��ǰ���Molade Osibodu, creating what she calls “liberatory futures” begins in the mathematics classroom.

An associate professor of math education at �첥��Ƶ’s Faculty of Education, Osibodu focuses her research on how Black students experience math and how education systems can better support equity.

“I want Black learners who enter a mathematics classroom to be fully, completely themselves instead of feeling like they don’t belong,” says Osibodu, who is keenly aware of the persistent and unfounded stereotypes about Black learners’ abilities in math – and how those beliefs intersect with Canada’s colonial legacy and history of immigration.

Osibodu’s teaching experience across three continents has fuelled her interest in and passion for addressing challenges faced by Black students in Canada. Before joining York, she taught secondary school mathematics in South Africa and later taught mathematics and mathematics education courses in the U.S. and Canada. Her research has since documented a range of obstacles faced by Black students in Canadian classrooms.

“It’s impossible to look at course syllabi without realizing that it’s important for equity to be at the core of the teaching practice,” she says. “My ultimate goal is to create math education where Black learners are thriving.”

A key aspect of her work is understanding how Black students experience math, which, in Canada, requires knowledge of the population’s demography. As her colleague Carl James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at �첥��Ƶ, has long emphasized, the Canadian Black community is diverse – including descendants who arrived via the Underground Railroad, families who immigrated from the Caribbean decades ago and more recent immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa – leading to a variety of educational experiences.

Read the full article in the April 10, 2026 issue of Yfile

With files from Elaine Smith

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�첥��Ƶ Faculty of Education Professor Lisa Farley and her research colleagues have developed a reflection guide for museum educators to support their efforts to discuss challenging topics and ideas with children.

The guide builds on the team’s 2025 study of programming and practices at children’s museums in Canada and the United States.

Farley says museum educators are navigating increasingly constrained environments when addressing equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion with young audiences. Often, the idea of “childhood innocence” is cited as a reason to censor or downplay controversial and challenging ideas.

At the same time, Farley says, "children live within the social and political world, and are themselves subjects of and/or witnesses to injustices, violences and inequities."

She adds that the question then becomes "not how to protect them from difficult knowledge, but what it can mean to facilitate meaningful engagements.”

Farley and her colleagues, including York’s Gillian Parekh, associate professor of education and doctoral candidate Suad Ahmed, conducted the original study in partnership with the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM). Their research found that while many children’s museums focus on exploration, play or self-expression, addressing social and historical issues with young audiences were secondary.

Read the full article in the Friday, March 27, 2026 issue of Yfile

Article written by Elaine Smith, special contributing writer

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A new study led by Natalia Balyasnikova, associate professor in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, is calling for a shift in how healthy aging is understood globally.

Published in the , the study responds to the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing, an international framework aimed at improving the lives of older adults through age-friendly environments, better care systems and efforts to combat ageism. While these priorities are important, Balyasnikova and her co-authors – all co-conveners of the Educational Gerontology Special Interest Group at the British Society of Gerontology – felt it reflected a recurring gap

“Across global health and aging policy frameworks, learning is largely absent or treated as peripheral,” she says. “We wanted to examine this omission more systematically and, importantly, to offer examples that demonstrate how participation in learning environments contributes to healthy aging and well-being.”

To do so, the researchers turned to three real-world learning initiatives in Canada and the U.K. – projects they helped design, lead or facilitate. This first-hand involvement allowed them to analyze participant experiences in depth, rather than observe programs from a distance.

In Canada, older immigrants participated in the Seniors Storytelling Club, a 10‑session, arts-based language-learning program where learners created oral, written and multimodal stories while building community with peers. In the U.K., the team examined two initiatives: a one-day intergenerational co-creation workshop that used movement, drawing and collaborative activities to explore sustainability; and the Ageing Well Public Talks, an ongoing public education series launched in 2019 that has reached more than 90,000 participants worldwide.

Read the full article in the March 20, 2026 issue of Yfile

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Carl E. James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora in �첥��Ƶ’s Faculty of Education, brings his expertise to a four-year Genome Canada research project focused on Canada’s Black population.

Genomic Evidence for Precision Medicine for Selected Chronic Diseases Among Black Peoples in Canada – developed through collaboration with the Centre for Applied Genomics, at SickKids Hospital and McGill Genome Centre – is an effort to sequence the genomes of 10,000 Black Canadians to ensure equitable health care for an often-understudied population.

By sequencing the nucleotides that make up the participants’ DNA and RNA, researchers will gain a better understanding of how diseases affect Canada’s Black population and develop better precision medicines to target their conditions.

