Teaching and Mentoring

I will be in the classroom again in the 2012-13 term, teaching the following courses:

* Critical Sociologies of Gender and Sexuality (SOCI 5P50)
(part of the MA in Critical Sociology)

* Contemporary Feminist Research Methods (WISE 3P91) (Women’s and Gender Studies)

Over the past fifteen years I have taught a variety of University courses, including undergraduate courses in gender, the family, masculinities, and qualitative methods and graduate courses in qualitative methodologies and feminist approaches to methodology and epistemology. I co-taught the re Sociology doctoral seminar (Sociology 6000) with Wallace Clement for three years beginning in September 2005 and also co-facilitated with Bruce Curtis and Neil Gerlach (2008-09).

My teaching philosophy is one that incorporates: participatory pedagogy; learning through building on personal experience and biography; visual technologies; the use of creative medium for grounding and exploring theoretical concepts (such as fiction and popular films); and critical thinking skills. I see myself, first and foremost, as a facilitator of students’ own personal, critical, and creative learning processes.

For excellent tips on the PhD career, please see: Les Back (2002) “Dancing and Wrestling with Scholarship: Things to do and things to avoid in a PhD Career“, Sociological Research Online, vol. 7, no. 4.

Brilliant guidance for doctoral students and junior faculty members? Visit Jo Van Every.

For ideas on thinking outside the academic box and career paths outside of academia for people with PhDs, see Jo Van Every and Escape the Ivory Tower.

STUDENTS that I have (had) the pleasure of ‘supervising’ (i.e. facilitating their academic journey):

Competed PHD Supervisions: 


• Karen Foster (Co-supervisor with Janet Siltanen): “Relating to Work: Generation, Discourse and Social Change.” Defended: December 2011.
• Mike Graydon: “(OUT)standing in Their Field: A Qualitative Study of Gays of Ottawa, 1971-1984.” Defended, September, 2011.
• Lynda Harling Stalker (Co-supervisor with Janet Siltanen): “Crafting Work: Class Analysis of Newfoundland Craftspeople.” Defended May 2006.
• Joanne Pocock (Co-supervisor with Wallace Clement): “Social Economy and the Quiet Transformation of Voluntarism in Quebec’s Aging English-speaking Communities: A Mixed Methods Study of the Eastern Townships Region.” Defended March 2009.

Current PhD students:

• Jihan Abbas: “Intellectual Disability and Care.”
• Tamy Superle: “Pleasure and Fear in the City: Women’s Mobility in Urban Public Places.” Completion Date: Spring 2012.


I also enjoy/have enjoyed being part of the scholarly journeys of the following students (as PhD Committee member): Christian Caron; Kelly Landon; Wayne Miller (Wilfred Laurier University); Lisa Smith; Susan Salhany; Dale Spencer; Sophie Tamas; Kevin Walby; Justin Mondoux. (Apologies for any forgotten names!)

Completed MA Supervisions:

• Esther Baum (MA, Sociology): “Prenatal Genetic Testing.” Defended September 2009.
• Jill Bucklaschuk (MA, Sociology): “Women Doing Gender Down on the Farm: Rural Ideology, Hard Work, and Being Less Feminine and Less Masculine.” Defended May 2007.

• Jen Budney (MA, Anthropology, co-supervised with Valda Blundell): “Hiding the Real Under the Formal: The Secret Power of Whiteness in Brazilian Contemporary Art.” Defended January 2003.

• Aimee Campeau (MA, Sociology): “Cultivating Gendered Underdeveloped Subjectivities: Tracing the Constitutions of Girlhoods within Mainstream Development Discourse.” Defended September 2006.

• Elana Finestone (MA, Sociology): “Just Trying to Avoid Doing It: Exploring Gendered Interpretations and Discussions of Sexual Assault Media Campaigns for Men on Campus.” Defended January 2011.

• Mary Ann Jenkins (MA, Canadian Studies): “An Evaluation of the LEAP Program for Single Mothers in Ontario.” Defended January 2002.

• Sarah Marceau (MA, Sociology): “The Feminist Stay-at-Home Mother: Contradiction or Utopia?” Defended September, 2000.

• Kelly McDonald (MA, Sociology, co-supervised with Janet Siltanen): “Childcare Policy and the Division of Paid and Unpaid Labour in Quebec and Canada.” Defended September 2003.

• Sylvie Polk (MA, Sociology): “Jobs on the Line: Closing Down the Smith Falls Hershey Chocolate Factory.” Defended Spring 2009.

As I was on sabbatical in 2011, I have not taken on any new students.