Note on Departmental Foci: Faculty and student research and interests represent a variety of approaches to sociology and equity studies in education. The current composition of the department provides particular opportunities for students who may wish to focus their activities in the areas listed below, as well as in the Interdisciplinary and Interdepartmental Foci and Collaborative programs. Students are not required to stay within a single focus when selecting courses.

Aboriginal & Indigenous Studies in Education


This focus addresses current issues, trends, perspectives, and models of Aboriginal and Indigenous education through historical, cultural, spiritual, social and political philosophies and themes. Specific foci include examination of Aboriginal, Indigenous, and marginalized knowledge in global contexts and pedagogical implications for educational change; and roles of schools, media, institutions, governments and historical and contemporary policy in producing conditions of constraint, images of Indigenous peoples, social and class differences, dominance, control politics, and social inequalities in regard to Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples.

Faculty include: George Dei, Laara Fitznor, Judy Iseke-Barnes, Paul Olson, Pat O'Riley, and Njoki Nathani Wane.