“We need to encourage these approaches for research, since medical studies often miss the racial diversity of health care recipients,” says James, a renowned sociologist with a research focus on race and ethnic relations. “In fact, we need to understand differences in all populations.”

The study is led by four prominent medical researchers: Upton Allen, division head at SickKids Hospital’s Infectious Diseases and professor at the University of Toronto; Loydie Jerome-Majewska, McGill University Department of Pediatrics professor and co-founder/program lead for the Canadian Black Scientists’ Network (CSBN); Juliet Daniel, McMaster University cell biologist and cancer researcher; and OmiSoore Dryden, professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University.

Read the full article in the February 25, 2026 issue of Yfile

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Growing up in Scarborough, Stephanie Fearon was raised in a community with a rich tradition of Black matriarchal storytelling.

Through oration, folk tales, music, dance and even cooking, mothers have continued to impart cultural knowledge across generations.

It’s no surprise then, that as the inaugural assistant professor of Black thriving and education at �첥��Ƶ, Fearon wanted to explore the ways Black mothers come together with their children to cultivate leadership and literacy skills within education systems and beyond.

Inspired by her grandmother and grandaunts, who came to Canada from Jamaica in the 1960s with limited access to educational opportunities, Fearon’s research studies how Black mothers use storytelling in community-based literacy programs. 

With an understanding of the barriers these women face in academic research spaces, Fearon was careful to develop a collaborative approach where Black mothers feel valued.

“They’ve complained, lamented, about the extractive nature of the research process,” she says. “And when we look at the histories and the current relationships between researchers in academia and Black communities, it's not positive.”

Fearon centres Black mothers as partners in the research process, grounding her work in respect and co-creation. To honour the cultural significance of storytelling, she uses an arts-informed approach that allows her to reimagine educational research as collaborative and cultural.

Read the full article in the February 6, 2026 issue of Yfile

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Carl James holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora in the Faculty of Education and Distinguished Research Professor at �첥��Ƶ. His work focuses on how social systems shape the educational experiences and outcomes of Black and other racialized youth — and how those systems can be transformed. Through research, advocacy, public scholarship, and policy advising, he works in close collaboration with his community to advance more equitable education systems designed for all students to succeed.

Seeing youth success beyond the classroom

In his first summer after entering university, Carl began working as a youth worker in downtown Toronto, where he saw firsthand how young people’s lives beyond school — family responsibilities, housing conditions, and economic realities — shaped their educational paths and future opportunities.

He initially turned to social psychology to understand what motivates students, particularly Black students, to succeed. Over time, however, he realized that success could not be understood in isolation. Family, community, and the school system itself play a critical role in shaping outcomes. This realization led him to sociology — a discipline that allowed him to keep community at the centre of his work.

One early interaction continues to shape his approach. A fellow student once challenged him by asking, “What is sociology actually going to do for us?” That question sharpened Carl’s commitment to ensuring that research does more than describe inequity — it helps to change it.

Rather than placing responsibility solely on students to “work harder,” Carl argues that meaningful equity requires society to work harder — by addressing the structural barriers that limit opportunities outside of the classroom.

COVID-19 as a lens on inequity

In 2021, Carl became Co-Chair of the . The role built on his long-standing research into education and inequity and offered a stark reminder of how crises expose and deepen existing disparities.

His findings were clear. Black and other racialized students were disproportionately affected by the pandemic — not because of individual choices, but because of the social and economic conditions shaping their lives.

Many lived in high-density housing, relied on public transportation, and had parents working in frontline jobs that could not move online. These realities increased exposure to the virus while reinforcing harmful narratives that framed racialized communities as inherently “high-risk,” rather than structurally vulnerable.

School closures further strained families. Parents were suddenly expected to support learning at home while juggling work, caregiving responsibilities, and financial stress. The loss of school-based food programs increased food insecurity, while limited access to computers and reliable internet left some students disconnected from school altogether — raising the risk of disengagement and dropout.

At the postsecondary level, the effects carried forward. Many students entered university already feeling behind. Remote learning limited opportunities to build relationships, access support, and develop a sense of belonging. Some delayed or withdrew from their studies entirely, compounding financial pressures on themselves and their families.

As Carl emphasizes, COVID-19 revealed how racism intersects with class, language, gender, and immigration status — and how the consequences of disruption extend well beyond the height of the pandemic.

“COVID-19 highlighted that racism is not just simply racism.”

The inequalities shaping the lives of Black and other racialized youth existed long before the pandemic. COVID-19 simply made them more visible — and more severe.

