Presented Aug. 17, 18 and 19 at 91亚色鈥檚 Keele campus, this year鈥檚 program builds on the success of summer institutes held in 2008 and 2009 and draws on contemporary research and innovative approaches to education.

"We have more than 100 people signed up to attend this year鈥檚 symposium," says 91亚色 education Professor Carl James, director of the YCEC. "They are coming to 91亚色 from Toronto as well as the 905 area public and separate school boards and community organizations to engage with us about student engagement and how to make community a vital part of education."

Left: Carl James

As families move to suburban communities in the 905-area from urban centres, says James, they bring with them a rich diversity of experience and unique expectations. James says it is important for schools and communities to understand and engage with these collective experiences that students and families bring to their new communities and classrooms.

Education faces constant challenges due to the rapidly changing world, says James. The migration and residential patterns, technological advances, as well as economic, political and social conditions, create an environment for education that demands ongoing assessment. This year's Summer Institute continues on a history pioneered by the YCEC that focuses on building on the relationships between learning institutions and communities to ensure that聽education is current, relevant and a cornerstone of academic success.

"Many schools in communities in the Greater Toronto Area are interested in the聽research that聽91亚色 has been doing with urban schools in the areas of engagement and inclusion," says James. "Participants will hear about our findings and they will explore聽the idea of diversity inside the classroom, how to be inclusive of students鈥� backgrounds and experiences and how to work with families and build commitment and support."

Presenters and workshops in聽this year鈥檚 institute will articulate effective curriculum and pedagogical practices around inclusion and models of student engagement. Student achievement is directly affected by engagement,聽explains James.聽Participants in this year鈥檚 institute will participate in workshops, theory to practice seminars and panel discussions that directly address student engagement and building inclusive classrooms. Key thinkers in these areas will present keynotes each day of the institute in order to guide thinking.

On Tuesday, Aug. 17, the Summer Institute begins with a keynote presentation by Harvard University education Professor Mark Warren. Warren is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He studies efforts to strengthen institutions that anchor inner-city communities 鈥� churches, schools and other community-based organizations 鈥� and to build broad-based alliances among these institutions and across race and social class. Warren is interested in fostering community development, social justice, and school transformation; and uses the results of scholarly research to advance democratic practice.

Right: Mark Warren

Wednesday's sessions will kick off with a keynote from Dr. Llewellyn Joseph, a medical doctor and director of the outpatient Disruptive Behaviours Program at in Newmarket, Ont.

Dr. Joseph provides clinical services to children and teens with disruptive behaviours and聽was previously the physician leader in the Child & Adolescent Program in the聽Department of Psychiatry at聽Humber River Regional Hospital. He is an associate professor at the University of聽Toronto in聽child and adolescent psychiatry and co-editor of The Mental Hospital in the聽21st Century (1992).聽Dr. Joseph is a聽frequent contributor to journals and conferences on the subject of mental health and聽disruptive behaviours among young people. He is also a member of the YCEC Advisory Council.

Following the keynote, the first series of workshops of the Summer Institute will offer interactive sessions in technology and its role in engaging parents and the community; the complexities and possibilities inherent in an inclusive approach to education; the search for cultural and economic biases in the mathematics curriculum in Ontario; and how to construct an inclusive curriculum by using autobiographical narratives by African Canadians. Information on each of these sessions can be found on the workshop descriptions that are available .

Wednesday afternoon will聽feature a panel discussion with 91亚色 education faculty, school and community representatives who will discuss the implementation of equity and inclusive programs in schools.

After the panel, there will be a second series of workshops. The first will focus聽on fostering intergenerational learning within community responsive schools聽by involving linguistic and cultural minority students and their families. There will be sessions on what teachers think about student engagement; equity in the classroom through arts and literacy; and an exploration of girls, gender equity and social justice. Details on each workshop are available .

On day three of the Summer Institute, Ryerson University education Professor Althea Prince will deliver the day's keynote address. Prince is a sociologist and teaches at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson.

Right: Althea Prince

Prince's teaching聽area includes explorations of race, racism, and African Caribbean peoples in metropolitan communities.聽She is also an聽essayist, novelist, storyteller and author of children鈥檚 books. As a community educator,聽Prince teaches writing workshops that concentrate on accessing voice and building confidence.

