University of Toronto

Graduate Student, Sociology & Equity Studies in Education

Other Affiliations: University of Toronto, Theory and Policy Studies in Education, OISE/UT
York University, Department of Philosophy

Thesis Title: "Preschools and the Pedagogy of Domestication: The Ideologically Haunted Landscapes of Early Learning"

About

I am an anarcho-feminist preschool teacher, social critic, and young philosopher, currently completing my second Master’s degree at York University. I am deeply invested in activism and community organizing both within the university and in my broader community. I am a core collective member of Ladyfest Toronto, a D-I-Y radical feminist arts festival. In addition to my scholarly and activist work, I am also a special needs caregiver for children with Aspergers syndrome.

My philosophical areas of specialization include feminist epistemology, queer theory, phenomenology and existentialism, post-structuralism, critical theory and radical pedagogy; Nietzsche, Foucault, Butler, Arendt, Deleuze, Benjamin, Camus, and de Beauvoir. The research project I developed during my studies in the philosophy of education analyzes the spatial practices of early childhood education using critical human geography, queer and feminist genealogies of domesticity, and post-structural theories of the subject. My thesis argues that the educational architecture of western preschools function to reproduce heteronormative narratives of identity by encouraging young children to participate in the stereotypical social roles familiar to white, western patriarchy. My current research interests include gender, ideology, rebellion, performativity, in relation to the post-modernization and spatialization of power in mass society.