‘The whole truth’: student perspectives on how Canadian teachers should teach about gender-based violence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article centres on students’ experiences and recommendations regarding how Canadian secondary schools can enhance the critical consciousness of young people about gender-based violence (GBV). We describe findings from three participatory art-based workshops with adolescents in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. When asked what they wanted teachers to know when teaching about GBV issues, participants expressed the importance of strong teacher-student and student-student relationships, approaching GBV education in ways that addresses its scope, root causes, and impact on survivors, imparting practical knowledge for GBV prevention, response, and resistance, and providing students opportunities for agency and leadership. Findings were situated within a feminist intersectional lens and indicated that adolescent girls continue to live with GBV, experiencing harassment, discrimination, and discomfort and that, for Indigenous girls, experiences of GBV were compounded by racist and colonial violence experienced in and out of school. These experiences of violence contradicted the safe and caring learning environments that participants called for.