I supervise graduate students who are pursuing degrees in sociology or history (or a combination of both disciplines). In general, I supervise students who are interested in contemporary social policy and/or historical sociology. Some of the areas I supervise include human rights (law and activism), social movements and the nonprofit sector, law and society, public policy, gender inequality, and immigrantion studies (settlement and integration of newcomers).

I have provided a diversity of training opportunities for students including databases and website design; scanning technologies and software to process and analyze digital archives; creating digital infrastructure for dissemination; producing and analyzing large historical and contemporary datasets; using freedom of information legislation for research; conducting interviews and oral histories; and research ethics.

I am committed to providing undergraduate and graduate students with opportunities to be engaged citizens. This might include encouraging and/or facilitating their participation in community organizing or providing opportunities to collaborate with state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and museums. Some of my students have, for instance, worked with a local transition home to organize and digitize their client data; assisted immigrant-serving agencies with filing requests under freedom of information laws; led a public survey on human rights legal awareness; met with educational officers at human rights commissions across Canada; and attended meetings in Edmonton, Montreal, and Vancouver with community service organizations.

Cross-Disciplinary Linkages: Sociology, History, International Relations, Law, Political Science, Women’s Studies, Labour Studies, Educational Policy Studies.

There is generous funding available for graduate and postdoctoral studies at the University of Alberta. There is guaranteed funding to all M.A. and PhD students. There are several scholarships or fellowships as well as funding to attend conferences and conduct field research.

Teaching History