Towards Substantive Action: Naming and Overcoming Institutional Barriers to Confronting Anti-Black Racism in Public Education

In this thesis I argue that the issue is not about a few bad teachers or a couple of weakly conceptualized education policies, but rather there is a stark impetus for critical analysis into the institutional context in which policies aimed at confronting anti-Black racism are expected to succeed and for the development of anti-racist policy recommendations that consider this institutional landscape. I explore three research questions: 1) What are the institutional barriers to confronting anti-Black racism within the public education system; 2) How do the institutional barriers to confronting anti-Black racism in public education get reproduced over time; and 3) How can the institutional barriers to confronting anti-Black racism in the public education system be overcome? Using qualitative methods, I conduct 5 semi-structured interviews with actors from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB). Black students matter and we also deserve the institutional conditions to exact our full academic potential.