Faculty Research

Welcome to the May 2023 issue of ‘Innovatus’

Welcome to the final issue of Innovatus for the 2022-23 academic year. As we move toward 2023-24, it’s fitting that we end the year with a focus on education, a field that promotes growth and change.

Get to know our faculty: Rachel Silver

This month's 'Get to know our faculty' profile series features assistant professor Rachel Silver whose interdisciplinary research draws insight from critical development studies; refugee and forced migration studies; and gender, feminist and women’s studies.

New project to explore anxiety among Black youth, families

The recently launched “Retooling Black Anxiety” project at York University looks to examine increased anxiety among Black youth and families who have had encounters with the criminal justice system (CJS).

In the media: How the parental rights movement resurged in response to trans inclusivity in classrooms

Jen Gilbert, an associate professor at York University, weighs in on parental rights emerging as a top issue for Republicans ahead of the 2024 elections and recent school board elections in Canada showing a similar movement is growing. "The kind of spectre of parental rights often emerges in relationship to expanding conversations about sexuality and gender in schools," said Gilbert.

In the media: Canada’s Black population faces varying job prospects despite equal education. Here’s why

Black people in Canada are just as educated as the rest of the country overall but new census data by Statistics Canada is shedding light on how cultural barriers may be driving differences in education levels between different generations in Black communities.

Get to know our faculty: Molade Osibodu

This month's 'Get to know our faculty' profile series features assistant professor Molade Osibodu whose current field of research is situated in the sub-field of critical mathematics education and seeks to serve Black (including Sub-Saharan Africans) youth in educational contexts.

Associate Professor Sarah Barrett awarded 2022 Dean’s Research Impact Award

Associate professor Sarah Barrett is the recipient of the 2022 Faculty of Education Dean’s Research Impact Award awarded annually to a tenure stream member of the Faculty of Education in the Emerging and Established scholar streams, whose sustained programs of research displayed significant impact, broadly defined and relative to their career stage.

York University funds $4.05M to support interdisciplinary research for the UN SDGs

York University will fund ground-breaking research through the Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters (CIRC) program, which aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, global research excellence and world-class training opportunities. 

In the media: How ChatGPT, other AI tools could change the way students learn

Lesley Wilton, an assistant professor of education at York University, weighs in on how artificial intelligence programs such as ChatGPT will affect learning.

The Conversation: Are ‘top scholar’ students really so remarkable — or are teachers inflating their grades?

Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, Carl E. James, writes about a recent Toronto Star investigation into grade inflation and whether it's holding top students back and setting others up to fail. James analyzed top scholar media coverage, STEM study, and teacher-student relations to understand this upward trend.