University of British Columbia

Faculty Member, Curriculum & Pedagogy

Professor

Faculty of Education

About

I am interested in the influence of social and institutional contexts on teachers’ practice as well as the role of curriculum and teaching in building a democratic society in the face of antidemocratic impulses of greed, individualism, and intolerance.

In recent years I have examined the influence of the educational standards and high-stakes testing movements on curriculum and teaching. My most recent research investigates the surveillance-based and spectacular conditions of (post)modern schools and society in an effort to develop both a radical critique of the “disciplinary gaze” and a means by which teachers, students, and other stakeholders might resist its various conformative, anti-democratic, anti-collective, and oppressive potentialities.

I am a co-founder of The Rouge Forum, a group of educators, parents, and students seeking a democratic society and I currently co-edit three scholarly journals: Critical Education;  Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor; and Cultural Logic.

I worked as a secondary social studies (Grades 8 to 12) and day care teacher in North Carolina and Georgia and was Distinguished University Scholar and Chair of the Department of Teaching at the University of Louisville prior to joining the faculty at UBC in 2004. I have also been a faculty member at the State University of New York campuses at Albany and Binghamton.

Contact Information