Who I am

What I do

I am a Professor of Education whose initial research area involved first and second language acquisition, and issues of teaching and learning second/foreign languages. I was the senior author of the French text series En français s’il vous plaît and also worked at times on contract for the Ministry of Education developing curriculum guidelines for French as a Second Language and International Languages. I have been active in the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association and was awarded a Life Membership in 2000. Before joining a faculty of education, I taught secondary school French as a Second Language and German.

I have a long-standing interest in comparative and international education, especially with regard to how globalization has affected education systems in Canada and elsewhere. I have made numerous presentations and published several articles in the area and currently am co-editing three volumes of a twelve-volume book series: Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, to be published by Springer Publications. I am co-editing volume 3, Comparative and Global Pedagogies: Equity, Access and Democracy in Education, currently in press, and have started work on Volume 5, Education and Social Stratification Globally: Comparing Education Outcomes (co-edited with McLeans Geo-JaJa), 10, Decentralisation, School-Based Management, and Quality. (co-edited with David Gammage). I co-edited with Drs. Joseph Zajda and Val Rust a special issue on Education and Social Justice of the International Review of Education, Vol. 52, 2006.  This issue includes selected articles developed from papers presented at the recent World Congress of Comparative Education Societies which took place in Havana, Cuba, October, 2004.

Currently I chair the Standing Committee for Publications of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), and as such am guest editor  with two others of the Special Issue of the International Review of Education that will feature selected papers from the 13^th World Congress of the WCCES which took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 2007. I will also be involved in editing several volumes of papers related to the four major themes of the Congress.

I have also been involved in a large SSHRC project on the History of Women Teachers in Ontario (Principal Investigator, Dr. Rebecca Coulter). My area of the study, francophone women teachers in Ontario has resulted in a number of conference presentations and several articles and chapters.

I am currently editor of the journal Canadian and International Education, and welcome articles for consideration on topics related to Canadian, Comparative and International Education.