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Though Nova Scotians have not yet been subjected to the type of provincial welfare "reforms" enacted in other provinces, some programs aimed at promoting work-force participation by recipients of government transfer payments have recently been introduced to Cape Breton, the province's most economically marginal region. This paper examines the structure of one such program, sponsored by the federal government. The analysis presented here suggests that, despite public rhetoric, the program's design delivers limited benefits to the local community and to its neediest citizens, but carries major ideological benefits for the state. While the program cannot be called workfare, in the strict sense of the term, it does reflect the same neo-liberal ideology that has inspired more Draconian social reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying cohort methods to data from the 1973 Canadian Mobility Study and the 1986 and 1994 Statistics Canada General Social Surveys, this paper determines whether the dramatic educational expansion of the 19505 and 1960s reduced the effects of parental socio-economic status, gender and language first spoken on educational attainment in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Linear regression models predicting years of schooling and logistic regressions predicting the probability of specific educational transitions are used to separate the effects of expansion and ascription. Consistent with cultural reproduction theory, class-based ascription remains constant over time, but the effects of gender and language, so pronounced in older cohorts, are negligible in more recent cohorts. Although there are some differences in detail, these basic results are similar in Quebec and the rest of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on research examining prospective and established teachers' conceptualization and practice of antiracism pedagogy. Views reveal great variability in pedagogical and ideological positions that include unexamined assumptions about students' differential commitments to education across racial and ethnic groups, and fear of abandoning an unnamed Canadian norm. To challenge teachers' conceptualization and practice of antiracism, this study systematically develops transformative possibilities for a teacher education praxis designed to link other social movements for social justice issues. The authors suggest moving the issues of social difference, race and antiracism into mainstream scholarship, ensuring teacher commitment to the cause of social justice and engaging participants in critical reflective practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]