With more Toronto families living in towering condos, the Toronto District School Board is planning to build schools to serve them. The board is taking the province up on its call for "podium" schools, which are integrated into a development project and situated at the base, or podium, of a residential building, for example. 

According to the Ford government, other "innovative" ways to build schools would include having schools co-located with child-care centres, municipal buildings and commercial developments. For the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), a "podium" school is on its list of submissions for the latest round of capital priorities, according to Ryan Glenn, CEO of the Toronto Lands Corporation (TLC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the board. 

Sue Winton, a professor with �첥��Ƶ's education faculty, said she thinks there are things school boards and the province should pay attention to when locating schools within buildings that aren't publicly owned. This includes who makes the decisions about how and when the building is used, and under what terms.

"So how is that space made available to the community after school?" Winton said, adding that she would encourage schools to be accessible to community groups at affordable rates.

Winton said another question is who is responsible for maintenance if a school is located within a private residential building, for example.

"Who's in charge? Who's making the decisions, on whose timeline? Are those contractors that are coming into the space — have they met the sort of safety requirements that anybody working in a school would have to follow?" she said.

"So it's not to say it could never work, but just (to) suggest that these are very practical differences," Winton said. "If it's a business, they have a profit goal ... but a public organization has different priorities. Their priorities need to be accessibility, inclusion."

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Join Dr. Sue Winton, Professor, Faculty of Education and York Research Chair in Policy Analysis for Democracy on Sept. 4 for Scholars’ Hub where she will highlight policies that are privatizing public education across the country. She will also show how these policies shift responsibilities to the private sector, reproduce patterns of social inequality, and undermine democracy.

Click to register

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The Public Education Exchange (PEX) is a collaborative effort led by six key partners: �첥��Ƶ, the University of Windsor, the University of Manitoba, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, and the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives. Supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant, the PEX is dedicated to three primary objectives.

1. Building a Pan-Canadian Network: Cultivating a network of researchers, advocates, and concerned individuals to foster connections, exchange knowledge, and address apprehensions about the privatization of public education
2. Public Engagement: Facilitating critical conversations about education privatization by creating opportunities for the public to share insights and information
3. Research: Investigating the influence of emergencies and protracted crises, with a specific focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, on education privatization

Beyond the integral six partner organizations, PEX is further driven by a team of researchers, including graduate students, who are dedicated to strengthening public education and exploring policy changes related to privatization initiatives across Canada. The project's will serve as the online hub for the network and feature information and resources.

Sue Winton, the York Research Chair in Policy Analysis for Democracy and a professor in �첥��Ƶ’s Faculty of Education, leads the PEX as project director with a wealth of expertise. Winton emphasizes the need to connect researchers, advocates, policymakers, and the public to foster dialogue and knowledge exchange. Drawing from her extensive background, which includes authoring "Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada" (University of Toronto Press), her research critically examines policy advocacy, influences, and enactment. Winton envisions the PEX as more than just a website; it is a dynamic network of individuals engaging through online webinars, in-person meetings, and community-based dialogues.

Winton explains that the PEX advocates for a robust public education system that prioritizes collective benefits over individual gains. "We believe in highlighting the successes and potentials of public education while pointing out the potential damage caused by privatization policies," she says. The focus is on fostering a system that embodies equity, reflects democratic values, and prioritizes the collective well-being of society.

Privatization in and of public education is a multifaceted phenomenon that involves a shift in responsibilities from the government and the public to private actors, Winton notes. Such actors can include parents, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. Funding changes and alterations in the delivery of education that rely on private actors as well as a shift towards viewing public education as primarily a private good all broadly reflect privatization.

The inception of the PEX was not triggered by a single event, but rather by a culmination of concerns and experiences related to privatization in education. Winton's background as a policy researcher and her studies of school fundraising sparked her interest in understanding the impacts of policies that privatize public education. "The decision to pursue the PEX came from the challenges I faced accessing research on education privatization across Canada and concerns about the possibility for accelerated privatization during the COVID-19 pandemic," she explains.

