University of Ottawa

Joel Westheimer is University Research Chair in Democracy and Education at the University of Ottawa and education columnist for CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning and Ontario Today shows. He began his education career as a summer camp director and then middle school teacher in the New York City Public School system before obtaining a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His newest critically acclaimed book is What Kind of Citizen: Educating Our Children for the Common Good (Teachers College Press, 2015). Other multiple award-winning books include Pledging Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism in America’s Schools (foreword by Howard Zinn) and Among Schoolteachers: Community, Autonomy and Ideology in Teachers’ Work. Westheimer lectures widely and has delivered more than 200 keynote speeches. He is the author of more than 75 academic and professional journal articles, book chapters, and books. He addresses radio and television audiences nationally and internationally. He is currently directing (with John Rogers, UCLA) The Inequality Project, investigating what schools in North America are teaching about economic inequality. He tweets his bi-weekly CBC Radio broadcasts at @joelwestheimer 

Université Laval

Thérèse Laferrière est professeure titulaire à l’Université Laval. Elle a poursuivi des études doctorales en éducation humaniste à l’Université de Boston où elle a obtenu le doctorat en 1978. Elle a aussi enseigné à l’Université de Montréal ainsi qu’à Assumption College et à Boston University au Massachusetts.

Elle a occupé des fonctions administratives à l’Université Laval de 1983 à 1995 : directrice du département de Psychopédagogie, vice-doyenne à l’enseignement (deux mandats de deux ans) et doyenne (deux mandats de quatre ans). Ces fonctions l’ont amenée à mieux comprendre le développement organisationnel. Elle a siégé sur nombre de comités, commissions ou assemblées où elle a démontré des qualités de membership et de leadership. Elle a conduit plusieurs projets d’innovation et produit nombre de documents en matière de gestion et de codesign pédagogique.

Profondément convaincue de la nécessité d’une synergie entre les savoirs théorique et pratique, elle forme des alliances université(s) – milieu(x). Elle contribue à la conception d’environnements d’apprentissage en réseau (communautés d’apprentissage, communauté de pratique, communautés d’élaboration de connaissances). Sous l’éclairage de la psychologie des groupes et des perspectives socioconstructivistes en sciences cognitives et à des fins de réussite scolaire et éducative, elle étudie les phénomènes qui se produisent au sein de la classe, communauté d’apprentissage. Dans son propre enseignement, elle intègre les technologies de l’information et de la communication de manière à enrichir l’expérience d’apprentissage des étudiantes et des étudiants; elle les fait participer, entre autres, à des communautés d’élaboration de connaissances. Plus d’une soixantaine d’étudiantes et d’étudiants, souvent praticiennes et praticiens de carrière, ont complété un essai, une maîtrise ou un doctorat sous sa direction. Ses écrits et ses communications verbales font largement état de préoccupations de formation professionnelle.

Depuis août 2015, elle est la chercheure principale du réseau PÉRISCOPE (Plateforme Échange, Recherche et Intervention sur la SCOlarité: Persévérance et réussitE (FRQSC, 2015-2020). Depuis janvier 2010, elle est la directrice du Centre de recherche et d’intervention sur la réussite scolaire (CRIRES). Depuis 2002, elle co-dirige le volet recherche de l’initiative École éloignée en réseau en tant que chercheure associée au Centre francophone d’informatisation des organisations (CEFRIO). Elle est aussi chercheure associée à l’Institut Technologies de l’information et Sociétés (ITIS, Université Laval) et à l’Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT, Université de Toronto) où elle participe au design de communautés d’élaboration de connaissances (knowledge building communities) et d’activités de développement professionnel qui y sont reliées. Elle fut la responsable du thème Formation des pédagogues à l’intérieur du Programme de recherche – développement TéléApprentissage, subventionné par le Programme des centres d’excellence du Canada de 1995 à 2002.

Elle a été présidente de l’Association pour la formation des maîtres de la Société canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation (SCÉÉ) et, en 2001-2002, présidente de l’Association canadienne d’éducation. Elle a coordonné le groupe d’intérêt Technologie et formation des maîtres de l’Association pour la formation des maîtres à l’intérieur de la SCÉÉ. Elle préside actuellement le comité de programme du congrès de l’International Society for Cultural-historical and Activity Research (ISCAR) qui se tiendra à Québec à l’été 2017.

