Research
My doctoral dissertation research project
Dissertation title: Middle and High School Teachers Investigate Care: Pedagogical and Curricular Implications
At present, scholars are examining Covid19’s effects on education, and while some research emphasizes the extra care students should receive at this time, there is scant investigation into the presence or practices of care in the professional lives of teachers. This discovery is troubling since there are reports on worsening mental health and stress in the lives of both teachers and with some calling the situation a public health concern. Given that teachers’ well-being is intrinsically connected to the well-being of students, my dissertation research explores the impact of centring a practice of care with a small community of middle and high school teachers (located in New York City and Toronto) from September 2022 to February 2023 and the effects of that practice and community on their lives, pedagogy, and curriculum.
Research projects I contribute to
Writing and Rising: A collaborative research project
Principal Investigator: Dr. Rob Simon
My role for this project is Lead Research Assistant. Since 2023, we have collaborated with Academic Upgrading students at George Brown College to engage asset-oriented, arts-based critical literacies that disrupt typical college curriculum.
I started as a Research Assistant in 2018 with a prior iteration of this project, called Addressing Injustices, in which we explored what happens when elementary students and teacher candidates work together to address social injustices through reading, writing, and art-making.
Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Doctoral Seminar, Centre for Community Partnerships,
University of Toronto
My role for this project was Co-researcher. I was selected as one of 25 doctoral students from across the University of Toronto to collaborate on research projects with community partners, explore community-engaged research methodologies, and further develop knowledge translation and exchange.
For the academic year 2023-2024, I co-researched with three other female doctoral students from the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering, and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, respectively. Together, we completed a research project for Jean Augustine Centre for Young Women's Empowerment in Toronto.
Global Youth (Digital) Citizen-Artists and their Publics: Performing for Socio-Ecological Justice
Principal Investigator: Dr. Kathleen Gallagher
My role for this project was Research Assistant. Previous projects centred Radical Hope and revealed profound connections between the practice of drama in the classroom and the capacity of youth to develop 'care' by learning in relation to one another in intellectual and embodied ways. Dr. Gallagher and her research team found that youth agency is mined relationally, and knowledge that is generated collectively is particularly significant in the cultivation of an ethics of care. The project I worked on from 2021-2023 builds on that work as it orients this ethics of care to the environmental-social nexus and explores whether the experiences of 'learning-in-relation' and deep listening that emerge in collective theatre-making can also help participants understand the mutual imbrication of the environment, society, and culture at a time of ecological and socio-political polarization.