Contact Information

Research Information

Research Description

Currently funded projects focus on:
(a) Images of "fat kids" in children's literature and media to analyze messages and attributions made, and how these images are interpreted by the children they're aimed at, and the teachers/parents who work with them.
(b) A review of the teaching materials, resource packages, and programs currently available to teachers of preschool and elementary children to counter obesity in young children.
Other ongoing interests include critical literacy and young children, and children's language development (with peers, language play).

Interdisciplinary Research

The obesity projects will involve input from Nursing and the health professions, and eventually from educators in the School of Physical Education.

Health Related Research

The child obesity projects have obvious implications for "health literacy".

Research Keywords

International Involvement

General International Activities

Extensive volunteer work with educators as part of RWCT (Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking) Project, jointly sponsored by the IRA and the Soros Foundation. Since 1997 I have spent considerable time in Macedonia and Armenia as part of that project, as well as working in Romania, and Hungary. I have recently volunteered for the Aga Khan Foundation in Pakistan, working with educators from their Karachi network, and for the Soros Foundation in Kyrgyzstan, helping to set up the data collection for the on-going evaluation of a long-term multi-partner literacy project.
I am currently the Academic Director of the Intercultural Education and Training Certificate Program, a member of the UVic Working Group on Internationalization, and Chair of the Faculty of Education Advisory Committee on Internationalization.