Research Projects
Research is an integral part of the Social Justice Education community. A central aspect of each of our programs, Social Justice Education provides students with the tools necessary to contribute meaningfully to their area of study. With innovative research projects and accesss to innovative research centres, our students and Faculty engage in research in exciting and meaningful ways.
For generations, Black youth – and in particular Black male youth – have experienced significant challenges in mainstream school systems. Researchers have documented the many difficulties, obstacles,and challenges that Black youth students must navigate when attempting to access education(McCready, 2012; Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Dei, 1996, James, 2012). Colonization and different forms of ‘push out’ (Dei, 1996) – in particular anti-Black racism – pervade the everyday lives of Black students.COVID-19 has exacerbated matters: the pandemic has the potential to derail the educational development of Black students (Price, 2020). Additionally, for the last two decades, most research has focused on female students. Samuel noted, “As a college education becomes increasingly important in today’s economy, it’s girls, not boys, who are succeeding in school” (2017, p. 1). Where are the boys? Scholars have been aware of the ‘boy crisis’ – in which boys are at a disadvantage and underperforming in schooling and education –since the 1990s (Sadowski, 2010; Hussain & Milliment, 2009; Orr, 2011; McCready, 2012; Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Dunne & Ananga, 2013). Considerable research has focused on gender and sex differences as contributing to this disparity in performance. Boys have been framed as emotionally disconnected, lacking interest and attention in education (Sadowski, 2010), and underperforming in ‘feminized’ and gendered schooling (Clarke, 2005; Jha, Menon & Chatterjee, 2017; Vantieghem, Vermeersch & Van Houtte, 2014, Goldberg and Bruno, 1999; Telson, 2019; Chege & Sifuna, 2006). Some scholars have argued that economic opportunities and responsibilities have pushed boys out of schools (Kipusi, 2019, Muthaa, 2020), while others have focused more on the effects of militarism, violence, and incarceration (Makori, 2014).
Beyond the sensationalized, essentialized, and Western hegemonic focus on the ‘boy crisis,’ little research has focused on the experiences of male youth and how their schooling and education experiences are affected by race, ethnicity, and class (Martin, 2008 as cited in McCready, 2012), as well as other factors including imperialism, diaspora/migration, displacement, and capitalism that involve diverse and multiple experiences of masculinities and needs in school-aged boys (Imms, 2000 as cited in McCready, 2007; Dumas & Nelson; Bristol, 2015). The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely have inequitable effects on students as a result of factors such as social class – and these effects are likely to be long-lasting, in particular for Black boys (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020).
The proposed study will explore the educational experiences and narratives of Black male youth (aged 21–35; hereafter Black boys) in schools in Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and the factors that affect disengagement/’push out’ from education. It is crucial to understand and overcome these challenges, and these findings will inform global strategies to improve the schooling experiences of Black males. The overall goal of this research is to clarify how Black male youths experience schooling in Canada, Jamaica, and Kenya, and specifically the effects of colonization on their schooling. It will also explore the strategies used by Black boys to overcome the challenges facing them in schools and society, which may be leveraged on a larger scale to improve the experiences – and achievements – of Black boys in schools.
Over the past few years, we have seen renewed efforts to “decolonize.” From the toppling of statues to the revision of disciplinary canons, much of the focus has been on overturning colonial residues in our cultural and epistemological landscapes. Theory from the Trenches offers a radically different vision of decolonization — one driven not by bureaucrats, professors or social media activists but by peasants, a vision that was at once global and local, dedicated equally to decolonizing the less visible structures of political economy as it was to fighting epistemic battles.
The project focuses on the stories of landless peasants in Pakistan who, in the 1970s, joined the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP), the country’s historically largest communist party. While the MKP supported peasants in occupying colonially-established estates, it also enrolled them into a global communist movement that extended from Oakland to Saigon, a movement that believed revolutionary theorizing was essential to revolution. While some peasants retheorized Euro-centric Marxisms to incorporate Sufi Islam, others developed theories of communist belonging or comradeship inspired by tribal relations. I conceptualize these peasant experiments in theory-making as trench theory, with the trench metaphor flagging a mode of subterranean theorizing geared toward political combat. Ultimately, the project illustrates how peasants — a group derided even by Marx as provincial and practically-oriented — emerged as activists and theorists on a world scale.
Dr. Todorova’s current international research evaluates critical concepts and theories related to justice, redistribution, gender equity, decolonization, race, and violence against data collected in both former socialist and present capitalist states and economies. Her interest in such evaluations has shifted her focus on sexual and domestic violence from women victims to men perpetrators, as well as nonviolent masculinities. Todorova currently collects data on male motivational beliefs, educational preferences, and related emotions to support the construction of potent men-centered pedagogies that engage boys and men in gender justice and antiviolence education. Her recent research in this area is communicated in a new book entitled Postsocialism as a Method: Emotional Aspects and Interdisciplinary Applications, two forthcoming journal articles, as well as a broadcast in the spring of 2024
- Tackling Systemic Anti-Black Racism in Canada through the Means of Transmigration: The Experiences of the Second Generation Black Canadians. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grants. 2022-2025. (Principal Investigator)
- Black Creole Francophone Identities in Louisiana, US. 2022-2025. Principal Investigator
- Partnership for Research with African Newcomers (PRAN). 2021-2026. (Co-applicant)
