'We just cannot think one approach is going to fit all our students and enable them to be successful.'

After four decades as a community youth worker and sociologist, Carl E. James speaks of Canada's school system as if it were a student baffled by basic math.

"In some ways it might pay attention, but I don't think it's learning fast enough," Professor James told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed in an interview about his winning the 2022 Canada Council Killam Prize for Social Sciences.

The sociologist's latest work borrows a technique he has used throughout his career: returning to the same interview subjects across years and decades, updating their life stories and expanding his account of Canada's systemic laws in the process.

In First-Generation Student Experiences in Higher Education: Counterstories, co-authored with Leanne Taylor, James follows up with eight students who attended York University in the early 2000s by means of a special mentorship project devised by the researchers.

Read the full article on the CBC website.