Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Pedro C. González Espinosa, Postdoctoral Reserach Fellow, The School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University

Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that sustain millions of people, yet they face a growing crisis. Rising ocean temperatures are causing coral bleaching, a process where heat disrupts the relationship between corals and the microalgae living inside them. If the stress continues, the corals may die.

Since the 1980s, bleaching events have increased significantly, posing a major threat to reefs and the coastal communities that rely on them for food, income and protection.

Scientists rely on data-monitoring tools to predict where and when bleaching is most likely to occur. These tools help inform conservation decisions made by the reef managers in charge of preserving the reefs, like temporarily pausing tourism or fishing to allow corals to recover.

But important questions are often overlooked in the process: Are these decisions fair? And who bears the cost of protecting coral reefs?

Managing reefs

Predicting bleaching events is crucial for managing reefs. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch uses satellite data to issue real-time bleaching alerts. These alerts guide managers to act before reefs reach dangerous thresholds.

However, the science isn’t perfect. Our research shows that about one-third of bleaching alerts worldwide are false alarms or missed events. If fishing or tourism sites are closed based on a false alarm, it can cause unnecessary economic hardship to local communities. On the other hand, failing to act when bleaching happens risks long-term ecological damage.

Not all reefs are affected equally. The challenges are especially severe in developing countries, where coastal communities depend heavily on reefs for their livelihoods. Many coastal communities do not have the money, government support or backup options they need to protect reefs or cope with the damage.

As a result, coastal communities in developing countries bear the greatest ecological and economic risks. This highlights the need for a rethink of how reef-protection strategies are designed and implemented.

Equity matters

Reef management must be fair, not just to the reefs but also to the people who depend on them. This is where equity comes in. Equity means not only sharing the benefits of healthy reefs, but also ensuring that the costs, such as fishing bans or tourism closures, do not disproportionately fall on those least able to handle them.

There are three key principles that help bring equity to the heart of coral-reef management and the fair sharing of reef resources:

1. Recognizing equity: Different groups relate to the reef in different ways. For some, it is a source of food; for others, it has cultural or spiritual meaning. Understanding and respecting these different connections — whether scientific, economic or traditional — is essential.

2. Fair decision-making: Managing the reef should be a collective undertaking. It is important that those who depend on it, like fishing communities, tourism operators and Indigenous groups, have a real say in how the reef is used, and not just more powerful or rich interest groups, like commercial fishers.

3. Fair sharing of benefits and costs: The benefits of healthy reefs, like fish, tourism income or coastal protection, should be distributed fairly. Likewise, the costs, such as fishing bans or tourism restrictions, should not fall unfairly on those who can least afford it.

These ideas may sound like common sense, but they are often missing in practice. In developing countries, decisions made in the interest of reef conservation can unintentionally harm local communities.

Sustainable and local solutions

Without alternative sources of income or food, restricting fishing or access to reefs can worsen poverty, exacerbate gender inequity or push unsustainable practices to other areas.

In the Solomon Islands, for example, coral reefs are crucial for both food and economic well-being.

In some communities, the food and materials people harvest from reefs, like fish, shells and corals, are worth more than what they earn from other sources. But heavy reliance on reef resources, especially for cash income, has led to over-extraction in some areas, putting both the reefs and local livelihoods at risk.

A community-led planning project in the small island nation of Tuvalu has fostered support for low-impact tourism that balances conservation with livelihoods. Villages identified key sites to protect and developed visitor guidelines to support tourism in a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable manner, balancing reef conservation with local livelihoods.

These examples show that conservation solutions must be co-designed, flexible and tailored to each context. Decisions to close areas or create protected zones should consult with and include local communities.

Toward a just future

Strategies to protect coral reefs need to evolve to include impacted communities. This means reshaping decision-making processes, who is involved and how risks and benefits are shared. It also means addressing global imbalances in conservation leadership.

Many reef initiatives are still led by institutions from wealthy nations, even though the reefs most at risk are in developing countries. In many cases, local communities are invited to participate, but participation alone may not guarantee equity. True equity is about shifting power in leadership and making space for local communities and institutions, providing them with real authority to manage their own resources.

