As part of the Scholars in Education series, we spoke with Ndala about his research with Black youth in francophone minority contexts and his focus on improving equity and inclusion initiatives in schools. His work is funded in part by a scholarship from the Baxter & Alma Ricard Foundation.
Tell us about your academic journey.
I left the Democratic Republic of the Congo and came to Canada as a war refugee just before starting elementary school in Montreal. I then spent all my school years in one Francophone community or another. Being uprooted instilled in me the conviction that education could give meaning to my experience and fuel my natural curiosity. After getting my bachelor’s in education from the Université de Moncton, I explored several different sides of education by working as a teacher, a manager of bilingualism training camps, and an education consultant.
Throughout my career, I’ve often been struck by how rare it is to see racialized men in education and how much good I did for some students just by being present — they looked at me and saw themselves. With immigration making classrooms more and more diverse, I felt the need to get a deeper understanding of these dynamics. This is what motivated me to pursue graduate studies at the Faculty of Education, where I’m currently a doctoral candidate. I wanted to make a significant contribution to ongoing conversations about education in a diverse society.
What is the focus of your research?
My project explores how Black students in Franco-Ontarian communities negotiate and affirm their identities. Ontario welcomes the greatest number of Black immigrants. They come from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, and their average age is generally younger than that of the rest of the population. After the surge of social justice movements following the death of George Floyd, there’s been more interest in the experiences of Black students. The Government of Ontario even announced it was incorporating new mandatory lessons on Black history in Canada into its curriculum.
That said, few studies provide up-to-date insight into the current experiences of Black youth in Franco-Ontarian communities, and on how equity and inclusion policies interact with the mandate of supporting Francophone language and culture.
I’m conducting an ethnographic case study on a student committee promoting Black diversity. This research enabled me to participate in fostering a Black Francophone space in a school, to observe and to study it. By shining a spotlight on student voices, I’m looking to understand how they self-identify within the school and how the school, in turn, shapes their identity through its dominant institutional discourses.
What was your inspiration?
My interest in issues related to co-existence in Francophone communities is rooted in my personal and professional experience. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, the inequities that marginalized groups faced during the pandemic strengthened my commitment to social justice, pushing me to get involved in several anti-racist initiatives in my faculty and my community.
The real catalyst happened at a Black History Month gala, when I attended a panel with several leading figures in education. That day, Ontario students talked about their experiences at school with a deeply moving authenticity. Their stories made the entire audience realize how much work remains to be done once the annual spotlight on Black diversity fades.
That event made me want to delve deeper into modern dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in schools, and to discern how to optimise equity and inclusion initiatives led by school boards. I wanted to make a tangible contribution and help turn those good intentions into meaningful change for those youth — and I wanted to amplify their voices in the process.
Did any surprises emerge while conducting your research?
Absolutely! I started this research project with a slightly pessimistic outlook on Francophone communities’ receptiveness to diversity, expecting there to be a superficial or tokenistic approach. What I saw in the field pleasantly surprised me: I found a real openness, not just to cultural diversity but also to wanting to understand others and everything that makes them unique.
I discovered it’s often fear — fear of saying the wrong thing, asking an awkward question or being seen as an oppressor — that holds back serious discussions on anti-racism in schools. But many people involved in education truly want to commit to these efforts.
This discovery led me to change directions somewhat in my research. I was now seeking to explore how to create safe spaces for dialogue where people could address and overcome that fear to promote authentic, transformative interactions among everyone in the school community.
Who do you hope will benefit from your work?
First and foremost, I hope the students who participated in the project have already benefited from this research by feeling heard and valued when they chose to be vulnerable — knowing this gives me a deep sense of purpose.
I hope my work will be useful to teachers who have limited knowledge about the many ethnic identities within the Black community, and who want to get a better understanding of Black youth’s experiences — especially in situations where training and workshop opportunities are limited. My research outlines promising practices I observed as a committee on Black diversity developed, evolved and thrived. This committee also benefited the broader community in a school that’s welcoming more and more Francophone immigrant students.
The insights I’ve gained can inform decision-making in education on how to integrate these kinds of spaces into the public education program in order to improve all students’ experiences. In the long term, I hope this research helps to design more inclusive and cohesive Francophone schools where every student can reach their full potential in all aspects of their identity, without having to choose between different cultural or linguistic affiliations.
Why did you choose the University of Ottawa?
One reason I chose the University of Ottawa was its dynamic campus, which I’d visited before, but the main reason was the intellectual freedom and opportunities for leadership uOttawa provided. The Faculty of Education was a perfect fit for my goals.
During my master’s, I co-founded the Groupe d’action contre le racisme anti-noir·e·s (GACRAN). This gave me the opportunity to host training workshops on anti-racism, publish teaching resources and launch Voix Amplifiées — an academic journal at the intersection of EDI and Francophone experiences in education.
These experiences broadened my education by letting me combine activism and research, and they expanded my networking opportunities. Ultimately, they provided me the skills I needed to get ready for new career challenges.
