What is "The Educational Divide"?

I'm developing a new undergraduate course, a required course in Laurier's Minor in Education, that is entitled "The Educational Divide." The course will be offered completely on-line starting this coming summer.

Working on the course has really made me question what exactly is the educational divide? I originally envisioned that I would examine various global aspects of the divide from the perspective of the developing world - school enrollment, literacy, facilities, poverty, etc. As I developed the syllabus and started working on the lessons I realized that I had to address local aspects of the educational divide - e.g. full access to education for English language learners, for students with exceptionalities, for our First Nations, Metis, and Inuit students, for students living in poverty, etc.

Thus, a glocal approach is developing. One in which we will look at education in the Global South AND in the Global North. One in which we will see commonalities (and differences) between and within these social constructs. Thus, the course will be comparative and international.

Over the next few days, I will address some of the issues that the course will examine and will post some of the resources and activities that I envision using. I am going to post these - 1 or 2 a day- between now and February 11 and I encourage feedback!