Teresa Strong-Wilson
Associate Professor
PhD University of Victoria, Faculty of Education (Supervisor: Dr. Alison Preece)
MA University of Victoria, Faculty of Education (Supervisor: Dr. Margaret Robertson)
BA Hon. McGill, English Literature
BA University of Calgary; Major: Political Science, Minor: Law in the Liberal Arts
- Literacy; Stories; Autobiography; Narrative methodologies
- Social justice education, Indigenous education
- Participatory methodologies; action research; documentation & reflection on documentation in teaching
- Memory; childhood memory; storied formation; memory work
- The child, childhood, childhood memory, children's literature, Reggio Emilia approach to children’s thinking, early literacy, family involvement/family literacy
- Curriculum theory, in particular, currere
- The writings of W.G. Sebald as they pertain to currere
- Teachers; teacher thinking and change (including social justice; digital technologies); professional development; teacher identity
I am primarily interested in the critical study of the relationship between thought and practice through investigation of the influence of stories on educational formation (“storied formation”) and change across memory studies, literacy and new literacies studies, early childhood, curriculum theory, teacher education, Indigenous education, and social justice education. My first book focused on the use of children’s literature with teachers for social justice education, and developed a methodology of juxtaposing memories of stories (Bringing Memory Forward: Storied Remembrance in Social Justice Education with Teachers; Peter Lang 2008). Coming out of a 2008 SSHRC Workshop on Productive Remembering, I co-edited two further books on memory, Memory and Pedagogy, eds. Claudia Mitchell, Teresa Strong-Wilson, Kathleen Pithouse & Susann Allnutt; Routledge, 2011) and Back to the Future: Productive Remembering and Narrative, eds. Teresa Strong-Wilson, Claudia Mitchell, Susann Allnutt, & Kathleen Pithouse, Sense, 2013). Through a longitudinal research relationship with New Frontier School Board’s Learning with Laptops (LWL) program and SSHRC-funded study, Changing Literacies, Changing Formations, the teachers/administrator/pedagogical leader, graduate students and I co-wrote a book called Envisioning New Technologies in Teacher Practice: Moving Forward, Circling Back Using a Teacher Action Research Approach (Peter Lang, 2012) on professional development and digital technologies in the classroom, including the role of the past/memory on change processes. More recent work in this area has incorporated social justice through exploring multidirectional approaches to digital memory-work, with Claudia Mitchell and Marcea Ingersoll. Given my interest in teachers and narratives, I also co-edited a book with Kathy Sanford (University of Victoria) on the use of portfolios in teacher education programs.
I have published in several peer-reviewed journals, such as Changing English, Children’s Literature in Education, Educational Theory, International Education, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Learning Landscapes, Reflective Practice, Teachers and Teaching, and Theory into Practice, and am Editor-in-Chief of the McGill Journal of Education.
Recently, I have been pursuing links among curriculum, autobiographical memory (currere), multidirectional memory (Rothberg, 2009, 2011) and the works of W.G. Sebald. This work is related to ongoing research with in-service teachers (elementary and secondary) in SSHRC-funded research on Canadian teachers' use of literature for social justice in middle and secondary schools: a cross-national study with colleagues in five other provinces, which is presently continuing through a follow-up study on the use of post-colonial literature in classrooms. A central interest has been developing pedagogy around residential school stories using children's literature published in Canada in the last two decades. I am also interested in participatory approaches to literacy research, including with families, and have been involved (with George Carani) in research that looks at a Brazilian model for participatory family literacy, as applied to the Canadian (Quebec) context. I am also currently working (with Christian Ehret (McGill), David Lewkowich (University of Alberta), and Sandra Chang-Kredl (Concordia) on an edited book following on the McGill 2017 Provoking Curriculum conference; the focus of the book is on provoking curriculum encounters. It builds on the seminal work of Pinar and Grumet's Toward a Poor Curriculum. From 2015 to 2017, I was Co-President of CACS (Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies) with Avril Aitken (Bishop's).
