The composition of the Canadian populace has changed dramatically since the 1970s. Recent demographic data indicate that the number of minority groups has burgeoned. Aside from obvious social and cultural changes confronting these groups in their assimilation and integration as Canadians, they also represent varying challenges for our criminal justice system. Furthermore, our notion of what constitutes minority groups has also evolved over recent years. Where once the criminal justice system saw only Canada's First Nation people as its primary minority group, it must today contend with the broader range of groups. In fact, very few studies have examined the treatment of other minority groups within the Canadian criminal justice system and very few criminology or criminal justice textbooks have reflected these changes. This reader fills the void in the existing literature.

This edited collection provides readers with a superb introduction to some of the contemporary issues related to diversity, community, and justice in the Canadian context. Grounded in theories of community justice and applied social justice, the text provides a historical, theoretical, and intersectional approach to understanding justice and its everyday manifestations for members of diverse populations in Canadian society. Diversity, Justice, and Community encourages reflection on the systemic factors that result in the production of criminality in marginalized and oppressed communities. The authors highlight the ways in which differently located groups—including Indigenous peoples, women and girls, Black males, Somali youths, the South Asian community, and transgendered prisoners—experience the justice system, while also critiquing standard notions of justice and equity and pointing towards potential solutions to combat inequalities at both the community and institutional level. Disrupting the taken-for-granted assumptions regarding who is a criminal, Diversity, Justice, and Community takes an honest look at both the challenges and the opportunities that exist for Canada’s increasingly multiracial, multi-ethnic, multicultural, and religiously and sexually diverse population. Featuring chapter objectives, discussion questions, and additional resources, this engaging text is ideal for students in criminal justice, police studies, police foundations, and criminology programs.

"This edited collection discusses the changing contours of inequality and social justice in contemporary Canada. The book contains 12 essays written by leading scholars in the field and includes chapters on the welfare state, social activism, economic inequality, the labour market, racial justice, LGBT rights, and colonialism."--

In the urgency to respond to the challenges posed by diversity in contemporary societies, the discussion of normative foundations is often overlooked. This book takes that important first step, and offers new ways of thinking about diversity. Its contribution to an ongoing dialogue in this field lies in the construction of a normative framework which endeavours to better understand the challenges of justice in diverse societies. By applying this normative framework to specific and broader examples of injustices in the spheres of religion, culture, race, ethnicity, gender and nationality, the book demonstrates how constitutional pluralist discourses can contribute both to new and legal responses to diversity. The book will be of interest to legal professionals, policy makers, law students and scholars concerned with exploring diversity in the 21st century.

An interdisciplinary anthology exploring issues related to diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice. When students are introduced to the study of diversity and social justice, it is usually from sociological and psychological perspectives. The scholars and activists featured in this anthology reject this approach as too limiting, insisting that we adopt a view that is both transdisciplinary and multiperspectival. Their essays focus on the components of diversity, social justice, and inclusive excellence, not just within the United States but in other parts of the world. They examine diversity in the contexts of culture, race, class, gender, learned ability and dis/ability, religion, sexual orientation, and citizenship, and explore how these concepts and identities interrelate. The result is a book that will provide readers with a better theoretical understanding of diversity studies and will enable them to see and think critically about oppression and how systems of oppression may be challenged.

What should be the primary goals of a judicial appointments system, and how much weight should be placed on diversity in particular? Why is achieving a diverse judiciary across the UK taking so long? Is it time for positive action? What role should the current judiciary play in the appointment of our future judges? There is broad agreement within the UK and other common law countries that diversity raises important questions for a legal system and its officials, but much less agreement about the full implications of recognising diversity as an important goal of the judicial appointments regime. Opinions differ, for example, on the methods, forms, timing and motivations for judicial diversity. To mark the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) in England and Wales, this collection includes contributions from current and retired judges, civil servants, practitioners, current and former commissioners on the JAC and leading academics from Australia, Canada, South Africa and across the UK. Together they provide timely and authoritative insights into past, current and future debates on the search for diversity in judicial appointments. Topics discussed include the role and responsibility of independent appointment bodies; assessments of the JAC’s first ten years; appointments to the UK Supreme Court; the pace of change; definitions of ‘merit’ and ‘diversity’; mandatory retirement ages; the use of ceiling quotas; and the appropriate role of judges and politicians in the appointments process.

