The Faculty of Education public lecture series features leading scholars speaking about their research and scholarship on key publicly relevant issues in education and society. LEARN MORE
November 21, 2023 – Making Research Matter: Mobilizing research to impact on homelessness policy
In this talk, Associate Professor and President of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Homeless Hub at York University, Stephen Gaetz, will explore the role social innovation can have in inspiring change in the response to youth homelessness in Canada.
March 7, 2023 – Educating for Tomorrow’s Unknowns: Sustainability Front and Centre
Speaker Charles Hopkins, the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education Towards Sustainability at York University, illuminates how all levels of educators, education professionals, students and parents can become engaged and make a collective impact with global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss and rising inequalities – locally or in other parts of the world.
November 8, 2022 – Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada
Associate Professor and critical policy scholar Sue Winton, discussed how policies, such as fundraising, fees and specialized schools and programs among others, enable some kids to accumulate more advantages from public education than other children.
April 27, 2022 – Making sense of the great reading debate: A guide to the science and practice of helping all children read
The first talk of the series, titled “Making sense of the great reading debate: A guide to the science and practice of helping all children read” took place on April 27 at 7 p.m. via Zoom and was delivered by Faculty of Education Dean Rob Savage. The goal of the talk was to help stakeholders in the community navigate through the complex and sometimes contested space of early reading teaching practices. Savage reviewed the research on the role of phonics and wider oral and written language in reading acquisition and its implication for practice and policy. A key goal was to dismantle unhelpful dichotomies that have held both research and practice back and to create positions that are “research-driven” but also informed by the complexities of children and classrooms.