Engaging Teachers with Canadian Literature for Social Justice
Developing a Pedagogy of Social Justice through Post-Colonial Literature
PI: Ingrid Johnston (U Alberta); Co-Investigators: Geraldine Balzer (USask); Anne Burke (Memorial); Teresa Dobson (UBC); Teresa Strong-Wilson (McGill); Angela Ward (University of Victoria); Lynn Wiltse (U Alberta)
An Ecological Approach to Parental Involvement in the Process of Literacy Acquisition in School during Early Childhood (Strong-Wilson & Carani)
Selected Books
Sanford, K., & Strong-Wilson, T. (Eds.). (2014) The Emperor’s New Clothes?: Issues and Alternatives in Uses of the Portfolio in Teacher Education Programs. Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T., Mitchell, C., Allnutt, S., & Pithouse-Morgan, K. (2013). Productive remembering and social agency. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Strong-Wilson, T., Thomas, B., Cole, A. L, Rouse, D., Tsoulos, D. & with teacher authors (Penny Bonneville, Bonnie Mitchell, Manuela Pasinato, Kelly Ryan, Marie-Claude Tétrault, & Bob Thomas) (2012). Envisioning New Technologies in Teacher Practice: Moving Forward, Circling Back Using a Teacher Action Research Approach. New York: Peter Lang.
Mitchell, C., Strong-Wilson, T., Pithouse, K., & Allnutt, S. (Eds.). (2011). Memory and pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Bringing Memory Forward: Storied Remembrance in Social Justice Education with Teachers. (#23 in Complicated Conversation: A Book Series of Curriculum Studies. Series Editor: William F. Pinar). New York: Peter Lang.
Selected Book chapters
Yoder, A. & Strong-Wilson, T. (2017). The limits of 'understanding': Teaching residential school stories in the classroom. In I. Johnston & A. Ward (Eds.), Challenging stories: Canadian literature for social justice in the classroom. Canadian Scholars' Press.
Strong-Wilson, T., Mitchell, C., & Ingersoll, M. (2016). Exploring multidirectional memory-work and the digital as a phase space for teacher professional development. In M. Knobel & J. Kalman (Eds.), Literacies, Digital Technologies and Teachers’ Professional Development. New York: Peter Lang. [This book has also been published in Spanish, 2017]
Strong-Wilson, T. (2016). Returns and departures through girlhood: Memory-Work as an approach to the politics of place in mother-daughter narratives. In C. Mitchell et al., Girlhood Studies and the politics of place. Berghan. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14jxn16
Yoder, A., & Strong-Wilson, T. (2016)."And yet": Storying complexity in teacher narratives. In N. Ng-a-Fook, G. Reis & A. Ibrahim (Eds.), Provoking Curriculum Studies: Strong Poetry and the Arts of the Possible in Education. New York: Routledge.
Strong-Wilson, T., Cole, A., & Noroozi, N. (2013). More than Window Dressing: The Place of Photographs in Teacher Identity Construction In K. Sanford & Strong-Wilson,T. (Eds.). The Emperor’s New Clothes?: Issues and Alternatives in Uses of the Portfolio in Teacher Education Programs.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2013). Waiting in the Grey Light: Nostalgia, Trauma and Currere in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. In Strong-Wilson, T., Allnutt, S., Mitchell, C., & Pithouse, K. (Eds.), Back to the Future: Productive Remembering. Sense.
Strong-Wilson, T., Mitchell, C., Allnutt, S., & Pithouse, K. (2013). Back to the Future: Narrative and Productive Remembering. In Strong-Wilson, T., Allnutt, S., Mitchell, C., & Pithouse, K. (Eds.), Back to the Future: Productive Remembering. Sense.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Phipps, H. (2014). Very far away: Traversing the distance between imagination and actualization. In I. Johnston, & J. Bainbridge (Eds.)., Reading Diversity: Preservice Teachers Explore Identity, Ideology and Pedagogy through Canadian Picture books. University of Toronto Press. Revisions sent September 2011.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2012). Old narratives break apart. In C. Chambers, E. Hasebe-Ludt, A. Sinner, and C. Leggo (Eds.), A Heart of Wisdom: Life Writing as Empathetic Inquiry.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2012). Slumbering narratives: Exploring the links between children’s literature and pre-service teacher identity formation. In McKinney, S., & McCluskey, R.(Eds.), Teacher: Image, Identity, Icon. Edwin Mellen Press.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2011). Threading Voices: Telling Intergenerational Digital Stories. In Memory and Pedagogy. Routledge.
Smith-Gilman, S., Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2010). Envisioning the Environment as Third Teacher: Moving Theory into Practice. In G. Goodman (Ed.), Educational Psychology: Critical Pedagogical Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2009). Seeing What I Mean: The Professional Portfolio as Object of Study. In K. Pithouse, C. Mitchell., & L. Moletsane (Eds.), Making Connections: Self-Study and Social Action. New York: Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Moving horizons: Exploring the role of stories in decolonizing the literacy education of white teachers. In D. Kapoor (Ed.). Education, decolonization and development: Perspectives from Asia,Africa and the Americas. Sense Publications. [reprint of special issue of International Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2007]
Selected Journal articles
Strong-Wilson, T. (2017). Following One’s Nose in Reading W.B. Sebald Allegorically: Currere and Invisible Subjects. Educational Theory.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2015). Phantom traces: Exploring a Hermeneutical Approach to Autobiography in Curriculum Studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies.