When recommendations meet resistant systems

As part of the task force, Carl authored Racial Inequity, COVID-19 and the Education of Black and Other Marginalized Students, which outlines nine recommendations for addressing educational inequities. These include reforming education policy, strengthening partnerships between schools and community organizations, engaging parents without shifting teaching responsibilities onto them, improving curriculum accessibility, collecting and using data to advance equity, and better preparing educators to support student well-being.

Yet Carl is realistic about the limits of recommendations when systems themselves resist change.

“We can always make recommendations, but if the system is not ready for that big change — if those systemic issues are not dealt with — then the recommendations become just simply that: recommendations.”

Although COVID-19 has faded from everyday conversation, its effects continue to shape students’ educational and career paths. As Carl notes, we must continue to take into account the long-term impacts of the pandemic and the ongoing role of racism in shaping young people’s trajectories.

Black History Month — and the importance of systems

For Carl, Black History Month is not only about commemoration — it is an opportunity to examine the systems that shape present-day realities. He emphasizes the importance of understanding Canada’s racial history, including colonialism, the experiences of Indigenous peoples, and the fact that Black people are not recent immigrants, but were originally brought to Canada through enslavement, not immigration.

These histories are not peripheral. They are central to understanding how race operates in Canadian institutions today, including schools.

“We need to think of the social, political, and cultural situation of Black people beyond just a month — and beyond just Black people. If we’re thinking of Black people, we should also be thinking of other racialized groups, and how race operates more widely in our society.”

A path toward change

When asked to describe his work in one word, Carl offers two — change and path. Change speaks to the possibility of transformation. Path speaks to movement — how people navigate shifting conditions that shape opportunities, risks, and possibilities over time.

“People are constantly moving and travelling. You can be travelling along a path, but the weather might change — it might be icy and –10 degrees, or it might be sunny and warm. What matters is that we pay attention to these changes and adapt as we continue to walk our paths.”

Carl’s work makes one thing clear — to understand the path, we must understand the systems that shape it. And for real change to occur, those systems must be ready to change as well.

“How we deal with change is important — but so is paying attention to the context of that change.”

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A  led by �첥��Ƶ follows Class of '73 high school graduates over the span of five decades in The Story of a Generation, a book that offers powerful insights on the baby boomer generation.

Culminating in a new book titled , the research marks the longest-running Canadian generational study of its kind, following nearly 50 years in the lives of a cohort of high school students who graduated in 1973. 

The project originated with Paul Anisef, professor emeritus at York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies who began with a survey of high school students to help the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities understand and project post-secondary enrolment.

“I didn’t have in my mind at all that this would become a long-standing longitudinal study,” says Anisef. “It started as a ministry-sponsored survey of high school students, and one thing led to another.” 

Encouraged by colleagues after the initial survey, Anisef returned repeatedly to the same group of students – just under 2,500 members of the class of 1973 – surveying and interviewing them in seven waves, from adolescence through midlife and into their early to mid-'60s. 

The final phase, conducted between 2019 and 2021, captured their reflections as many approached retirement, offering a rare, lifespan perspective on Canadians. 

The newly released book is co-authored along with York Faculty of Education professors Paul Axelrod and Carl James, as well as York PhD student Erika McDonald, and includes contributions from Wolfgang Lehmann, Karen Robson and Erica Fae Thomson. It’s a follow-up to an earlier volume, Opportunity and Uncertainty: Life Course Experiences of the Class of ’73 (2000). 

Read the full story in the January 16, 2026 issue of Yfile

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Sankofa Square, formerly known as Yonge-Dundas, is finally ready to celebrate its new identity. 

Thousands of people are expected to flood downtown Toronto for the inaugural event at the rebranded public space Saturday. The celebration commemorates Sankofa Day, a date recognized internationally by the United Nations in remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition.

Carl James, �첥��Ƶ professor and the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, said the renaming of the square acknowledges Canada’s “colonial baggage” — a positive development that he hopes contributes to a shift in thinking among broader Canadian society.

“It’s a good first step,” he said. “Now, what do we do further?”

He noted that the conversations in 2020 that spurred the name change are a signal of what can happen “when we start paying attention.”

Read the full article in the .

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How can young people learn from their experiences and reshape who they are in a digital world that never forgets? 

That question will guide �첥��Ƶ education scholar Mario Di Paolantonio’s research as a  York Massey Fellow at the University of Toronto for the 2025-26 academic year. 

