The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a drastic transformation to schooling for students throughout the world. During this period, a number of issues arose in our local, national and global communities, including the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests and rallies organised by #BlackLivesMatter. Living through and witnessing many social issues, coupled with the new and enduring pandemic, furthered our understandings of how young people were engaging with these topics without the structures of schools to support them. This article presents the results of a case study where youth aged 15–17 years shared their experiences and understandings about many social justice issues they were observing. The most significant learning around these issues for youth occurred informally through social media as opposed to in the classroom, reinforcing that schools are not ethical spaces from which to challenge institutional, structural and systemic barriers to justice. As such, this article discusses the potential for formal education to be transformed into an ethical and decolonising space to learn about and challenge injustice.

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While Canadian public schools do not charge students tuition the same way post-secondary institutions do, we are increasingly seeing neoliberal pressures contribute to a lucrative market for tuition-based international students in K-12 education similar to higher education. This study focuses on how neoliberalization is shaping and contributing to the international recruitment policyscape in Ontario’s K-12 education system. Theoretically informed by neoliberalism and anti-colonialism, this paper examines the case study of international student programming in Ontario (and Canada’s) largest school board, the Toronto District School Board. Using “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?”  as a methodological approach, we conducted a policy analysis of various documents published by the board with respect to their international student program. Our analysis shows how overarching neoliberal pressures imposed by provincial governments contribute to the creation and maintenance of this particular policyscape, along with a discussion of how this impacts public education in Ontario.