Carani, Carani & Strong-Wilson. (2014). Escola Familia: A Proposal. McGill Journal of Education, 49 (2) .
Strong-Wilson, T. Morrison, C., Mitchell, C., Radford, L., & Pithouse-Morgan, K. (2014). Using digital memory-work to “reflect forward” on digital scholarship for social justice. McGill Journal of Education.
Strong-Wilson, T., Yoder, A., & Phipps, H. (2014). Going down the rabbit-hole: Teachers’ engagements with ‘dialectical images’ in Canadian children’s literature on social justice. Changing English, 21 (1), 71-93.
Strong-Wilson, T., Johnston, I., Wiltse, Burke, Phipps, H., Gonzalez, I. (2014). Reverberating Chords: Implications of Storied Nostalgia for Borderland Discourses in Pre-Service Teacher Identity. Teachers and Teaching, 20 (4), 394-409.
Strong-Wilson, T., Smith-Gilman, S., & Bonneville, P. (2013). Re-forming Networks Through “Looping”: An Ecological Approach to a Teacher’s Incorporation of New Technologies in Early Childhood. Learning Landscapes 6 (2), 369-84.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Gathering in the Dusk: Circling Back to Literacy Formations as Teachers “Learn with Laptops.” Changing English, 15 (2), 211-22.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Turtles All the Way: Simulacra and Resistance to Simulacra in Indigenous Teachers’ Discussions of Children’s Literature. Children’s Literature in Education, 39 (1), 53-74.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2007). Moving Horizons: Exploring the Role of Stories in Decolonizing the Literacy Education of White Teachers. International Education, 37 (1), 114-31.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and Place: Reggio Emilia’s Environment as Third Teacher. Theory into Practice, 46 (1), 40-47.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Bringing Memory Forward: A Method for Engaging Teachers in Reflective Practice on Narrative and Memory. Reflective Practice, 7 (1), 101-13.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Re-visioning One’s Narratives: Exploring the Relationship between Researcher Self-Study and Teacher Research. Studying Teacher Education: A Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 2 (1), 59-76.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Touchstones as Sprezzatura: The Significance of Attachment to Teacher Literary Formation. Changing English, 13 (1), 69-81.
Wilson, T. (2003). Maxine’s Table: Connecting Action with Imagination in the Thought of Maxine Greene and Hannah Arendt. Educational Theory, 52 (2), 203-20.
Wilson, T. (2002). Excavation and Relocation: Landscapes of Learning in a Teacher’s Autobiography. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 18 (3), 75-88.
Edited Journals
Asghar, A., Strong-Wilson, T., & Yoder, A. (2014). Multimedia in/as Scholarship. McGill Journal of Education.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2007). This Issue. Theory into Practice, 46 (1), 1-4. (Reggio Emilia Special Issue; Guest Editor: T. Strong-Wilson)
Strong-Wilson, T. (McGill) & Preece, A. (Univ of Victoria) (Guest Editors). (2009). Children and Social Stories. English Quarterly.
Most of my graduate students (doctoral, Masters) are teachers or teacher-leaders who are investigating an interest or question arising out of their, or other teachers', thinking and/or practices.
Selected list is from the last two years (2015-17):
Strong-Wilson, T. (accepted) (Chair and Organizer). Complacency Unsettled: Sebaldian Approaches to Injustice. AERA 2018 (Symposium) Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies (SIG #28). Participants: T. Strong-Wilson (McGill), D. Hansen (Teachers College, Columbia University), Warren Crichlow (York), & Lyn Daniels (Surrey School District, Vancouver, BC) with discussant Hannah Spector (Penn State), New York, NY.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Carani, G. (accepted). Home-School Partnership and Escola Familia: An Ecological Perspective. AERA 2018. Family, School, Community Partnerships (SIG #43), New York, NY.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2017, October 27-8). Using Methods of Juxtaposition to Jolt Understanding: Exploring Ethical Forms of Pedagogical Practice. Symposium: Reconceptualizing teacher education worldwide: A Canadian contribution to a global challenge. SSHRC Connections Event, UBC.