Information about the Summer Institute can be found on the Web site.聽A PDF of the program聽is available .

More about the 91亚色 Centre for Education & Community

YCEC is a faculty-based Organized Research Unit located within 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Education.聽YCEC seeks to strengthen links among the University, colleges, schools and communities.

The centre works with faculty members both within and outside the Faculty of Education, education researchers and administrators, teachers, parents, government agencies and representatives of community organizations to both initiate and facilitate research.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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In Toronto, the in-between city roughly corresponds to the postwar suburbs, or inner suburbs, that grew with the booming economy of the 1950s and 鈥�60s. As urban researchers have observed, their highrises, diverse immigrant populations and lower-than-average incomes are the stuff of the inner city; but their bungalows, strip malls and wide roads are quintessentially suburban.

But all is not despair: the in-between city is a city of activists, concerned parents, urban entrepreneurs and young leaders. Independent media outlets like cover community issues and give young people a voice that they don鈥檛 have in the mainstream media.

Groups such as the Black Action Defence Committee are engaged in gang exit, youth employment and leadership development programs. Jane-Finch Action Against Poverty, the St. Alban鈥檚 Boys & Girls Club, and youth drop-in SPOTEND are all working around issues of social justice, effectively mitigating the marginalization experienced by their community.

Across Toronto, in neighbourhoods like Jane-Finch, hundreds of community organizations work tirelessly on issues of transit justice, tenant rights and food security, sometimes with the help of the city through initiatives like the Neighbourhood Action Plan and Youth Challenge Fund, and often on shoestring budgets.

Such efforts give residents of the in-between city hope. Hope that one day their lives will not include the drama of police raids, struggling schools, low wages and long commutes. Hope that governments at all levels will recognize the need for a comprehensive urban agenda that combats social exclusion and addresses the needs of the in-between city.

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If people use their cars less, for example, they may have more cash to spend on clothes or theatre tickets, but there might be less work for those doing car and road repairs.

So if that鈥檚 the promise of building Transit City, what鈥檚 the flip side if we don鈥檛 complete it? More social dislocation in the suburbs and less equity in a city where poverty is racialized and located around the outer edges.

"We will have another generation growing up in poverty,鈥� says Roger Keil, director of the City Institute at 91亚色. 鈥淭he racialization of poverty is not a snapshot; it鈥檚 a slow and grinding film.鈥�

. . .

Even if Smitherman plays the progressive card to get the plan back on the rails, says Keil, the genie is out of the bottle. 鈥淧ublic transit is under such a barrage of criticism right now that it may be difficult to defend Transit City in the mayoral election. This is an incredible position to be in.鈥�

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The panel discussion, "Suburbia in Transition: Infrastructure and Planning in聽Toronto's In-Between City", will take place Thursday, March 25, from 12:30 to 2pm in the 7th Floor Lounge of the 91亚色 Research Tower, Keele campus.

Suburbia, long a feature of Canadian urbanization, has begun to change face. One of the pervasive features of the new suburbia has been its growing diversity in ethnocultural and socio-economic terms. Part of the challenge of coming to terms with this growing diversity has been the provision of hard and soft, technical and social infrastructures in a rapidly expanding region.

Between 2006 and 2010, 91亚色 held two grants under their Peer Reviewed Research Studies program to study these challenges with specific reference to the suburbs of Toronto. At the same time, suburban communities such as Vaughan have begun to reassess their future development and have developed ambitious new official plan documents. This panel of researchers and planners will examine the pressing problems and emerging solutions in the new suburban infrastructural landscape and report back on recent research findings.

"In-Between Infrastructure: "Infrastructure in 91亚色 Region: A GIS Analysis of Human Services" was funded by Infrastructure Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

"In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability" was a three-year research project funded in large part by Infrastructure Canada with a contribution from Toronto Community Housing. It explored the infrastructure in what is called the "in-between city", the part of the urban region that is perceived as not quite traditional city and not quite traditional suburb. As a concept, the in-between city explodes the myth of the city and country divide, and opens new ways of understanding infrastructure needs in a globalizing Canadian urban region. A key goal of this research project was to explore the connectivity between different scales through the lens of urban infrastructure.

