91亚色 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鈥檚 2025 study of programming and practices at children鈥檚 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 鈥渃hildhood innocence鈥� 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.鈥�

Farley and her colleagues, including 91亚色鈥檚 Gillian Parekh, associate professor of education and doctoral candidate Suad Ahmed, conducted the original study in partnership with the Association of Children鈥檚 Museums (ACM). Their research found that while many children鈥檚 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 91亚色, 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 鈥� all co-conveners of the Educational Gerontology Special Interest Group at the British Society of Gerontology 鈥� felt it reflected a recurring gap

鈥淎cross global health and aging policy frameworks, learning is largely absent or treated as peripheral,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e 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.鈥�

To do so, the researchers turned to three real-world learning initiatives in Canada and the U.K. 鈥� 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鈥憇ession, 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 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Education, brings his expertise to a four-year Genome Canada research project focused on Canada鈥檚 Black population.

Genomic Evidence for Precision Medicine for Selected Chronic Diseases Among Black Peoples in Canada 鈥� developed through collaboration with the Centre for Applied Genomics, at SickKids Hospital and McGill Genome Centre 鈥� 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鈥� DNA and RNA, researchers will gain a better understanding of how diseases affect Canada鈥檚 Black population and develop better precision medicines to target their conditions.

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

The study is led by four prominent medical researchers: Upton Allen, division head at SickKids Hospital鈥檚 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鈥� 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鈥檚 no surprise then, that as the inaugural assistant professor of Black thriving and education at 91亚色, 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鈥檚 research studies how Black mothers use storytelling in community-based literacy programs.鈥�

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.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e complained, lamented, about the extractive nature of the research process,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd when we look at the histories and the current relationships between researchers in academia and Black communities, it's not positive.鈥�

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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