Ignoring race: a comparative analysis of education policy in British Columbia and Ontario

Racial equity in Canadian education remains elusive. Despite Canada’s status as a multicultural nation, many minority students continue to be marginalised. In this article, we compare equity-related education policy in two Canadian provinces – Ontario and British Columbia – to ascertain how race and racialized students are understood in official documents. After reviewing provincial policy contexts from the early 1990s onward, we discuss the results of a content analysis of provincial education policy documents using Critical Policy Analysis and Critical Race Theory. We argue that the treatment of race and equity in these documents demonstrates ‘symbolic anti-racism,’ rather than substantive anti-racism, in three key ways: 1) the lack of robust education policy related to racial equity; 2) the construction of racism as an individual characteristic rather than a structural problem in the education system; and 3) the near-absence of race-related data collection. Policy recommendations follow based on these findings.