Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project
This project was completed on March 31, 2024. The resources developed during the project remains available on this page. To learn more about the results of the AOP Capacity Building Project, please read our final report here: SRDC Project Evaluation Report.
For a graphic summary of the project and its results please see our Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project info sheet.
About the Project
The Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project is a research initiative that investigates the improvement of the services offered to immigrants and newcomers in the settlement sector when services are offered through an anti-oppressive lens. It aims to assess the existing level of understanding of oppression in the settlement sector and build capacity by offering training and coaching on anti-oppressive practice to see how it affects the quality of the services offered.
Developing an anti-oppressive lens in our practices is becoming more of a necessity every day. More and more people are on a quest to raise their awareness and understanding of how privilege and power manifest in society. While the concept of anti-oppression is prevalent in social education, research, policy, and frontline practice, it is relatively new in the settlement sector (DeCoito & Williams, 2000).
The Training
On this project, the Tri-Cities Local Immigration Partnership is offering the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Training to strengthen service providers’ awareness, knowledge, and skills to apply anti-oppressive approaches to service delivery in the settlement sector. Sessions are open to service providers across all organizational levels in Metro Vancouver and BC.
Participants will commit to attending three workshops and two group coaching sessions and have the opportunity to participate in individual coaching sessions with the Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication. The commitment within the cohort will be for approximately three months. Participants will receive a certificate of attendance upon attending all workshops.
The Research
The Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project also involves a research component that will be carried out by Social Research & Demo Corporation (SRDC). The project aims to assess the achievement of the following:
Settlement Organizations have an increased awareness of oppression manifested in settlement and integration policies and practices.
Settlement Organizations have an increased awareness of oppression manifested in settlement and integration policies and practices. Newcomers’ level of satisfaction and their settlement outcomes are benefited from an anti-oppression approach to service delivery.
Partners deliver responsive and coordinated settlement and community services.
Developing an anti-oppressive lens in our practices is becoming more of a necessity every day. More and more people are on a quest to raise their awareness and understanding of how privilege and power manifest in society. While the concept of anti-oppression is prevalent in social education, research, policy, and frontline practice, it is relatively new in the settlement sector (DeCoito & Williams, 2000).
This project is funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and is a partnership between TCLIP, the Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication, the Social Research & Demonstration Corporation (SRDC), and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR).
Tools and Resources
Trauma-Informed Practices In Your Role
Anti-Oppression In Program Design
Approches tenant compte des traumatismes dans votre rôle
Anti-oppression dans la conception du programme
Join the Conversation
About anti-oppression:
Anti-oppression is a lens through which to look at the world. It’s a way to analyze how certain newcomers’ identities are disrespected, discriminated against, marginalized, targeted, and oppressed. There are many identities that people are marginalized along: it could be race, gender, gender identity, class, citizenship status, religion, etc. Anti-oppression looks at how resources get denied to certain communities based on what is considered a dominant or desirable identity.
Anti-oppression also studies how oppression happens to different newcomer communities, and the history of why certain groups have been marginalized, oppressed, and targeted by formal systems and programs. It also tries to understand, through the use of different stories, the ways people have been thinking about those different groups; and why entire communities are denied resources based on their membership in certain identity groups.
About the tool:
This tool was inspired by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It is an invitation for you to reflect on and to apply actions that can support your anti-oppression journey while bringing others with you to Join the Conversation.
Join the Conversation tool invites people to share what they stand by, get inspired by, and believe in. These amplified voices can be taken to the broader community and can encourage the practice of allyship.
“Allyship is not an identity—it is a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people”. People who show allyship to immigrants and refugees stand by them to help change the systems that discriminate and oppress newcomers.
Who is this tool for:
This tool was originally designed for the settlement sector as part of the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project. It can be adapted and used to engage teams, leaders, clients, families and others about anti-oppression, in group or one-to-one settings.
How to use it:
Engage the people around you by sharing the prompts on the back of the cards and encouraging them to come up with their own answers to each of the questions.
