Equity, race, and whiteness in Canadian geography

Despite the implementation of employment equity initiatives by the Canadian government in the 1980s, the level of racialized minority representation at the faculty level in geography departments at Canadian universities remains relatively unchanged. In a 2002 issue of The Canadian Geographer, Audrey Kobayashi finds geography departments in Canada employ far fewer full-time faculty members who are racialized minorities than the already disproportionately low level of representation of university faculty who identify as racialized minorities at all Canadian universities. Although the proportion of people who are racialized minorities and who hold PhDs in Canada has increased steadily over the last decade, there has been a marginal change in the proportion of faculty members in Canadian geography departments who are racialized minorities. Strides, on the other hand, have been made towards increasing the level of representation of faculty members who are women. In 1999, approximately 16.2 percent of geography faculty in Canada were women, and in 2012, approximately 28.1 percent of faculty members in Canadian geography departments were women. This article provides updated empirical data on the racialized and gendered demographics among faculty in Canadian geography departments.