Integrating equity into every stage of coral-bleaching management — including warning systems, impact assessments, stress reduction and policy decisions — not only boosts conservation outcomes, but also ensures that efforts to save the reefs do not come at the expense of the people most dependent on them.

Pedro C. González Espinosa receives funding from the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus, School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM), Simon Fraser University (SFU).

– ref. To protect coral reefs, we must also protect the people who depend on them – https://theconversation.com/to-protect-coral-reefs-we-must-also-protect-the-people-who-depend-on-them-252546

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anja Krstic, Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management, York University, Canada

Despite progress toward gender equity, many women continue to take on the majority of unpaid labour within their households, including housework and child care.

On average, women spend twice as much time as men per week on housework (12.6 hours compared to 5.7) and child care (12 hours compared to 6.7).

Unpaid labour also includes cognitive labour — the mental work of anticipating household needs, identifying and weighing options to fulfil them and monitoring whether those needs have been met.

Cognitive labour underpins many physical household and child-care tasks. For example, cooking or shopping for the household requires planning meals around preferences, anticipating various needs, finding alternatives if needed and keeping track of satisfaction with meals and products.

Cognitive labour is often called the “third shift” because it’s largely mental and invisible in nature. This work is often done in the background and is dispersed throughout the day, and women in heterosexual couples tend to shoulder most of it.

As experts in organizational behaviour, we recently conducted a study that found this form of invisible labour also significantly impacts women’s workplace experiences and career outcomes, which ultimately undermines gender equity.

The hidden cost of cognitive labour

For our study, we surveyed 263 employed women and men in heterosexual relationships with employed partners across the United States and Canada. Over seven weeks from April to May 2020, participants reported weekly on the division of cognitive, household, paid and child care labour between them and their partner. They also shared their level of emotional exhaustion, turnover intentions and career resilience.

It’s worth noting that our sample was predominantly white, highly educated and included only those in heterosexual relationships, which may limit how widely these findings apply.

Our results reveal that women take on more cognitive labour than men, even when accounting for the distribution of household and paid labour. This imbalance was linked to greater emotional exhaustion, which, in turn, was associated with a higher likelihood of wanting to leave one’s job and a reduced ability to cope with workplace changes.

In addition, nearly half the participants had at least one child under the age of 18 living with them. This is notable because school and daycare closures during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased child care demands, which women took the brunt of.

We found mothers shouldered a disproportionate amount of child care compared to fathers. Child care — not cognitive labour — was the key predictor of emotional exhaustion, which again resulted in a reduced capacity to cope with their work environment.

In other words, women experienced higher amounts of emotional exhaustion and undermined work outcomes, but the driver varied. For women without children, it was an unequal division of cognitive labour. For mothers, it was unequal child-care responsibilities.

Unpaid labour doesn’t just affect mothers

Much of the research and discourse on unpaid labour tends to conflate it with child care. Yet our findings highlight that unpaid labour affects the careers of both women with and without children.

Work-life balance research and policies often focus on mothers, overlooking the fact that women without children also disproportionately experience burdens at home that can impact their careers.

Our work also contributes to a growing body of research on the work experiences of women without children, who are often rendered invisible in literature. Past research has found that mothers are more likely than their child-free peers to be granted access to flexible work arrangements. Such differences were not found for men with and without children.

This lack of focus reinforces traditional gender stereotypes of women that equate womanhood with motherhood. Our work takes initial steps to address this gap by shedding light on the experiences and challenges that women without children face in managing work and home duties.

How organizations can support all women

Our findings show that women are overburdened by their domestic responsibilities, which can harm their career outcomes and undermine gender equity. But this is not just a personal issue, but an organizational one as well. Organizations have an important role to play in supporting and retaining women in the workplace. Here are several ways they can help.

1. Offer flexible work arrangements.

Organizations can promote a more equitable division of labour within households by offering work arrangements like flexible hours and remote work. Research has shown that such arrangements encourage men to increase their participation in housework and child care.

2. Design flexible work arrangements for all employees, not just parents.

Flexible work arrangements should not be designed with only parents in mind. Women without children also benefit from flexible work arrangements, as they can lessen the strain and resulting career outcomes of cognitive labour. Offering these arrangements to men without children may also encourage them to take on a greater proportion of cognitive labour in their household.

