Fei Wang
Educational leadership and administration; Social justice; Equity and diversity; Educational policy; Comparative education; Organization studies.
His research focuses on educational leadership and administration, social justice, educational policy, and organizational studies. Dr Wang’s research looks at the nature of school principals’ work, social in/justice in schools, principals’ leadership and administration, and equity and accountability policies.
Pierre Walter
Adult education; International and comparative education; Environmental education; Ecotourism; Informal learning; Adult literacy; Gender and development; Southeast Asian studies.
Dr. Walter’s latest research focuses on the informal learning of adults, the educational “currriculum,” and issues of gender and development in community-based ecotourism initiatives in Southeast Asia. Other research looks at environmental education in North America and the ways in which adults learn in environmental protest, the food movement, and community gardens.
Jude Walker
Adult literacy policy; Higher education reform; Student transitions; Scholarship of teaching and learning in health professions education; Comparative and international education.
Dr. Walker’s research focuses on the macro and micro aspects of adult and higher education, and seeks to identify the drivers and outcomes of educational policy, the responses and resistances to educational reform, and the factors that contribute to student learning and engagement.
Jennifer Vadeboncoeur
Youth “at risk”; Alternative schools; Flexible contexts for learning; parent involvement; Holistic education; Social class; Cultural psychology; Culture and context.
Dr. Vadeboncoeur’s research addresses youth engagement and participation in afterschool and community contexts. Young people, regardless of complicated educational histories, continue to seek out new learning experiences across a number of contexts. Her research advances our understanding of the significance of youth-adult relationships in the building of flexible contexts for learning and development, as well as the role of educators, parents, and culture in mediating youth participation.
Robert Tierney
Literacy; Global developments; Research; Evaluation; Societies and cultures.
Dr. Tierney’s scholarship has focused upon literacy education, teacher education, cross-national education, educational assessment and equity. His engagements include issues related to the nature of meaning-making especially tied to literacy research and development and extended to technology and media. His recent projects have ranged from teacher development and assessment projects in China schools to addressing matters of equity and indigenous developments in Australia to studies of scholarly tradition.
Steven Talmy
English as a second language; English language learners; Qualitative methodology; Linguistic ethnography; Classroom talk; Critical discourse research; Social interaction; Language socialization.
Dr. Talmy’s research investigates language and its constitutive relationships to power, identity, cultural production, and cultural/social reproduction in public school ESL/ELL classrooms. Specifically, he examines both constructions and consequences of the “stigma” (or undesirability) of ESL for public school English language learners. He is also interested in qualitative research in applied linguistics, primarily the interactional basis of research methods.
Michelle Stack
Educational policy; Educational leadership; Media education; University rankings.
Dr. Stack’s research focuses on educational policy, media education, media and university rankings, and how journalists and academics interact. She is committed to communicating research through peer review and engagement with media and stand up comedy. Her works aims to expand educational policy alternatives and media coverage of education to include issues of social justice and equity. Prior to coming to UBC in 2003 she worked for the BC Children’s Commission.
Robert Sparks
Mass communication; Consumer culture; Public health; Tobacco and alcohol control.
Dr. Sparks’ research interests encompass the processes of social communication in advertising and the mass media, theories and methods in audience research and reception analysis, and the political economy of tobacco and alcohol control.
Thomas Sork
Program planning; Educational planning; Professional ethics; Adult and continuing education; International engagement; International collaboration.
Dr. Sork’s research focuses on the human dynamics of planning in adult and continuing education with a particular focus on technical, social-political and ethical dimensions of practice. He has challenged conventional notions of planning, especially those based on assumptions of technical-rationality. His proposal for a “question-based approach to planning” recognizes the importance of context to the choices made by planners and that the approach used must be based on sound professional judgement.
Claudia Ruitenberg
Philosophy of education; Ethics; Political and citizenship education; Epistemology; Health professions education; Art education; Gender and queer theory.
Her scholarship raises philosophical questions about educational concepts, theories, policies, and practices. For example, Dr. Ruitenberg has examined conceptions of politics and democracy underpinning different approaches to citizenship education, and has proposed an ethic of hospitality as a guiding ethic for education. Her work spans different types of education, including K-12 schooling, teacher education and other professional programs, higher education more generally, and non-formal education.