The PEX secured funding from a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant in the spring of 2023, moving the project forward from a plan to a reality. The initiative is still in its early stages, with plans to build a network of collaborators, researchers, and advocates across the country.

PEX’s central aim is to engage researchers, policymakers, and the public. The initiative seeks to make research more easily available, provide policymakers with valuable insights, and involve the public in discussions about the future of public education. "It's about making information accessible to everyone and creating spaces for meaningful conversations," Winton asserts. “A challenge lies in addressing the diverse needs of these audiences and tailoring resources and events to different groups.”

As the PEX gains momentum, it recognizes the nuanced nature of education. Winton highlights that education decisions, including curriculum, policies, and funding, are deeply connected to underlying values and visions for society. "Education is shaped by various perspectives; it's a dynamic process," she notes. The PEX values diverse viewpoints and seeks to initiate inclusive conversations about how privatization impacts different groups within society. The project welcomes input from all corners, aiming for collaborative discussions that enrich understanding of the complexities surrounding education.

In addressing such diverse viewpoints, Winton acknowledges the existence of competing ideas about what is in the best interest of individuals and groups. "There are different perspectives on what's best for education," she says. “The PEX aims to offer challenges and questions to foster dialogue rather than a confrontational approach.” Winton emphasizes the importance of remaining open to different perspectives while critically examining who benefits and who loses in the context of privatization policies.

"I truly believe that by coming together and sharing our insights we can shape a future where public education remains a cornerstone of our democratic society,” she says.

Join the conversation by visiting the– your participation contributes to the realization of a resilient and inclusive public education system.

Article by Dennis Bayazitov special contributing writer.

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“The York Research Chair program is an important complement to the Canada Research Chair program to advance our efforts to strengthen research and related creative activities across the University and enhance the well-being of the communities we serve,” says President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton. “My warm congratulations to the newest recipients on this achievement.”

This year’s YRCs are the 10th cohort to be appointed as of July 1 since the program was first launched by the Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation in 2015.

“These new chair appointments are the latest example of research intensification at �첥��Ƶ, a major priority of our new Strategic Research Plan,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “York Research Chairs receive institutional support that is on par with what their counterparts are provided by the national program. This internal program advances research excellence at York and enhances the research capabilities of our faculty to create positive change.”  

The new YRCs will conduct research in a variety of fields that range from human and computer vision to children’s musical cultures to the impacts of climate change on lakes.

The YRC program consists of two tiers. Tier 1 is open to established research leaders at the rank of full professor. Tier 2 is aimed at emerging research leaders within 15 years of their first academic appointment. The Chairs have five-year terms.

Tier 1 York Research Chairs

Robert Allison, Lassonde School of Engineering
York Research Chair in Stereoscopic Vision and Depth Perception
Allison’s work as a YRC will study human aspects of virtual and augmented reality. His research program asks: how do we share a common space that is partially or completely virtual? The research results will allow designers to determine whether collaborative experiences and applications are likely to be coherent, consistent and ultimately successful for users. This YRC is administered by �첥��Ƶ’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).

James Elder, Faculty of Health and Lassonde School of Engineering
York Research Chair in Human and Computer Vision
Elder’s YRC research program is deeply interdisciplinary, integrating studies of biological perception using behavioural and neuroscience methods, computational modelling of brain processes, statistical modelling of the visual environment, and computer vision algorithm and system design. While advancing fundamental knowledge in perception science and AI, this research has application to safer and more accessible urban mobility, social robotics and sports analytics. This YRC is administered by �첥��Ƶ’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program.

Jimmy Huang, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
York Research Chair in Big Data Analytics
Huang’s research as a YRC will aim to overcome the limitations of the existing information retrieval (IR) methods for web search and develop a new retrieval paradigm called task-aware and context-sensitive information search for big data. This approach, similar to ChatGPT or GoogleBard, will leverage IR techniques to offer an interactive and dynamic search experience. The program’s research results are expected to provide a deeper understanding of user information needs and generate novel techniques and tools.

