8th Annual Dr. Ottilia Chareka Memorial Lecture in Education and Social Justice-FR

Event Details:

The UNBF Faculty of Education and the First Nations’ branch at the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development will present the 8th Annual Ottilia Chareka Memorial Lecture on Education and Social Justice with Professor James A. Banks    

Professor James A. Banks will discuss “A Transformative Civic Education Curriculum for Non-Citizen an Citizen Students.”

Ottilia Chareka, mother, activist, scholar, mentor, and friend was a three time graduate of the Faculty of Education at the University of New Brunswick (DAUS 1993; M.Ed. 1994; PhD 2005). Ottilia was the first woman from her rural village in Zimbabwe to complete high school and went on from there to enjoy a stellar career as a teacher and academic. Throughout her life Ottilia was a considerable advocate for others including the many Zimbabwean girls she supported in educational endeavours, fellow immigrants to Canada, and the First Nations students she worked with at St. Francis Xavier University.

When Ottilia died tragically in the spring of 2011 the Faculty of Education at UNB chose to honour her with an annual lecture in her name focusing on education as a vehicle for social justice, something that was a life long passion for Ottilia. Ottilia is survived by her five daughters and a memorial fund has been set up by the St. FX Faculty of Education for her children. http://sites.stfx.ca/education/ottilia

Many refugees, undocumented, and other “children on the move” attend public and state schools in the United States, Canada, nations in Western Europe and Asia, as well as in nations in other regions of the world. In this lecture I describe a conceptual framework for developing effective civic education courses and programs for non-citizens and citizen students who attend public and provincial schools. The framework I describe in this lecture has two major components: (1) human rights cosmopolitan education (HRCE) and multicultural citizenship education (MCCE).  Human rights cosmopolitan education focuses on helping non-citizen students to internalize and experience human rights and cosmopolitan values and to have equal-status contacts and positive interactions with citizen students. The main focus of multicultural citizenship education (MCCE) is to help citizen students who experience failed citizenship and structural exclusion because of their racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious characteristics to attain political efficacy and full citizenship rights within their communities and nations without having to give up important aspects of their home languages and cultures. Transformative civic education needs to be implemented within the schools in order for both non-citizens and citizen students to participate effectively in their schools, communities, and nations.

James A. Banks is the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies Emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was the Russell F. Stark University Professor at the University of Washington from 2000 to 2006 and founding director of the Center for Multicultural Education from 1992 to 2018, which has been renamed the Banks Center for Educational Justice. He is a past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Banks is a specialist in social studies education and multicultural education and has written widely in these fields. His books include Cultural Diversity and Education: Foundations, Curriculum, and Teaching (6th edition); and An Introduction to Multicultural Education (6th edition). His edited books include The Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education (4 volumes), and Citizenship Education and Global Migration: Implications for Theory, Research, and Teaching, which was published by AERA in 2017.

Professor Banks has given lectures on citizenship education and diversity in many different nations, including Australia, Canada, China, Cyprus, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, and New Zealand. His books have been translated into Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, and Arabic. Professor Banks has six honorary degrees. An interview and video archive of his career is at https://education.asu.edu/inside-the-academy-of-education/honorees/james-banks

Please join us for a reception following the presentation.

Contact: Dr. Alan Sears, Honorary Research Professor, Faculty of Education asears@unb.ca

Building: Marshal d'Avray Hall

Room Number: 261