A pedagogy in a correctional setting where learning happens through listening and sharing.

ComPaS now offers training specifically designed for educators. This program aims to strengthen teaching practices with a collaborative and inclusive learning approach.

Cost: $1,200 + tax (instead of $1,950). This reduced rate for 2026 is made possible thanks to the support of the Hull Detention Centre, the University of Ottawa, and the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Citizenship and Minorities (CIRCEM).

A french training session will be held in the Ottawa–Gatineau region from July 6 to 10, 2026, at the Hull Detention Centre and the University of Ottawa (mandatory in-person attendance).

Participants will receive a professional training certificate upon completion of the program.

The application period for the 2026 training program is now closed. If you wish to apply for the 2028 training cohort, please express your interest at: ComPaS-W2B@uOttawa.ca

Fall term: The W2B course is offered in English in the Fall term at the William E. Hay Centre, 3000 Hawthorne Road, Ottawa (Ontario) K1G 5Y3.

Spring/summer term: The ComPaS course is offered in French from May 4 to June 12 at the Hull Detention Centre, 75 St-François Street, Gatineau (Quebec) J9A 1B8.

This course is worth 6 credits and offers up to six students from the University of Ottawa and six students from a detention centre a shared learning environment in a seminar-style course. The course is delivered at the detention centre by a facilitator responsible for leading discussions on various topics and acting as a resource person for the program.

The teaching method includes various strategies such as in-class activities, readings, discussion groups, journal keeping, and the production of a group project and original reflective assignments.

The course primarily explores representations of equality and justice conveyed through popular culture, notably through the study of comic books, songs, films, or animations in relation to various theoretical texts. We will reflect, among other things, on how the notion of equality is addressed by different authors and on the ways social inequalities are treated in their works. We will examine how different forms of justice are imagined and defined in moral terms, how justice is implemented in these works, and the consequences of these implementations. We will also discuss differential access to various forms of justice by different groups, as well as the conditions required for access to equal or equitable treatment, in order to better understand the relationship between justice and injustice across various, often underexamined, social boundaries and divisions. In particular, we will explore social divisions based on race, gender, age, and social class.

Through open and honest discussion, students will begin to dismantle processes of othering and to understand how, consciously or unconsciously, we use our privileges to stigmatize certain groups by labeling them as different. This will lead us to think together about how different representations—including those from popular culture—influence our own ideas and reflections on notions of equality and justice. This course is offered as part of Walls to Bridges-Compas program.