3. Recognize that flexible work arrangements may inadvertently and unfairly benefit men.

Given that women in general take on a greater share of unpaid labour than men, they are more likely to use flexible work arrangements. In contrast, men may use the same flexibility to focus on career advancement. Research has shown that men are more likely to to use parental leave to take on more work, develop human capital or build new skills. Organizations should ensure flexible work policies are used as intended and do not inadvertently advantage men.

4. Normalize the use of flexible work arrangements.

It is not enough for organizations to only offer flexible work arrangements; they must also normalize and encourage their use. Women tend to use them more often because some men fear being viewed negatively for using them. Managers should lessen such fears by communicating that these arrangements won’t lead to penalties, and they should act as role models by using such arrangements themselves.

To better support the challenges that women are facing and promote gender equity, structural changes both within the home and at work are necessary, and organizations play an important role in advancing these changes.

Christianne Varty, researcher and business strategist, co-authored this article.

Anja Krstic’s research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Ivona Hideg’s research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Janice Yue-Yan Lam’s research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), along with Ontario Graduate Scholarships.

Winny Shen’s research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

– ref. All women — not just mothers — could benefit from more workplace flexibility – https://theconversation.com/all-women-not-just-mothers-could-benefit-from-more-workplace-flexibility-260889

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lauren McNamara, Research Scientist (Diversity and Equity in Schools), Diversity Insitute, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University

The Toronto Star recently reported on a Ministry of Education memo it obtained that asks boards for input into a new regulation that “would provide school boards with the ability to structure their school day schedules for students in kindergarten to Grade 6 (primary and junior divisions) based on local needs and to maximize student learning.”

The ministry mentions “new flexibility in the scheduling of recess and lunch — for example, schools may choose to offer one longer recess period in place of two shorter ones, while still providing a lunch break,” plus the 300 daily minutes of instructional time.

While the impact of the potential changes is unclear (especially as many boards already operate on a “balanced day model” that moved away from two recesses plus a lunch break to offer two breaks instead), the proposed changes — plus ministry concern with
maximizing student learning — warrant discussion about the significant role of recess in all schools.

Recess supports learning

As researchers who have long studied the links between school environments and children’s well-being, we know that reducing or restructuring recess time can negatively impact learning and development.

Indeed, research consistently shows that recess plays a vital role in academic success, mental health and overall well-being.

Cognitive science tells us that young children need regular breaks from focused academic work. These breaks reduce mental fatigue, improve concentration and help children return to class refreshed and ready to learn.

Simply switching from mathematics to reading isn’t enough. What’s needed are genuine pauses from cognitive effort, ideally involving unstructured play.

The power of play

Recess offers a chance for unstructured play, something children do freely and joyfully. Play isn’t just fun, it’s essential to healthy brain development. Whether they’re running, building, imagining or exploring, play activates the brain’s reward systems, releasing endorphins that enhance mood and reduce stress.

Play is so fundamental to healthy development that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has long deemed it a basic human right, and as a signatory, Canada is obligated to uphold this right.

Read more:
If in doubt, let them out — children have the right to play

It’s important to note that gym class or other structured physical activities don’t offer the same benefits. Children need time to follow their own interests, move at their own pace and interact freely with peers.

Movement, the outdoors

Kids aren’t meant to sit still all day. Recess gives them a chance to move, whether that’s running, jumping or just walking and stretching. Regular movement improves circulation, boosts energy, supports mental clarity and improves mood. Even short bursts of physical activity can help offset the long hours spent sitting in classrooms.

Time outside can have meaningful effects. Nature has a calming effect on the brain, reduces anxiety and helps with attention and emotional regulation. Green spaces and natural materials like trees, grass and fresh air offer benefits that indoor classrooms simply can’t replicate.

Socializing, mental wellness

To children, recess isn’t just a break, it’s a vital social time. It’s when they form friendships, practise conflict resolution and feel a sense of belonging. These connections support emotional development and make school a place where kids want to be.

Unfortunately, as schools focus more on maximizing instructional minutes, this social time can be undervalued. But connection and belonging are not side benefits — they are essential to academic motivation, engagement and overall student success.