The project addressed whether it is possible to design a system of social and cultural infrastructure that has everything a community needs and meets global needs as well, and what the impact of economically driven decisions of hard infrastructure is聽on communities. The geographical area that was the subject of this project lies partly in the City of Toronto and partly in the City of Vaughan.

Another team of 91亚色-led experts investigating the availability of infrastructure and services to recent immigrants, low income residents and seniors in 91亚色 Region is finding that funding for services is not keeping pace with growth in the area. "Infrastructure in 91亚色 Region: A GIS Analysis of Human Services" was funded by Infrastructure Canada聽& Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The findings of the聽project have implications for suburbs across Canada, according to principal investigator聽Lo. The 91亚色 infrastructure project has catalogued services and surveyed residents of 91亚色 Region over a two-year period to determine where the most vulnerable populations lie and to identify gaps in services.

Preliminary findings suggest a divide between the northern and southern areas of 91亚色 Region, whereby rural areas are paradoxically better served on a per capita basis than the more urban south, but find services less accessible due to existing transit infrastructure. Similarly, better educated residents are more able to find and avail themselves of existing services, creating an environment where the most in need are the least served.

鈥淭here is a traditional belief among politicians and others that people who move to the outer suburbs, to those big houses, that they are fine,鈥� said Lo. 鈥淭hat is a kind of myth. Given the want [by politicians] for urban intensification, a lot of the resources are being poured in to the traditional city.鈥�

Situated north of Toronto, 91亚色 Region is an archetypal suburban area where the population increased from 169,000 in 1971 to 886,575 in 2006 and is estimated to grow to 1,280,000 by 2026. Immigration propels this growth and seniors and low-income households are growing proportions of the population. The project addresses the infrastructure needs that have arisen during the region鈥檚 rapid transition from a low-density, ethnically and socially homogeneous suburban region to a diverse, rapidly intensifying suburb.

, CITY director and principal investigator聽of the "In-Between Infrastructure" project, will chair a panel with fellow project researchers 91亚色 geography Professor Patricia Wood, 91亚色 social science Professor Douglas Young and John Saunders, a resident faculty member of the CITY and the project's research coordinator. Other panellists include, Leigh McGrath聽of聽Urban Strategies Inc., who聽will present on the firm's recent work on the Vaughan Official Plan, and Lo, chair of 91亚色's Department of Geography, who will address some of the results of the "Infrastructure in 91亚色 Region" project.

Saunders, who teaches in 91亚色's Department of Geography and the Urban Studies Program, will talk about "The Landscape of Citizenship in the In-between City: Downsview Park, Toronto".

Wood will discuss "Residents' Vulnerability and Resilience in an Anti-Residential Landscape".聽Her research focuses on diversity, identity politics and citizenship, particularly in cities. She does both contemporary and historical work in Canada, the United States and Ireland, and conducts research primarily with immigrant groups and indigenous peoples, with an emphasis on participatory, collaborative research practices. She is the author of Nationalism from the Margins: Italians in Alberta and British Columbia (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002) and co-author of Citizenship聽& Identity (Sage Publications, 1999).

Young will talk about "Planning Challenges in the In-Between City".聽He has worked as an architect, municipal planner and developer of non-profit housing cooperatives and is co-author of a book on urban politics, Changing Toronto: Governing Urban Neoliberalism, (University of Toronto Press, 2009) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, In-between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability.

McGrath will look at "Social Services, Land Use Planning and Vaughan's New Official Plan".聽Her professional work has included a breadth of projects from implementing elements of Ontario's Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe to research and development of an Environmental Master Plan for the City of Red Deer, Alta.聽McGrath聽is a member of the Urban Strategies Vaughan Official Plan team, a project underway since 2007 that is expected to be completed later this year.

Lo will discuss "Vulnerability and Human Service Provisions in 91亚色 Region".聽She is the former economics domain leader of the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration & Settlement (CERIS), now known as CERIS - The Ontario Metropolis Centre, and the transportation and commerce research thrust leader, as well as a member of the Research Management Committee of Geomatics for Informed Decision Making, a Canada network centre of excellence. Her current聽research interests聽include vulnerability in the suburbs and human service provision; immigration and banking; recession and return migration; and entrepreneurship in mid-size cities.

Refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome.

For more information, visit the CITY Web site.

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