The Latest Breaking News from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Gender discrimination remains a pervasive issue in the workplace. While obvious cases of discrimination against women — like sexist comments or the systematic underpayment of women — dominate headlines, there are subtler, more insidious forms of discrimination that often go unnoticed.

A class-action lawsuit was brought against the Toronto Police Service in August over the force’s historic use of street checks, known as carding. The lawsuit highlights the damaging and discriminatory impacts of carding, which has disproportionately affected Black and Indigenous youth.

In September, a major turnover in child care occurs, as preschoolers graduate to kindergarten and a new wave of preschoolers enters into early learning and care systems.

Picket lines are often the most visible feature of a labour dispute. And with the recent uptick in strike action across the country — from port workers in British Columbia to grocery chain employees in Toronto — Canadians have been more likely than usual to encounter one.

As artificial intelligence becomes mainstream, its infiltration into children’s lives is causing tremendous anxiety. The global panic around AI’s co-option of children’s play and cultures has manifested unpredictably.

In 2020, calls to defund the police echoed a longstanding argument in critical criminology in favour of police abolition.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) recently made headlines after reaching an agreement with the Ontario government to avoid the possibility of a strike in its current round of negotiations.

Nike’s advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick sparked a social media firestorm in 2018. Kaepernick, a former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, first made headlines in 2016 when he protested against police brutality by kneeling during the American national anthem.

The world is burning.

In a recent special issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), commentators demanded accountability for Canada’s COVID-19 response in the form of an independent public inquiry. If such an inquiry is held, it must examine how — and with what consequences — politicians’ pandemic messaging deflected responsibility for controversial decisions…

Wildfire affects us all. Differently. This is the central message from research about the social dimensions of climate hazards.