Physical activity, outdoor time, free play and meaningful social interaction all work together to support mental health and overall well-being.

Read more:
On World Children’s Day, let’s recognize that children’s rights include mental health

Recess creates space for laughter, joy, relaxation and calm. Students who feel emotionally safe, happy and supported are more likely to pay attention in class, co-operate with peers and persist through academic challenges. In summary, healthy children are better learners.

Schools are more than instruction

Schools are communities where children spend much of their waking lives. They are places not only of academic growth but also social, emotional and physical development.

When schools prioritize student well-being, they are also strengthening learning outcomes. That’s why recess should not be treated as a filler or a luxury.

It’s a critical part of the school day and must be protected and well supported, not minimized.

Recommendations for recess

According to Physical and Health Education Canada’s National Position Paper on Recess, all students — from kindergarten through high school — should have regularly scheduled recess across the school day.

Children in kindergarten through Grade 2 should receive at least four 15-minute recesses daily, ideally outdoors. Children in grades 2 to 6 should have at least two 20-minute recesses, not including time spent putting on coats or lining up.

These are research-backed guidelines that support children’s full development. And, of course, the quality of recess matters, which is described further in the position paper.

The Ontario memo invites us all to revisit the role of recess in the school day. We must remember that time to play, move, connect and breathe is not a break from learning, it’s a vital part of learning.

Tracy Vaillancourt is affiliated with the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Lauren McNamara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Our kids’ recess at school is essential to well-being and learning — and shouldn’t be scaled back – https://theconversation.com/our-kids-recess-at-school-is-essential-to-well-being-and-learning-and-shouldnt-be-scaled-back-261504

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lilach Marom, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

According to Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes against Jews rose by 82 per cent in 2023.

In the months following Oct. 7, 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza, university campuses across Canada became sites of tension, protest and divisions.

Jewish students and faculty increasingly reported feeling alone, excluded and targeted.

As our research has examined, despite these urgent realities, Jewish identity and antisemitism remain largely invisible in the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) frameworks of Canadian higher education.

These frameworks are meant to address the ongoing effects of historical and structural marginalization. Emerging from the four designated categories in Canada’s Employment Equity Act, EDI policies in Canadian universities tend to centre race, Indigeneity as well as gender, with limited attention to religious affiliation.

Canadian higher education’s primary EDI focus on racism and decolonization is important, given the history of exclusion and marginalization of Black people, Indigenous Peoples and people of colour in Canada. Yet, this framing inadequately addresses the historical and ongoing antisemitism in Canada.

A cross-university study of EDI policies

To understand this oversight, we conducted a content and discourse analysis of the most recent (at the time of the study) EDI policies and Canada Research Chair EDI documents from 28 Canadian universities.

Our sample included English-speaking research universities of more than 15,000 students and a few smaller universities to ensure regional representation.

We focused on how these documents referred to Jewish identity, antisemitism and related terms, as well as how they situated these within broader EDI discourses. We found that, in most cases, antisemitism and Jewish identity were either completely absent or mentioned only superficially.

Three patterns emerged from our analysis:

1. Antisemitism is marginalized as a systemic issue: Where it appears, antisemitism is generally folded into long lists of forms of discrimination, alongside racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other “isms.” Unlike anti-Black racism or Indigenous-based racism, which often have dedicated sections and careful unpacking, antisemitism is rarely examined. While EDI policies can be performative, they still represent institutional commitment and orientation. Not specifically considering antisemitism renders it peripheral and unimportant, even though it remains a pressing issue on campuses.

2. Jewish identity is reduced to religion: When Jewishness is acknowledged in EDI frameworks, it is almost always under the category of religious affiliation, appearing as part of the demographic sections. This framing erases the ethnic and cultural dimensions of Jewish identity and peoplehood and disregards the ways in which many Canadian Jews understand themselves. The lack of understanding of Jewishness as an intersectional identity also erases the experiences of Jews of colour, LGBTQ+ Jews, and Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews.

While some Jews may identify as white, some do not, and even those who benefit from white privilege may still experience antisemitism and exclusion.

