Ongoing Projects
Translating and Mobilizing ‘A New Social Contract for Education:’ Illuminating and supporting teachers’ worldly and critical pedagogies (2023-2027)
Our proposed research study seeks to illuminate what teachers are already doing in the domain of making education relevant (worldly and critical) in response to calls for educational responsiveness to global crises. Our research study aims to translate and mobilize the recently published report from UNESCO (2021), Reimagining our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education, to ground research with school teachers in a shared set of notions, to include: (1) global challenges facing humanity, (2) the importance of education in shaping our collective futures, and (3) modalities by which teacher practices can be ‘transformative.’ UNESCO’s call, formulated by international experts, is exemplary in both calling for schooling to be ‘re-imagined’ and in prioritizing collaborative teacher praxes as central to this task. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant with Tarc, P., & Ng-A-Fook, N., Mishra-Tarc, A. as co-applicants. Read more…
Màwandòsewin: Gathering of the Indigenous Curriculum Specialists Network (2023-2024)
Building on three years of research collaborations between established researchers and key Indigenous players in the field of the Indigenization of higher education, the proposed event and outreach activities aim to address these two key challenges. By offering land-based teachings to ICSs, and facilitating their co-creation of resources, this knowledge mobilization (KM) initiative will consolidate their support systems and toolbox. In addition, round panel discussions on the factors deemed essential for the successful Indigenization of higher education from ICSs’ perspectives will afford curricular and pedagogical opportunities for rarely seen but much needed participatory and intersectoral dialogues between these specialists and decision and policymakers in the field of post-secondary education (Cote-Meek, S. & T. Moeke-Pickering. 2020). This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant with Vanthuyne, K., & Wiscutie-Crépeau, N., & Gauthier, G., & Macdougall, B., Ng-A-Fook, N., & Tolly, M., & Alycia, V. as co-applicants. Read more…
Addressing Racisms and Anti-Racisms in Science and Teacher Education Research (2023-2024)
The objectives of our scoping review are to: (a) identify the types of available Francophone and Anglophone research on genomics and antiracist education approaches for addressing its different concepts in teacher education and K-12 science education; (b) identify promising antiracist education strategies; (c) identify gaps in the existing teacher education research literature to propose future research directions; and (d) create an Anglophone and Francophone educational resource for science teacher educators and/or teachers to use in the classroom. Our proposed objectives respond to the themes: 1) Uncertain, divided world; 2) Identities, privileges, and opportunities, and 3) Sense making. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant and Genomics Canada Knowledge Synthesis Grant with Ng-A-Fook, N., & Ibrahim, A., & Labelle, P., & Lewis, L., & McGuire-Adams, T. as co-applicants. Read more…
Co-Curricular-Making: Honouring Indigenous Connections to Land, Culture, and the Relational Self (2020-2024)
As allies in teacher education, the team behind this project seeks to identify respectful ways for educators to decolonize pedagogies. Our community and university partners will each commit their own education-oriented resources and expertise. We seek to walk together to map
out needed curricular sensibilities, understandings, and enactment, to enhance our efforts towards reconciliation. Our goals are to articulate reciprocal curricular pathways for educators and their students; to enhance understandings of Indigenous cultures and supports related to these groups; and to mobilize local, place-based, land-based First Nations ways of knowing and being. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant with Latta, Macintyre, L., Ragoonaden, K., & Cherkowski, S., & Donald, D., & Hare, J., & Styres, S., & Ng-A-Fook, N. as co-applicants. Read more…
Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future (2019-2026)
The overall goals and objectives of the partnership are to nurture a community of interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral inquiry among academic historians, researchers based in faculties of education, Indigenous scholars, graduate students, educators in museums, archives, and historic sites, and practicing teachers to: (1) map the terrain of history education in K–12; (2) ascertain to what extent history and social studies teaching helps students engage with the key issues or problems facing Canadian society today; (3) identify and develop evidenced-based practices in history teaching, learning, assessment, and resource development, and evaluate their efficacy in providing powerful and engaging learning experiences for students, particularly in terms of building trans-systemic understanding across knowledge systems; and more. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant with Peck, C., & Gibson, L., & Ng-A-Fook, N., Mclean, L., et. al. as co-applicants. Read more…
Just because we’re small doesn’t mean we can’t stand tall: Reconciliation education in the elementary classroom (2018-2024)
This project studies the impacts of the Caring Society’s social justice-based reconciliation education campaigns on elementary teachers and students. Findings from the study will inform the creation of professional development workshops, sample lesson plans, and age-appropriate resources to help educators respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action to transform the educational system in Canada. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant with Blackstock, C., & Ng-A-Fook, N., & Shultz, L., Bennett, S., Bearhead, W. C., et. al. Read more…
Past Projects
Indigenizing PostSecondary Curricula with Indigenous Curriculum Specialists: A Pilot Collaborative Study at University of Ottawa (2021)
This project critically examines the strategies employed by the Faculty of Social Sciences’ Indigenous Curriculum Specialist (ICS) to Indigenize the FSS’s course curricula; the challenges and opportunities these strategies present for the FSS faculty, teaching assistants (TA), students, and staff; complementary approaches deployed by ICSs at other universities for Indigenizing post-secondary course curricula; and the various resources, knowledge, skills and incentives required to implement effective strategies at uOttawa and beyond. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant with Karine Vanthuyne, Geneviève Gauthier and Nicholas Ng-A-Fook as co-applicants. Read more…
Bâtir des liens : Mobiliser les histoires autochtones pour le changement social – Building Connections: Mobilizing Indigenous Histories for Social Change (2020-2021)
Bâtir des liens : Mobiliser les histoires autochtones pour le changement social | Building Connections: Mobilizing Indigenous Histories for Social Change is a two-and-one-half-day symposium exploring promising practices to support the efforts of Indigenous communities to collect, preserve and mobilize their oral and written histories, and to advance the efforts of both Indigenous and settler K-12 schools and post-secondary institutions to incorporate these histories into their history education programs. The Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies (IIRS) and the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, are organizing the symposium in collaboration with the Histoire au Canada: Perspectives des Premiers Peuples project, initiated by the Cégep de l’Outaouais, the Kiuna Institute, the Kitigan Zibi First Nation Cultural Education Centre, the Avataq Cultural Institute and La Boîte Rouge VIF. This project is supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant with Stanley, T., & Ng-A-Fook, N., & Lemay, D. as co-applicants. Read more…