Lauren Sergio, Faculty of Health
York Research Chair in Brain Health and Gender in Action
Sergio’s research as YRC investigates the impact of gender on brain health, for which there is little study. The research program will aim to characterize the gender-related differences in an individual’s behavioural response to impaired brain health and design appropriately tailored interventions to optimize their return to work, duty or sport. The research results will provide medically relevant and fundamental knowledge necessary to develop targeted brain health assessments and interventions that account for gender. This YRC is administered by �첥��Ƶ’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).

Marie-Christine Pioffet, Glendon College
York Research Chair in Franco-Indigenous Relations in the Americas
This YRC is dedicated to the study of texts from the French colonization in America with research focused on Indigenous history and cultural renaissance, European scriptural practices and Indigenous oral traditions, Franco Indigenous intercultural dialogues, and the Great Lakes region, missionary laboratory, and intercultural junction. Pioffet’s research as Chair will rethink Francophone and Indigenous identities and the cultural blending that inspired the writings of the period, while promoting a resurgence of First Nations culture and languages.

Poonam Puri, Osgoode Hall Law School
York Research Chair in Corporate Governance, Investor Protection and Financial Markets
Puri’s YRC explores the role of the corporation in society and the impact of legal rules, as well as market mechanisms and incentives on corporate behaviour in several key areas of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). These include racial justice, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and climate change, as well as the role of the corporation and financial markets in times of disruptive technological change. Puri’s cutting-edge, empirical, and interdisciplinary research program charts a new course for the modern corporation, casting it not solely as a profit-maximizer for its shareholders, but as a responsible corporate citizen that genuinely considers the interests of a wider range of stakeholders and is accountable to society.

Tier 2 York Research Chairs

Jacob Beck, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
York Research Chair in Philosophy of Visual Perception
Beck’s work as YRC seeks to combine philosophy and vision science, suggesting new avenues for research in both disciplines. His research explores how longstanding philosophical puzzles about perception can be resolved or recast with the help of vision science. Beck also examines how scientific discussions can be illuminated by philosophy – for example, how numerical perception can be informed by philosophical theories about what numbers are. This YRC is administered by �첥��Ƶ’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).

Gene Cheung, Lassonde School of Engineering
York Research Chair in Graph Signal Processing
Cheung’s research as a YRC focuses on signal processing and machine learning. Cheung looks at the frequency analysis and processing of big data residing on irregular kernels described by graphs, in an emerging and fast-growing field called graph signal processing (GSP). His research program involves collaboration with both academic and industry partners to apply GSP theory to a wide range of applications including image/3D point cloud compression, denoising, super-resolution, video summarization, movie recommendation, and crop yield prediction. This YRC is administered by �첥��Ƶ’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).

Andrea Emberly, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
York Research Chair in Children’s Musical Cultures
As a YRC, Emberly will take a community-led approach to the study of children’s musical cultures that explores issues around sustaining endangered musical traditions by emphasizing the connection between music and wellbeing. The research program will focus on child-led and intergenerational collaborations that amplify the voices of equity-seeking children and young people who tell their own stories, in their own voices. The work will explore how children and young people are active social agents who locate and activate unique and meaningful pathways to sustain, change and transform musical traditions.

Sapna Sharma, Faculty of Science
York Research Chair in Global Change Biology
Sharma’s research as YRC will seek to gain a deeper understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change on freshwater availability and quality. Sharma’s research will capitalize on long-term climatic and ecological time series collected from thousands of lakes and apply cutting-edge statistical and machine learning analyses to forecast the impacts of global environmental change on freshwater security and help to explain macroecological patterns, drivers and impacts of worldwide lake responses to climate change. The research program will collaborate with researchers across disciplines to develop technological, natural, health and social solutions to water security.

