Exploring Social Accountability in Canadian Faculties of Education

Authors

  • Carson Ouellette University of Winnipeg
  • Derek Stovin University of Winnipeg
  • Erin Cameron Northern Ontario School of Medicine University
  • Brenton Button University of Winnipeg

Abstract

The uneven distribution of teachers is bordering on a crisis as Northern and rural areas across Canada are struggling to recruit and retain certified teachers. Medicine has encountered similar difficulties recruiting and retaining people to rural practice but has developed an innovative rural workforce strategy using social accountability to guide medical training programs. Using Rourke's (2018) social accountability framework, a categorical matrix was created and applied to Faculties of Education in Canada to establish a baseline for social accountability in teacher education. Eighteen pre-service education programs were randomly selected, representing all ten provinces. Data were collected from the Faculty of Education websites from the respective universities. A content analysis was selected to retest Rourke’s (2018) framework with Canadian Faculties of Education. Results indicate that no schools in this study included rurality in mission statements, admission requirements, curricula placements, or graduate outcomes. Faculties of Education must begin to embed place-consciousness and social accountability into their structure or educational inequities will persist.

Keywords: social accountability in education; rural teacher recruitment; rural teacher retention; rural education; rural workforce shortages; retention and recruitment

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Published

2026-06-17

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2026)

Section

Research Study/Recherche

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