En/countering resistance to gender equity policy in educational organizations

grantor: University of TorontoThis study explores the phenomenon of resistance to gender equity policy in the implementation process as it is experienced by gender equity agents within three Ontario boards of education. Using a critical hermeneutic conceptual framework, which is informed by feminist post-structural policy analysis, I draw connections between "ideologies, everyday practices, and official policies" (Reynolds, 1995, pp. 13-14) in the lived experience of three employment equity agents who work for boards of education in Ontario. First, three cumulative interviews were conducted with each equity agent as well as follow-up interviews with school board personnel who were identified by the equity workers as having a strong influence on the implementation process of gender equity employment policy. Second, an analysis of policy statements and minutes of stakeholder meetings that focused on the development and implementation of gender equity policy was conducted for each of the school boards. Third, after all the data were collected and themes for analysis were identified, a focus group was conducted with the equity workers in order to provide a collective forum for discussing experiences of resistance to gender equity that they had en/countered. During the data gathering for and writing of this dissertation, the formal responsibilities of each equity agent underwent considerable change as education policy in general and employment equity policy in particular was altered by changing political ideologies. The tapestry of discourses that emerges is woven by the movement of official and unofficial resistance and counter-resistance at locations of power between and among social actors in the governance structures of educational organizations in Ontario. The resulting narrative provides a re/presentation of the ways in which both individual and systemic resistance to gender equity employment policy may be expressed and the ways in which those who are seeking social change may en/counter resistance.Ph.D