This engaging edited collection highlights key discussions around educational inequity and related structures and sub-structures. Featuring a diverse array of contributors, Social Justice Education in Canada balances important knowledge, learning practices, and possibilities emanating from and embedded in anti-racist and anti-oppressive education with instructive, grounding examples. The text confronts the idea of social justice as an abstract concept, discussing suggestions for rethinking educational systems and making changes that will benefit the learning lives of all students. With the aim to critically expand the emerging and increasingly active debates in this important area of educational and social development, this volume strives to collectively deepen our understanding and appreciation for critical social justice education. Organized into 14 chapters and featuring an epilogue written by Dr. Edward Shizha, the book critically deals with contemporary topical issues in education, including readings on cultural, racial, religious, Indigenous, language, socio-economic, citizenship, disability/ableism, and immigrant/refugee status realities and their interwoven learning and teaching intersections. This text is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students of education across Canada. FEATURES: - Designed to spark discussions and debates, each chapter closes with discussion questions to encourage critical reflection - Contributors move beyond the theoretical with actionable, practical applications for critical social justice that can be utilized by educators and teacher educators - Intersecting topical diversity is at the forefront of this volume, which features contributors from different backgrounds and communities critically engaging with issues pertinent to social justice and equity in education

Both personal and scholarly in tone, this book encourages readers to think theologically, ethically, and politically about the statement that declares: “God loves diversity and justice.” The multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-disciplinary, and multi-gendered identities of the eleven contributors and two respondents deepen the conversation. It considers questions such as: Do we affirm or challenge this theological statement? Do we concentrate on “God” in our response or do we interrogate what diversity and justice mean in light of God’s love for diversity and justice? Alternatively, do we prefer to ponder the verb, to love, and consider what it might mean for society if people really believed in a divinity loving diversity and justice? Of course, there are no easy and simple answers whether we consult the Sikh scriptures, the Bible, the Qur’an, the movies, the Declaration of Human Rights, or the transgender movement, but the effort is worthwhile. The result is a serious historical, literary, cultural, and religious discourse that fends against intellectually rigid thought and simplistic belief systems across the religious spectrum. In our world in which so much military unrest and violence, economic inequities, and religious strife prevail, such a conversation nurtures theological, ethical, and political possibilities of inclusion and justice.

Pursuing justice is daunting. It plays out in a variety of contexts — like the environment, employment, the criminal justice system — and raises tough issues like racism, gender discrimination and poverty. But ultimately the aim of studying justice is to achieve it. This book is about justice in Canada: its definition, its boundaries, its contradictions and its nuances. It is also about the mechanisms and practices that enable the pursuit of justice. It problematizes the notion of justice while defining and pursuing the illusive notion of justice in Canadian society. This second edition features updated content from the popular first edition as well as new content about social justice and racism, the experiences of racialized persons with police, settler colonialism and issues of justice for gender and sexual minorities — all from a Canadian perspective. Additionally, each chapter contains objectives of the chapter, case studies and discussion questions.

Educators on Diversity, Social Justice, and Schooling identifies categories of privilege and marginalization in the “master narrative” of social discourse and works to bring equity into classrooms across Canada. This timely text challenges students to question the power relations that value one group’s system of knowledge over another and brings this to bear on the classroom environment. This volume features contributions by educators from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and includes chapter-end key questions, additional resources for more information, and suggested activities to engage students in critical thought and to ground concepts of diversity and social justice in practical application. Students in undergraduate and graduate education programs will value the combination of theoretical and practical knowledge that this collection puts forth to foster a new generation of inclusive educators.