Education, Student Rights and the Charter

Alexander D. Gregor is director of the Centre for Higher Education
Research and Development at the University of Manitoba and the co-editor
of Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

Education has always been influenced by various external social
policies—policies that reflect goals and values that seem to have only
a tangential relationship to the core curriculum. Arguably, no other
social policy will have as significant an impact on schools—and on
virtually every other social institution in the country—as the Charter
of Rights and Freedoms. The scope and character of that influence is the
topic of this book, which provides an important and timely resource for
every stakeholder in education: teachers, administrators, students,
parents, policymakers, and the general public.

By placing the Charter in the broader international context of the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the author makes the case that
the Canadian Charter does something more than merely refine the status
quo. It is her contention that the Charter reflects a fundamentally
different (and better) way of looking at the role of education and the
nature of the school’s relationship with, and responsibility toward,
the child. Accordingly, the Charter’s overall thrust is often at odds
with the vested interests and operating philosophy of the educational
establishment. More specifically, the author addresses the topics of
human rights legislation; freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of
expression and assembly; race, gender, economic status, and sexual
orientation; disabilities; sexual harassment; search, seizure, and
detention; and corporal punishment.

The book is well documented in terms both of policy statements and
legal precedents (although the absence of a bibliography is puzzling).
The author brings impressive credentials to the analysis, given her
experience as a parent, teacher, scholar, and human rights
administrator.