Social Exclusion, Gender, and Access to Education in Canada: Narrative Accounts from Girls on the Street

Abstract

Based on an exploratory study of the intersection among social exclusion, gender, and access to education, this article documents interpretive insights into the social and cultural dimensions of schooling through the narrative accounts of young women and girls living in poverty and experiencing homelessness in Canada. Having recognized the challenges of the public education system to meet the varying needs of a diverse student body, the declarations of these girls shed much-needed analytic light on the multiple factors mediating the issue of access, social and economic constraints, and alienation from teaching and learning environments faced by homeless young women and girls in the educational arena. Consequently, they shift our attention away from notions of individualized failure in school to a structural and gendered critique of “access” in education, and bring into relief important questions about justice and social equality in Canada.