and remained in the top 10 in math. The OECD even singled Canada out for our ability to combine high achievement with a commitment to equity in education.

There is no gender gap in science performance in Canada, nor is there a gap between immigrant students and those born in Canada. Parents should welcome these findings.

Not only do Canadian students perform well in science, but they are also more likely than the OECD average to expect to have STEM careers (in science, technology, engineering and math) – 34 per cent of Canadian students have this expectation, compared with an international average of 25 per cent. This is good news for Canada and a testament to the many organizations across the country that help schools connect the dots between classroom science learning and the world of work.

But significant gender differences remain in terms of the specific types of STEM careers that boys and girls expect to have, with girls much more likely to expect careers in health sciences (29 per cent versus 10 per cent) and boys much more likely to expect careers in engineering (18 per cent versus 7 per cent) and information and communications technology (3.7 per cent in the ICT field versus 0.3 per cent).

While the PISA results do warrant celebration, we can’t become complacent. Challenges continue, not the least of which is figuring out how to continue evolving learning opportunities for Canadian youth so they can participate as citizens and in the labour market in a rapidly changing world.

And even though Canada stands out for its record in equity, some students still struggle to get the necessary attention. For example, PISA makes no reference to indigenous students. In addition, girls continue to significantly outperform boys in reading (though the gap narrows with digital reading) and, in some (but not all) provinces, boys outperform girls in math. Minority language classrooms (i.e. French learners outside Quebec and English learners in Quebec) also continue to lag behind.

Source: Canadian students are excelling: Don’t get complacent – The Globe and Mail

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