Sue Winton, associate professor in York University’s Faculty of Education, will draw on her book Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada, (University of Toronto Press), to explain how growing education privatization is undermining public education and democracy during a public talk, Nov. 8.

Winton, a critical policy scholar and and co-director of the World Educational Research Association’s International Research Network on Families, Educators, and Communities as Educational Advocates, will show how policies, such as fundraising, fees and specialized schools and programs among others, enable some kids to accumulate more advantages from public education than other children. These policies, she argues, often reproduce patterns of social inequality that exist outside schools.

Winton will then discuss ideas for resisting education privatization and strengthening public education’s commitments to equity, inclusion, open decision-making processes and the collective good.

Her current research examines privatization and public education. The focus of one of her projects is to examine advocacy for and against public funding of private schools in various Canadian provinces.

In a second study, Winton and colleague Beyhan Farhadi are investigating online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This talk is presented as part of the Faculty of Education’s Public Lecture Series that features leading scholars from the Faculty sharing their research and scholarship on key publicly relevant issues in education and society.

For more information, or to register to attend, visit the event webpage.