The recent scholarly study, “Jews and Israel 2024: A Survey of Canadian Attitudes and Jewish Perceptions” by sociologist Robert Brym, finds that 91 per cent of 414 Jewish respondents in the overall study believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state — a response Brym believes indicates that the respondent is a Zionist, echoing a broad definition of the term. (Three per cent of Jewish respondents opposed the view that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, and six per cent said they didn’t know).

For most Canadian Jews in the study, Brym writes, “support for the existence of a Jewish state in Israel is a central component of their identity.”

But Zionism presents a challenge for EDI for several reasons. Firstly, Zionism enters into a tension with (mis)conceptions of Jews as non-racialized people within anti-racism discourses.

Secondly, some scholars and activist movements address Zionism largely as a form of settler colonialism.

While debates over the historical sources of Zionism and their political implications are legitimate and evolving, the danger arises when debates shift to embodying and targeting Jews as individuals. Furthermore, “anti-Zionist” discourses, often amplified in student protests, risk flattening the diversity that exists under the Zionist identification.

3. Pairing antisemitism and Islamophobia: In the EDI policies we examined, antisemitism is rhetorically paired with Islamophobia: In nearly every case where antisemitism was mentioned, it was coupled with Islamophobia. This rhetorical symmetry may be driven by institutional anxiety over appearing biased or by attempts to balance political sensitivities. Yet it falsely implies that antisemitism and Islamophobia are similar or are inherently connected.

While intersectional analysis of antisemitism and Islamophobia can yield insight, this pairing functions as an avoidance mechanism and a shortcut.

Failure to name, analyze Jewish identity

The erasure of antisemitism from EDI policies affects how Jewish students and faculty experience campus life. Jews may not be marginalized in the same way as other equity-seeking groups, yet they are still deserving of protection and inclusion.

The EDI principle of listening to lived experiences cannot be applied selectivity. Jewish identity is complex, and framing it narrowly contributes to undercounting Jewish people in institutional data and EDI policies. Simplistic classifications erase differences, silence lived experiences and reinforce assimilation.

By failing to name and analyze Jewish identity and antisemitism, universities leave Jewish members of the academic community without appropriate mechanisms of support. The lack of EDI recognition reflects and reproduces the perceptions of Jews as powerful and privileged, resulting in a paradox: Jewish people are often treated as outside the bounds of EDI, even as antisemitism intensifies.

The question of Jewish connection to Israel or Zionism introduces another layer of complexity that most EDI policies avoid entirely. While criticism of Israeli state policies is not antisemitic, many Jews experience exclusion based on real or perceived Zionist identification. Universities cannot afford to ignore this dynamic, even when it proves uncomfortable or politically fraught.

What needs to change

If Canadian universities are to build truly inclusive campuses, then their EDI frameworks must evolve in both language and structure.

First, antisemitism must be recognized as a form of racism, not merely religious intolerance. This shift would reflect how antisemitism has historically operated and continues to manifest through racialized tropes, conspiracy theories and scapegoating.

Read more:
How Hitler conspiracies and other Holocaust disinformation undermine democratic institutions

Second, institutions must expand their data collection and demographic frameworks to reflect the full dimensions of Jewish identity: religious, ethnic and cultural. Without this inclusion, the understanding of Jewish identity will remain essentialized and unacknowledged.

Third, Jewish voices, including those of Jews of colour, LGBTQ+ Jews and Jews with diverse relationships to Zionism, must be included in EDI consultation processes. These perspectives are critical to understanding how antisemitism intersects with other forms of marginalization.

Fourth, the rhetorical pairing of antisemitism and Islamophobia, while perhaps intended to promote balance, should be replaced with a deep unpacking of both phenomena and their intersections.

Finally, universities must resist the urge to treat difficult conversations as too controversial to include. Complex dialogue should not be a barrier to equity work. The gaps we identified reveal how current EDI frameworks can exclude any group whose identities fall outside established categories.

In a time of polarization and disinformation, universities must model how to hold space for complexity and foster real inclusion.

Lilach Marom receives funding from Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation

Ania Switzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How to improve university EDI policies so they address Jewish identity and antisemitism – https://theconversation.com/how-to-improve-university-edi-policies-so-they-address-jewish-identity-and-antisemitism-259003