POLYAMOROUS TRIOS IN FAMILY LAW AND CANADIAN SCHOOLS WHAT IS NORMAL FOR STUDENTS IN TODAY’S CLASSROOM?

Abstract

"Culturally significant norms and acceptance play a role in what is considered ‘normal’ activities compared to pathology. Recent reports of domestic slavery have occurred in West Vancouver elite homes in British Columbia paralleling earlier accounts in Hong Kong where documented cases of international domestic servants have been mistreated. Confusing messages are portrayed to children with conflicting movies and stereotypes regarding sexual health and healthy work relationships. Agiliga (2013) contemplated if Black women could use BDSM as a way to regain sexual agency; while literature records poly relationships as evident in First People’s culture (TallBear, 2020) and Maori Indigenous story telling (Hutchings & Aspin, 2007). Religion is also a consideration for the acceptance of polygamy (Foster, 2010) and marital discipline (Deshotels et al. 2019); despite a 2014 court ruling in Britain, that “singled out spanking as an unacceptable BDSM activity” (Khan, 2020, p. 367) for unwedded couples. Khan (2020) notes that Family Law is a “sticky area”. In one comparison, Khan (2020) notes “The judge justified the branding of his (the husband’s) initials into his wife’s buttocks ‘because the participants were a wedded couple and the incident took place in the sanctified space of the ‘marital home’ (p. 366). This qualitative study asked stakeholders in the field of education to respond to questions regarding surveillance in schools on personal devices while at school and while using school electronic resources. Participants were asked questions related to their understanding of bring your own device (BYOD) policies at school and away from school as well as their understanding of inappropriate behaviour as it is defined by their school and school board. Various stakeholders responded to the questions from an accountability and personal responsibility perspective, noting a typology of “reporter” for each stakeholder group, noting students seldom reported on each other. Participants were further asked to reflect on their personal knowledge of privacy and personal devices through a background survey that asked stakeholders to select one or more options from a provided list (brand new, don’t know anything, still learning, feel comfortable using it in education settings, have questions, know a little, have more to learn, am an expect, help other people, other). Data collected during the study indicated surveillance is attributed to five themes: well-being, assessment, policy, security, punitive, with the majority of responses attributed to policy, security and punitive and one participant relating the use of surveillance for monitoring well-being and useful for student assessment."