Associate Professor
shaheen [dot] shariff [at] mcgill [dot] ca (E-mail) "Define the Line" Web Site People Page
Phone: 514-398-5396
Room 312, Education Building
Areas of interest
School policy, leadership, education law, censorship, human rights, legal pluralism,
legal issues relating to on-line social communications (includes cyber-bullying, cyber-libel, cyber-threats); constitutional law with focus on balancing free expression and privacy on-line; tort law (cyber-libel; negligence in the school context); criminal law (relating to on-line criminal harassment); secularism and/or religion in schools; competing rights/values in schools.
Social responsibility by corporate intermediaries and technology corporations relating to on-line communications; sensitivity and social responsibility of news media.
Description of research/teaching activities
My research and teaching are grounded in the study of legal considerations that impact educational policy and practice. I am currently principal investigator on three SSHRC funded projects: 1) to study school policy and legal boundaries involving cyber-bullying and internet harassment; 2) to study the impact of Quebec’s intercultural policies on ethnic students and 3) an international study that looks at online interactions of children and youth and stakeholder responsibilities. I am an associate of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill’s Law Faculty.
Selected publications/presentations
Books
Shariff, S. and Churchill, A. (Eds.) (2009). Truths and myths of cyber-bullying: International perspectives on stakeholder responsibility and children’s safety. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Shariff, S. (2009). Confronting Cyber-bullying: What schools need to know to control misconduct and avoid legal consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press. Review at First Amendment Center. www.firstamendmentcenter.org.
Shariff, S. (2008). Cyber-bullying: Issues and solutions for the school, the classroom, and the home. Abington, Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge (Taylor & Frances Group). Review at www.tcrecord.org. [Translation rights sold to Portuguese publisher, Artmed Editora, South America].
Shariff, S., & Johnny, L. (2007). Censorship! . . . or . . . selection?: Confronting a curriculum of orthodoxy through pluralistic models. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishing.
Books in Progress
Shariff, S. (2nd Edition). Confronting Cyber-bullying: What schools need to know to control misconduct and avoid legal consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press. Contract under preparation.
Shariff, S. (Ed.)Girls and the Internet. Prospectus under review by Cambridge University Press.
Websites
Define the Line – An interactive resource website for Policy-makers, Teachers, Parents Teenagers and Children launched May 19, 2011. The website is informed by scholarship on cyber-bullying towards enhancing Digital Citizenship partnered with Lester B. Pearson School Board and Commission Scolaire school boards in Quebec.
Refereed Journal Articles
Beran, T., Mishna, F., Heatherington, R., and Shariff, S. (under review). Children’s Experiences of Cyber-bullying: A Canadian National Study. Submitted to Pediatrics.
Shariff, S., & Hoff, D. L. (2007, January). Cyber-bullying: Clarifying legal boundaries for school supervision in cyberspace. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, see web site
Shariff, S., & Johnny, L. (2007). Cyber-libel and cyber-bullying: Can schools protect student reputations and free-expression in virtual environments? Education & Law Journal, 16 (3), 307-342.
Shariff, S., & Gouin, R. (2006). Cyber-dilemmas: Gendered hierarchies, new technologies and cyber-safety in schools. Atlantis - A Women’s Studies Journal, 31 (1), 26-36.
Shariff, S. (2006). Balancing competing rights: A stakeholder model for democratic schools. [Special issue: Democracy and Education]. Canadian Journal of Education, 29 (2), 476-496.
Shariff, S. (2006). Cyber-dilemmas: Balancing free expression and learning in the virtual school environment. International Journal of Learning, 12 (4), 269-278. Electronic version.
Shariff, S. (2005). Cyber-dilemmas in the new millennium: Balancing free expression and student safety in cyber-space. [Special Issue: Schools and courts: Competing rights in the new millennium]. McGill Journal of Education, 40 (3), 467-487.
Shariff, S. (2004). Travel and terror: Re-allocating, minimizing and managing risks of foreign excursions and out-door education field trips. Education & Law Journal, 14, 137-165.
Shariff, S. (2004, April). Keeping schools out of court: Legally defensible models of leadership. The Educational Forum, 68 (3), 222-233.
Shariff, S., Case, R., & LaRocque, L. (2001). Begging the questions: The Court of Appeal decision in the Surrey school board controversy. Education & Law Journal, 11 (1), 85-111.
Shariff, S., Case, R., & Manley-Casimir, M. E. (2000, January).Balancing rights in education: Surrey school board's book ban. Education & Law Journal, 10 (1), 47-105.
Invited Journal Articles
Shariff, S. (submitted). Cyber-bullying and Social Capital: The role of “virtual wealth” in on-line friendships. Invited article for publication in one of two South American journals: Patio Revista Pedagogica and Patio - Educacao Infantil [to be translated into Portuguese by Artmed SA.]
Refereed Book Chapters
Shariff, S., & Johnny, L. (2008). Child rights in cyberspace: Protection, participation and privacy. In T. O'Neill & D. Zinga (Eds.), Children's rights: Theory, policy and practice. Toronto: ONT: University of Toronto Press, (pp. 219-244).
Jaishankar, K. & Shariff, S. (2007). Cyber-bullying: A transnational perspective. In F. Schmallager and M. Pittaro (Eds.) Crimes of the Internet. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 66-83.
Shariff, S. & L. Johnny. (2007). Critical Media Literacy to Counter Muslim Stereotypes. In D.Macedo and S. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Media Literacy. Ch. 52, (pp.603-635), New York: Peter Lang.
Shariff, S., & Gouin, R. (2006). Cyber-hierarchies: A new arsenal of weapons for gendered violence in schools. In F. Leach & C. Mitchell (Eds.), Combating gender violence in and around schools, (pp. 33-41), Stoke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books.
Shariff, S., & Strong-Wilson, T. (2005). Bullying and new technologies: What can teachers do to foster socially responsible discourse in the physical and virtual school environments? In J. Kincheloe (Ed.), Classroom teaching: An introduction (pp. 219-240), New York: Peter Lang.
Shariff, S. & Manley-Casimir, M.E. (1999). Censorship in schools: Orthodoxy, diversity & cultural coherence. In A. Hutchinson & K. Petersen (Eds.), Interpreting censorship in Canada Toronto, ONT: University of Toronto Press, (pp.157-181).
Book Chapters in Progress
Shariff, S., Gomez, C., and Talwar,V. Cyber-jokes, cyber-libel or cyber-bullying?: The policy dilemma for schools.