Strong-Wilson, T., Yoder, A., & Rak, S. (2017, May). Smudges on a mirror? Engaging the recurring question of the subject in trauma and autobiography in secondary classrooms. CSSE (CACS), Toronto, ON.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Yoder, A. (2017, February). in Ingrid Johnston (U of Alberta), Bill Howe (Edmonton Public Schools), Anne Burke (Memorial), Teresa Strong-Wilson, Amarou Yoder, Sebastian Porco, Norma Hubbard (McGill), Magdalena Vergara (UBC), Luke Heidebrecht (USask), Susan Tilley & Nicole Redmond (Brock), Spaces of Difference: Re-imagining Bakhtin’s Chronotype in the Classroom through Postcolonial Texts for Social Justice. Provoking Curriculum, Faculty of Education, McGill.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2017, February). Following One’s Nose: Provoking Currere’s Double-Consciousness. Provoking Curriculum, Faculty of Education, McGill.
Claudia Mitchell (McGill) with Mitchell McLarnon (McGill), Carl Leggo (UBC), David Lewkowich (UAlberta),Pauline Sameshima (Lakehead), Teresa Strong-Wilson (McGill), & Sandra Deer (McGill), Lyn Daniels (Surrey School District No. 36), Mario Di-Paolantonio (York), John J. Guiney Yallop (Acadia) and Paula Salvio (U New Hampshire). (2017, February). Close Encounters of the Visual Kind: Transforming Conversations. Plenary session. Provoking Curriculum, Faculty of Education, McGill University.
Strong-Wilson, T., Yoder, A., & Rak, S. (2016, May). At memory's 'jagged borders': Multidirectionality and pedagogical responsibility in classroom teachers' explorations of post-colonial children's literature. CSSE (CACS), Calgary, AB.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2016, April). The Question of Curriculum as Subject in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt and W. G. Sebald. Invited paper as part of Thinking with Hannah Arendt on the Culture of Instrumentality in Education [Symposium organized by Hannah Spector, U Penn], AERA, Washington, DC.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2015, August). Seeing Postcolonial Children’s Literature through Multidirectional Memory: Canada and Brazil. International Research Association for the Study of Children’s Literature, Worcester, UK.
Strong-Wilson, T., Carani, G., & Carani, J. (2015, May). Teachers as Literacy Partners in Escola Familia/Community School: Entering into Global Dialogue through a Brazil-Canada Study. Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CATE: Canadian Association for Teacher Education), Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ottawa, ON.
Wiltse, L., Johnston, I., Burke, A., Strong-Wilson, T., Balzer, G., Dobson, T., Ward, A., Menon, J., & Yoder, A. (2015, May). Reading the postcolonial world: Teachers developing a pedagogy of social justice. Canadian Society for the Study of Education (LLRC), Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ottawa, ON.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2015, May). Writing Unreliable Knowledge at a Slant: Theorizing Learning through Literature. Invited in panel organized by D. Lewkowich, Unreliable knowledge: Theorizing Education through Literature, Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (CACS), Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ottawa, ON
Strong-Wilson, T. (2015, May). Invited in Panel A Métissage Made of Stories: Life Writing and the Topos of Curriculum, A. McKerracher, E. Hasebe-Ludt., C. Leggo, D. Donald, T. Strong-Wilson, N. Jordan & C. Chambers. IAACS (International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies) Conference, 2015, Ottawa, ON.
Strong-Wilson, T., Ng-A-Fook, N., & Hasebe-Ludt, E. (2015, April). Memory Work, Denkbild, and Métissage: The Worldliness of Canadian Curriculum in Between Indigenous and Trans/National Wisdom Traditions. In Nellis, R., & Hasebe-Ludt, E. (Co-chairs). Panel: Mobilizing Canadian Curriculum Research as Counterpointed Breakthroughs. Discussant: William Pinar, CRC I, Curriculum Studies, UBC. CSSE/CACS Invited Symposium Proposal for American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA), Chicago, IL.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Yoder, A. (2015, February). Provoking Teachers’ Thinking with Postcolonial Texts: Exploring Curriculum Studies as Allegory. Provoking Curriculum Conference, UBC, Vancouver, BC.
Strong-Wilson, T., Yoder, A., Chang-Kredl, S., Aitken, A., & Radford, L. (2015, February). Currere, Ghosts and Double Consciousness: Our Unresolved Subjects. Provoking Curriculum Conference, UBC, Vancouver, BC.
Canadian Outstanding Publication Award, awarded by CACS (Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies), 2016 for: Strong-Wilson, T. (2015). Phantom traces: Exploring a Hermeneutical Approach to Autobiography in Curriculum Studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies.
Research Fellow, IPLAI [Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas] 2009-2012 [Theme: Memory and Echo]
