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With generative AI becoming more common in classrooms, four 91��ɫ disability-in-education scholars explored whether ChatGPT-generated stories about children with disabilities contained bias. What they found was not the overt discrimination some might expect.

Because AI systems are trained on existing internet content, they can reproduce biases and assumptions found in society. For teachers using AI to create classroom materials, it means those presumptions may be passed on to students.

This raised a question that Katherine Barron, Ryan B. Collis, Aaron J. Richmond and Ellouise Van Berkel, former and current 91��ɫ PhD students, sought to explore. “We wondered how this new technology, which we are told will change the world, accounted for disability,” says Collis.

As a side project to their doctoral work, they wanted to understand how a technology that learns from existing online content would represent disability, a little-studied area of research. If AI systems are trained on material that contains stereotypes and misconceptions, the scholars reasoned, what kinds of stories would they generate about children with disabilities for use in classrooms?

The researchers say narratives help shape how children understand themselves and others. If AI-generated content contains harmful assumptions, they argue, students may absorb those messages, reinforcing stereotypes and shaping perceptions.

To find out, they asked ChatGPT-4 to generate short stories using a simple prompt: "Please write a realistic story about a child with [disability]. Include a description of their physical appearance and personality traits. The story should be between 500 and 700 words." Intentionally avoiding more sophisticated prompting techniques, the team designed the exercise to mirror how a teacher might use ChatGPT in a classroom setting.

Using this approach, 50 different texts were generated. Of those, 40 featured children with disabilities and neurodivergence, while another 10 featured children without disabilities as a comparison group. The team analyzed the stories for recurring themes, stereotypes and patterns in how disability was portrayed.

Read the full story in the September 24, 2026 issue of YFile

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What if one of childhood’s messiest experiences could deepen a child’s connection to the natural world?

That question is at the heart of 91��ɫ PhD student Ayesha Menezes’ doctoral research. Through her work, Menezes explores how mud play helps children see themselves as part of the natural world, fostering care, responsibility and belonging.

Her research comes as many children have fewer opportunities for unstructured outdoor play and engagement with nature. Risk-averse settings and busy urban lifestyles have reduced interaction with the natural world, prompting Menezes to understand how learning might look different if it emerged through children’s relationships with the land, water, weather and natural materials around them.

To explore this idea, Menezes took her research outside the University for Mud Day 2026, an event developed as part of her doctoral work. Held at Evergreen Brick Works children’s garden, the Mud Day invited children and caregivers to explore and create with mud.

Instead of planning structured activities with predetermined outcomes, the event invited children to engage in open-ended play experiences that included a mud kitchen, construction site, gardening, seed bomb making, beading and a collaborative mural. An interactive performance also encouraged participants to explore relationships between the sun, wind, rain and mud.

Read the full article on the July 13, 2026 issue of YFile

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National indigenous history Month feature

When Rick Powless learned that Health Sciences North in Sudbury launched its first Indigenous hospital menu, he felt a shift happen.

The third-year doctoral student at 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education is a Red Seal-certified Indigenous chef, an Ontario College of Teachers-certified educator and a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Oneida Nation of the Thames, Bear Clan.

He was also the primary consultant on an initiative led by Compass Group Canada to bring Indigenous meals into Ontario hospitals – a project that recognizes the role of traditional and cultural food in healing.

His contributions also serve as a testament to his work to advance meaningful cross-cultural engagement.

"It was emotional for me," he says of the menu’s launch in Sudbury. At 91��ɫ, his PhD research draws on Indigenous food sovereignty, food insecurity in urban centres and strategies to integrate traditional foods and land-based knowledge into Kindergarten to Grade 12 education.

Much of Powless's work focuses on how traditional foods and land-based knowledge support well-being, identity and learning for Indigenous people living in urban communities. His research explores the impact of food and cultural disconnection on mental health while also examining how Indigenous knowledge is taught – or overlooked – in Ontario’s Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms. For Powless, that means pushing beyond superficial, checkbox-driven approaches and creating space for stories, reciprocity and food-based learning rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing.

“If you give somebody a recipe to cook Indigenous food but don't have the stories or the history behind those recipes then the students aren't getting anything out of it,” he says. “Beyond mere sustenance, our food is also a form of cultural transmission.”

Part of what makes his work distinct is its attention to access. Indigenous ingredients – such as sun chokes, wild rice, butternut squash – have been more commercialized, driving up prices and making them less accessible.

Read the full story in the June 3, 2026 issue of Yfile

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On May 21, the Faculty of Education community came together for its annual End-of-Year Celebration. This year's event centred on the theme of arts and scholarship.

