Investigating racial equity and anti-racism policy in K-12 public schooling in British Columbia : an anti-colonial discursive analysis of the Surrey School District's Racial Equity Strategic Plan
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Educational Studies (EDST), Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Kahlon, Aneet Kaur
issued: 2025-04-24T14:47:02Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The purpose of this research is to examine how Canadian K-12 public education racial equity policy may function to reproduce the oppressive social, historical, and political forces it claims to challenge. This thesis conducts a qualitative content analysis of Surrey School District’s Racial Equity Strategic Plan 2023-2028, through an anti-colonial discursive framework, to research how capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy may be overlooked within attempts to achieve racial equity in education. Specifically, this investigation focuses on how hegemony may be reinforced through the implementation of educational racial equity policy due to persistent power inequities embedded in the text which function in opposition to policy goals. This research delves deeply into investigating historical educational policies in British Columbia’s public schools in order to understand how educational policy has affected Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities in the past and how these outcomes endure today. This research finds that in order for the Surrey School District’s Racial Equity Strategic Plan 2023-2028 to improve the equity outcomes of its target populations, it must acknowledge and address the normative colonial structures and values that enforce educational domination over and oppression of marginalized communities beyond the dimension of race. Racial equity and anti-racism policies must incorporate initiatives of critical structural reform of education systems that seek to address the root cause of racism, such as capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, systemic whiteness, and white supremacy, in order to meaningfully and holistically address racism for Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities within K-12 public schooling.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90749
note: INVESTIGATING RACIAL EQUITY AND ANTI-RACISM POLICY IN K-12 PUBLIC SCHOOLING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: AN ANTI-COLONIAL DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SURREY SCHOOL DISTRICT’S RACIAL EQUITY STRATEGIC PLAN by ANEET KAUR KAHLON B. Sc., University of Calgary, 2020 B. Ed., University of Alberta, 2022 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2025 © Aneet Kaur Kahlon, 2025 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Investigating racial equity and anti-racism policy in K-12 public schooling in British Columbia: An anti-colonial discursive analysis of the Surrey School District’s Racial Equity Strategic Plan submitted by Aneet Kaur Kahlon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Educational Studies Examining Committee: Dr. Hartej Gill, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Co-Supervisor Dr. Bathseba Opini, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Co-Supervisor Dr. Ali A. Abdi, Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine how Canadian K-12 public education racial equity policy may function to reproduce the oppressive social, historical, and political forces it claims to challenge. This thesis conducts a qualitative content analysis of Surrey School District’s Racial Equity Strategic Plan 2023-2028, through an anti-colonial discursive framework, to research how capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy may be overlooked within attempts to achieve racial equity in education. Specifically, this investigation focuses on how hegemony may be reinforced through the implementation of educational racial equity policy due to pers…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448544
language: eng
degree discipline: Educational Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Gill, Hartej
contributor: Opini, Bathseba
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90749