University of Calgary

Patricia Danyluk grew up in northern Manitoba where she spent the early part of her career working with remote First Nations and Métis communities. Dr. Danyluk joined the Werklund School of Education in 2014 after working at Laurentian University’s School of Education for 10 years. She completed her PhD at Laurentian University, her master’s in Adult Education at St. Francis Xavier and her B.Ed. at Nipissing University. Patricia is currently the Director of Field Experience for the Community Based Bachelor of Education at Werklund. Prior to this, she worked as a Teacher, College Professor, Human Resources Consultant, and a Manager for the Manitoba Government. Dr. Danyluk’s research focuses on student teacher development specifically as it relates to the practicum. She has travelled throughout northern Canada to gather the stories of new teachers in remote, rural and Indigenous schools, and she now broadens her research in this specialized area to that of reconciliatory pedagogy.

University of Calgary

Yvonne Poitras Pratt (Métis) traces her family lineage to the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement in northeastern Alberta with ancestral involvement in the Provisional Government of 1869. As an Assistant Professor at the Werklund School of Education, Yvonne teaches graduate and undergraduate courses, and publishes in the area of decolonizing media, critical service-learning, Indigenous and reconciliatory pedagogy. In 2016, Yvonne collaborated with a group of colleagues in 2016 to develop a graduate program focused on responding to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action. She is working on a future publication entitled Educating with digital storytelling: A decolonizing journey for an Indigenous community as a contemporary example of how Indigenous communities might work to revitalize oral traditions and intergenerational learning. Yvonne was awarded the Werklund Teaching Excellence Award in 2016.

Saint Francis Xavier University

As an Associate Professor (PhD, University of Alberta) of assessment, literacy, and qualitative research methods in the Faculty of Education at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, I have had the opportunity to be involved in a variety of different research projects. My research interests are varied and intersect with my commitment to better understanding the importance of teachers and students as researchers, the influence of gendered expectations upon the professional lives of teachers, and the impact school and university collaborations can have upon local school contexts. I was first drawn to research during my graduate work at StFX (MEd), which enabled me to design a research study that attended to my experiences teaching in secondary schools in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Turkey and the importance I placed upon service learning as a way to engage youth in active socially responsive change. Next steps in my research include a continuation of my work in literacies in the content areas in culturally diverse schools, pre-service teachers and LGBTQ learners, as well as approaches to teaching and learning in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in Nova Scotia. I am hopeful that the readers of our paper, teacher educators, teachers, researchers, administrators, might view the possibilities of ongoing critical social justice education for pre-service teachers, particularly how it raises awareness about the complexities of gender in schools and the positive impact that beginning teachers can make in fostering the inclusion of transgender children and youth.

University of British Columbia

Academic institutions play a huge role in our social development. As a sociologist, I’m keenly interested in how the contexts of educational institutions influence our overall life outcomes (e.g. physical health, mental health, occupational outcomes mobility). I am currently investigating the how post-secondary institutional environments impact individual students’ mental health, by evaluating the extent to which undergraduate students’ mental well-being and service utilization are directly impacted by institutional contexts and how these institutional contexts buffer or exacerbate mental health inequalities across student groups.

In “Forms of Fighting: A Micro-Social Analysis of Bullying and In-School Violence”, I attempt to explain both the types of interpersonal violence that young people take part in at school, and whether or not the types of violence that students describe resonate with the current violence literature. In-depth interviews with secondary school students demonstrate that they have the potential to engage in many different types of interpersonal conflict while at school. I find evidence for the occurrence of four types of interpersonal violence (peer-to-peer, honour contests, intergroup fights, and scapegoating violence), similar to those outlined by Randal Collins (2008). In addition to these four types of violence, this research demonstrates that students also take part in another form of violence: retaliatory violence.

My hope is that this work helps education professionals identify different forms of violence and how the social dynamics involved in those behaviours differ. This is important for creating effective violence intervention and prevention methods.