Sue Winton, Faculty of Education
York Research Chair in Policy Analysis for Democracy
Winton’s YRC research program will collaborate with multiple public sector organizations to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education privatization in Canada. Winton’s research will compare policy development, enactment, and effects during and after the pandemic across multiple scales. The research results will create knowledge about local, regional, national and international influences on education privatization and how this process impacts socially disadvantaged groups, teachers’ work and democracy. At York, Winton will establish and lead a cross-disciplinary Community of Practice for new and established researchers with an interest in critical policy research.

Hina Tabassum, Lassonde School of Engineering
York Research Chair in 5G/6G-enabled Wireless Mobility and Sensing Applications
Leveraging tools from statistics, optimization, game theory and machine learning, this YRC focuses on developing novel network deployment planning, radio access design and dimensioning, radio resource allocation and mobility management solutions to address challenges of higher frequencies like millimeter-wave in 5G and THz in 6G. Tabassum’s research will explore the feasibility of novel multi-band network architectures where THz and optical transmissions can complement the RF transmissions optimally. The research results could form a core for Canadian research on multi-band networks with the potential to connect the unconnected in a seamless, safe and resource efficient manner.

Taien Ng-Chan, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design
York Research Chair in Marginal & Emergent Media
Ng-Chan’s research explores questions of how emergent media (new technologies such as VR/AR) can aid in the development of original digital and immersive storytelling techniques, foster solidarity and community amongst marginalized groups, particularly from the Asian diaspora, and lead to better representation and inclusion of these groups in culture and society. The YRC program will allow for future long-term collaborations and creative activities that will contribute to more diversity and inclusion in the emergent media industries, a greater sense of community for marginalized groups and better cultural representation in storytelling.

Denielle Elliott, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
York Research Chair in Injured Minds
Elliott’s work as YRC will explore how ethnographic experiments and transdisciplinary collaborations between arts, neuroscience and medical anthropology can contribute to a fuller understanding of conceptions of self, brain trauma and mental health. Her research program involves a multidisciplinary team that will explore the embodied experiences of people living with brain trauma and brain trauma knowledge-making practices in the clinic and laboratory, as well as their convergences. The research results will increase understandings of the effects of brain trauma, facilitate transdisciplinary collaborations between the arts, science and humanities and highlight how uniquely valuable ethnographic methods are to understanding urgent health priorities.

Cary Wu, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
York Research Chair in Political Sociology of Health
Wu’s YRC program will work to establish a transdisciplinary political sociology of health approach to investigate health inequalities and provide greater understanding of what forces maintain, increase and reduce health inequalities. The research includes theoretical and empirical illustrations that will focus on trust – the belief in the reliability of others and institutions. The program will seek to energize the field of political sociology by introducing a much-needed new research direction that focuses on trust and will advance a unifying theory of trust to explain health inequalities.

Article originally published on June 30, 2023 on YFile.

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Associate Professors Sue Winton and Chloë Brushwood Rose have co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Teaching and Learning. The issue titled "Emerging Research on the Impacts of COVID-19 for Children, Youth, and Education features a number of Faculty of Education researchers.

Brushwood Rose and Winton say this Special Issue arose from and responds to the pandemic in more ways than one. With the declaration by the World Health Organization in early 2020 that the outbreak of COVID-19, a new coronavirus disease, was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and a global pandemic, children, parents, teachers, and researchers—indeed almost everyone—experienced a profound disruption to their work and social lives. The rapid spread of COVID-19 brought school closures, calls to shelter in place, economic slowdowns, and fears of sickness and death.

They explain, "many of us found ourselves reinventing how we worked and connected with others, and those who continued to go to frontline jobs felt the profound stress of literally putting their lives on the line. In many ways, this Special Issue emerges out of and tries to make sense of these changes to the everyday lives of children, educators, and educational researchers who must reimagine what it means to go to school, to learn, to teach, and to study these experiences." 

Access the Journal .

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