The fellowship, awarded to full-time York faculty members on sabbatical or other leave, provides access to dedicated office space, library resources and full participation in the academic and social life of the college. Fellows hold the title “York Fellow of Massey College” for life or while mutually agreeable. 

A professor in the Faculty of Education, Di Paolantonio will use the fellowship to advance research that builds on his 2023 book, Education and Democracy at the End. His work explores how digital technologies – particularly those that preserve personal data indefinitely – affect youth development and their ability to engage with education as a transformative process. 

During his sabbatical, he will study how creative and thoughtful activities – like making art, exploring culture and asking big questions – can help young people take back control of their lives, push back against the influence of digital technology and learn how to grow and change in positive ways. 

“Young people today are growing up in a digital environment where their past is always present,” says Mario Di Paolantonio. “This fellowship gives me the opportunity to explore how we can create space for reflection and renewal – where youth can learn to interpret their experiences differently and imagine new ways of being in the world.” 

His research also explores how societies deal with past injustices in two interrelated streams. One research focus looks at how memorials, art and legal systems help communities learn from history, especially in countries that have experienced dictatorship. Another examines how the rise of digital systems and data-driven decision-making can weaken public trust and make it harder for people to connect and work together. 

Di Paolantonio’s scholarship and published work cover topics such as education, curriculum, politics, law, memory and the arts. He is also an international research associate at the Centro de Estudios en Pedagogías Contemporáneas and the Escuela de Humanidades at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín in Buenos Aires. 

Massey College is an independent academic community located at the University of Toronto. Its membership includes graduate students, faculty, journalism fellows, visiting scholars and leaders from various sectors. The college fosters interdisciplinary exchange and academic enrichment across disciplines and institutions.  

“It is a valuable opportunity to join a community that brings together scholars from many fields and institutions,” says Di Paolantonio. “Being part of that environment will support deeper thinking about the challenges facing education today and help connect my research to wider conversations about democracy, technology and youth.” 

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(Published on The Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research Blog, July 8th, 2025)

Following the sixth annual Critical Perspective for Global Health Research (CPGH) workshop in April, the CPGH Steering Committee is delighted to announce that the following York researchers have been awarded this year’s $7,000 seed grants to initiate novel and innovative ideas that take a critical social science approach to global health research:

Rachel Silver

Reconfigurations and Refusals: Forging Futures Beyond Aid in Malawi

In March 2025, President Trump shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), cutting more than $40 billions of dollars of promised funding. In Malawi, the U.S. alone contributed over 13% of the country’s overall 2024/2025 budget. While aid can meaningfully impact lives, the global aid architecture—the organizations, funding mechanisms, policies, and programs that scaffold development activities worldwide—is deeply flawed, often reproducing power hierarchies rooted in colonial histories and relationships. This pilot study conducted by a transnational research team (1) considers if and how aid cuts might catalyze decolonization of Malawi’s education and health sectors and (2) begins to reimagine possibilities for humanitarian engagement. Our project centers how local development workers theorize alternative arrangements for education within highly inequitable systems. Situated between international funders and community-based recipients, Malawian policymakers, NGO staff-members, and fieldworkers are uniquely positioned to reconceptualize aid mechanisms and forge new resourcing futures. 

Fawzia Gibson-Fall

Researching the Role of Security Actors in Global Health

This project examines the expanding role of security actors in global health at a time of intensifying global crises and shrinking aid budgets. Using qualitative methods such as interviews, archival and media analysis, the study explores the historical, everyday, and geopolitical dimensions of this engagement. It offers timely insights into the health-security nexus and informs future global health governance. The programme of work includes a field visit to Senegal and four in-person workshops: a policy workshop at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, three research expansion meetings in Canada and the United Kingdom, linking colleagues at King’s College London and �첥��Ƶ. These activities are designed to co-develop policy tools, build networks, and advance this research agenda. Key outputs include visual material for an upcoming scholarly book, Health Warriors: The Global Politics of Military Health in Africa (Johns Hopkins University Press), peer-reviewed articles, and the development of international grant proposals.

The purpose of the CPGH Seed Grants is to support �첥��Ƶ–based critical social science perspectives in global health research that contribute to the research themes of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research: planetary health; global health and humanitarianism; and global health foresighting. The Seed Grants are also meant to encourage faculty to develop fuller grant proposals for Fall Tri-Council and other grant deadlines. Recipients will present the progress of their research at next year’s Critical Social Science Perspectives in Global Health Research Workshop. 

The Dahdaleh Institute and the CPGH Steering Committee would like to thank all the applicants this year and congratulate the 2025 CPGH Seed Grant recipients. 

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