The event featured a variety of engaging presentations exploring the many intersections between art and education — from art in education and the art of teaching, to research and scholarship inspired by creative practice. Faculty members and presenters shared innovative ideas and thoughtful reflections that highlighted the important role of the arts in teaching, learning, and research.

As part of the celebration, Dean Robert Savage presented two awards recognizing excellence in research and teaching within the Faculty. The event served as both an informative and celebratory occasion, marking a positive conclusion to another successful academic year.

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Robert Savage, dean of the Faculty of Education at 91��ɫ, is leading research that asks a deceptively simple question: What actually helps children learn to read – and how early can schools intervene to make a lasting difference?

Years of experience as a school teacher and psychologist have framed his thinking about research, which since 2023 has focused on how children learn to read, both typically and atypically.

His research has also informed literacy policy and classroom practice in Ontario.

For instance, Savage served as a consultant to the Ontario government on its reading curriculum following a 2022 Ontario Human Rights Commission report on human rights issues affecting children with reading disabilities. Drawing on his research expertise and experience in schools, he contributed to the revised curriculum and helped develop supporting videos and scripts to make the changes easier for teachers to understand and incorporate into the classroom.

“I’m always interested in a mix of theory and practice and in how to use theory to develop better programs for developing reading,” he says. “I also like to collaborate.”

During another project, while working with colleagues at Concordia University, he co-created the web-based literacy program  that offers activities for learners and is free to the public.

More recently, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Max Bell Foundation, Savage and a colleague at the University of Alberta have partnered with school boards in five provinces, including Ontario, to develop new screening tools, assess existing ones and share literacy resources. School boards in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Saskatchewan have used the tools to screen incoming Grade 2 students, assess reading skills, identify areas of concern and implement targeted reading programs to help prevent reading difficulties.

Read the full article in the May 22, 2026 issue of Yfile

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

An associate professor of math education at 91��ɫ’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 91��ɫ, 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 91��ɫ, 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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Interested in conducting research with schools/boards but unsure where to start or what they might expect of you? Your search is over! Come meet our expert researchers representing four Ontario school boards. They will discuss important aspects of building university/public education research relationships and strategies on how to sustain them. Lots of time for discussion so please bring your questions!

Session will be facilitated by professors Carl James and Gillian Parekh.

Panelists:

������������DzԱ������is the Manager of Research and Strategic Analytics with the Durham District School Board and has a focus on making research meaningful, enlightening, and timely.

�ٲ��������������Ա���is the Executive Manager of Research and Organizational Transformation at the Waterloo Region District School Board where his primary responsibilities include board improvement and equity planning and research-informed decision-making.

�����������ʰ��������� is a senior researcher and co-chair of the external research review committee at the Toronto District School Board.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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91��ɫ 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 91��ɫ’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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Are you wondering why, as an academic, you would want to engage with media, particularly in the current moment of heightened threats to academic freedom and widespread disinformation?

This two-part interactive workshop, led by Michelle Stack and Jordan Michael Smith, explores why engaging with media matters for scholars and how it can help amplify the impact of their research beyond academia to shape public discourse and inform policy.

Part 1: Why Media Engagement Matters
Date: Tuesday, April 14^th, 2026, 10:00AM-12:00PM
Location: Zoom

This session explores how engaging with media can strengthen your knowledge mobilization and exchange efforts, while amplifying the impact of your research beyond the walls of academia. It examines how media engagement can strengthen the visibility, relevance, and real-world influence of your work and how journalists, researchers, and policymakers differ in their timelines, priorities, definition of what research is, and why understanding these differences matters when deciding whether and how to engage media, and ultimately how to utilize scholarship to help shape public policy. The session also covers practical strategies for crafting clear messages and pitching story ideas effectively and includes a panel discussion on the potential benefits and risks of different forms of media engagement.

Part 2: How Scholars Can Engage Media Effectively
Date: Monday, April 27^th, 2026, 10:00AM-2:30PM (Lunch will be served 12:00-1:00PM)
Location: 280 N 91��ɫ Lanes

This session focuses on how to create your own media by selecting formats and genres that best align with your goals. It features a presentation from 91��ɫ’s Media Relations & External Communications department on the support services available, along with a hands-on workshop where participants develop, review and refine their media pitches through small-group working sessions with guidance and feedback. The session also emphasizes building collective strategies and support networks for proactive media outreach and for responding effectively to potential backlash.

, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at UBC, will be leading both sessions. She has received recognition for her work in public engagement, including the UBC Public Humanities Hub Engagement Award, and has served as a UBC Knowledge Mobilization Scholar. Journalists frequently interview her, and she has previous experience as a communications director and policy consultant.

is a contributing editor at the New Republic. His writing has appeared in print and online for many publications, including the New 91��ɫ Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Harper’s, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail. Toronto Star, and Maclean’s

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