Research

My research applies insights and methods from critical discourse analysis to examine constructions of group identity in texts used in the education of new Canadians or citizenship education. 

My doctoral research explored discursive constructions of Canadian identity in English as a Second Language textbooks intended for adult newcomers to Canada and used in government-funded language instruction. Through critical discourse analysis of these textbooks, I explored the ways in which these texts construct positive self-presentations of Canada while often marginally positioning multicultural others within this imagined Canada.

With the support of a grant from the Bishop’s University Senate Research Committee, my current research on immigrant success stories attempts to draw stories from multiple sources to see how national identity is discursively constructed. TESOL Quarterly, an international journal for the field of language teaching, published an article that emerged from my doctoral research in which I explored the constructions of nation in immigrant success stories.

The Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de L'éducation, a leading education journal in Canada, published an article in which I explored the ways in which nation is constantly flagged in ESL textbooks. My research into banal flaggings differs from that of other researchers as I explore pedagogical texts in which the flag is both taught and reproduced banally.

I continue to be an active member of the Citizenship Education Research Network, special interest group associated with the Canadian Society for Studies in Education where I explore constructions of “Canadians” in government study guides.