You can invite the group to discuss answers and share their own perspectives. You are welcome to add questions and prompts that are relevant to the circumstances and professional/lived experiences of the group you are with.
Join the conversation!
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Caring Spaces Guide
Foster compassion and understanding when starting a dialogue. This tool provides recommendations on how to create spaces that promote empathy and equity. As an experienced facilitator, Luna Aixin (they/them) shares their experience and knowledge on engaging diverse perspectives and facilitating difficult conversations.
Starting a dialogue, please see the Caring Spaces Guide to support you in fostering compassion and understanding.
Guide for English Language Instructors
This is a workbook for English language teachers on using Anti-oppressive practices, principles, and concepts to enhance learning experiences for students. The five modules featured in this course aim to support teachers to have a robust understanding of how anti-racism oppressive practices elevate the quality of education in inclusive, equitable, and non-oppressive ways.
Interested in applying an Anti-Oppressive Practices (AOP) lens in language teaching? Open or download our Creating Inclusive Spaces guide here.
Anti-Oppressive Practice
"Dr. Katherine Entigar is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education and Community Development in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her research and teaching focus on critical language studies, critical migration studies, feminist and queer praxis, and anti-oppressive educational practices in community-based and postsecondary settings. In this workshop, Dr. Entigar will share strategies for creating an anti-oppressive classroom environment, drawing on her expertise in inclusive and transformative education."
Module 1: Understanding Anti-Oppressive Practice Principles in Education
We will discuss:
What is Anti-Oppressive Practice? What are the principles of AOP? What key concepts are involved
How can AOP inform language teaching? What are we already doing well and what can we build into our current practice
What does AOP look like in the classroom?
Module 2: Understanding Intersectionality and Inclusion
We will discuss:
What is intersectionality? How do language, linguistic identity, and multilingualism relate to intersectionality as a framework?
What is inclusive practice in language teaching? What are we already doing well and what can we build into our current practice
How can intersectional thinking and inclusive practice enhance the learning experiences of different kinds of learners?
Module 3: Using Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT)
We will discuss:
What is cultural competence? What does it look like in the language classroom?
How can we encounter and learn from prejudice, biases, and stereotypes in our teaching and in our classrooms?
What is culturally responsive teaching (CRT)? What are its applications and potential shortfalls? How do we incorporate CRT into our teaching practices and materials? What are we already doing well and what can we build into our current practice
What is a trauma-informed approach to language teaching? Why is this important in our work?
Module 4: Creating Inclusive Learning Environments
We will discuss:
How can we continue to think about our classrooms as safe and caring learning environments? What role do we have in fostering this? What role can our students have?
How can we navigate conversations about social justice and current events in the classroom? What do we have to consider in working with different kinds of learners
How can we address biases and stereotypes in teaching materials? How can we address racism, ableism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination in our classrooms?
What can safe(r) and (more) respectful communication look like? How can this be a collaborative process we share with our students?
Module 5: Creating Equitable Learning Environments for Diverse Learners
We will discuss:
How do we identify the needs of English language learners? How do we encounter them as full people with desires and goals for their lives
How do we ensure that our teaching practice and our classrooms ensure access and inclusion for students with disabilities and a range of different ways of learning?
How can we adapt content, assessments, and teaching methods to meet our students’ goals as well as our own in teaching?
Resilience Blanket
The Resilience Blanket is a collective story of strength and the power of community. Through the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project, service providers learned about the power of strengthening confidence, empathy and community to implement an anti-oppression framework in service delivery. The Resilience Blanket can be used by service providers as a tool to promote dialogue on resilience and empowering newcomers in sharing their stories. The tool uses strengths-based and culturally appropriate approaches to foster intercultural connections. The tool includes stories, artwork and reflection questions that can be used individually and collectively in programs and services.
We encourage you to take the time to explore the stories, artwork and reflections on resilience represented in this interactive blanket.
Resources
Project Partners
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