The following are just some of the McGill 2011 Vanier Scholarship winners funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Bree Akesson: Mapping the effects of political violence on children and families
McGill School of Social Work
Tell us about your research.
My research broadly focuses on how political violence affects young children and their families. I am specifically exploring the meaning and concept of place for young children and their families who have experienced generations of displacement due to war. Using the context of the occupied Palestinian territories, my research utilizes a geography-based methodology, consisting of mapmaking, drawing, and narrative. Together, these approaches reveal how war-affected children and families interpret, understand, and navigate their physical and social environments, opening up new avenues to discover how young children’s lives are shaped by place (and how young children shape places) in the face of adversity.
What makes this research so important?
The knowledge gained through my study will shed light on how families, communities, and societies contribute to young children’s place-making processes, so they are better able to grow, survive, and thrive in difficult conditions. For example, one element of place that I am currently looking at is the home, as homes are often destroyed in times of war with negative consequences young children and their families.
How will the Vanier Scholarship help your research?
I earned an undergraduate degree and two Master’s degrees from an American university, and therefore, I have a large amount of student loan debt that I have been slowly repaying over the past ten years. Receiving the Vanier has freed up some funds so that I can pay off my loans without stress, while also being able to conduct fieldwork and participate in international conferences. In fact, since receiving the award, I have applied to and been accepted to several conferences that I would not have applied to before receiving the Vanier. Independent of the incredible financial award that the Vanier provides, it is an amazing honour to have my research recognized in this way.
Narcedalia Lozano Garza: The Challenges of Peace Education
McGill Department of Political Science
Founder, Fundacion La Paz Comienza con los Ninos (Peace Begins with Children Foundation)
Tell us about your research.
My line of engagement is peace research. My main focus is on peace education, its philosophical roots, theories, methodologies and practices around the world. As Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi affirmed, “If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.” Education is one of the most important keys to building a culture of peace and a civilization of excellence.
What makes this research so important?
Our world is facing many challenges such as reducing and preventing direct, structural and cultural violence, making peace by peaceful means, eradicating ecological destruction as well as poverty among others. Peace Education is essential to build unity in diversity and it contributes to solve local, national and international problems. Presently, I am in the stage of researching the implementation of educational programs in different countries that address peace.
How will the Vanier Scholarship help your research?
It has made it possible for me to study for my Ph.D. at McGill University and to develop a quality research on my area of interest. This scholarship will open many opportunities for me to develop as a person and as a professional and, of course, it triggers my commitment to be a peacemaker.
Sarah Glaser: The relationship between academic performance and emotion regulation
McGill Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology – School/Applied Child Psychology Program
Tell us about your research.
My research investigates the relationship between academic performance and emotion regulation (ER). Effective ER is necessary for social and cognitive development and requires coping with feelings and managing stress. ER is a predictor of academic test scores and grade point average. Students who are at risk for school failure often have ER difficulties. Thus, ER impairments may be one of the primary causes of academic difficulties in these students, rather than just learning problems.
What makes this research so important?
My project involves the creation of a short-term, school-based intervention to promote ER skills. These types of interventions may be paramount in promoting academic resilience, healthier psychological well-being, and safer school environments.
How will the Vanier Scholarship help your research?
As an international student, I am particularly grateful for the generous financial support from Vanier which will enable me to fully focus on producing top-level research, share findings within the scientific community through conference presentations, and reach out to at-risk populations within the Montreal community.
Christine Proulx: Managing the Multiple Demands of Work, Children and Aging Parents
McGill Department of Sociology
Tell us about your research.
My research investigates the balance between work and family for workers who are caring for their children and their aging parents simultaneously. This group of workers is predicted to grow due to the aging of the Canadian population and delayed childbearing among more recent birth cohorts. Current policies facilitating the work-family balance, such as public daycare, parental leave and compassionate-care leave will be evaluated to know whether they help informal caregivers to parents diminish the burden of care while they are working and raising their children and, consequently, improve their well-being.
What makes this research so important?
Understanding the effects on work and families holding multiple care-giving responsibilities will provide a framework to better inform policy-makers in Canada.
How will the Vanier scholarship Fellowship help your research?
I am extremely honoured to be awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. It means the work I have accomplished in the past few years as well as my doctoral research project is being recognized and valued. It definitely acts as a motivation to pursue my research career and concentrate on what I like to do best: social research. In my opinion, a crucial step in doing research is disseminating research results to the government and academic communities as well as to the general public in order to inform and stimulate debate in our society on what decisions and which direction need to be taken on a variety of social issues. The Vanier CGS will allow me to be more deeply engaged in this societal discussion.
Radha MacCulloch: Exploring the experiences of youth living with a neurodevelopmental disorder
McGill School of Social Work
Tell us about your research.
My doctoral research seeks to explore the lived experiences of youth with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism as they transition out of the public school system. This qualitative research will examine how the experience of living with a neurodevelopmental disorder interacts with dominant social structures, and will explore the perceived, desired and actual pathways of these youth following graduation from the school system. Interviews with youth, and photographs taken by youth will be used to capture their experiences over the course of several months following their graduation from school.
What makes this research so important?
This research will give voice to youth with a neurodevelopmental disorder who are transitioning out of the school system. It will elucidate key programs, policies and attitudes that either support or hinder this transition. Using interviews and photographs, this research aims to increase awareness and knowledge about the lived experiences of youth transitioning from the school system while also providing a platform from which participants themselves may become involved in advocacy efforts.
How will the Vanier Fellowship help your research?
The Vanier scholarship will support my doctoral research and expand the opportunities available to me as an emerging researcher by providing me with the time and resources to invest in learning opportunities both in and outside McGill University. The scholarship will support national and international training and collaboration with youth, families, practitioners and researchers through conferences and workshops. In my research, it will support the integration of photography as a method of data collection through providing the financial means to be able to offer youth cameras and access to training in photography. Finally, it will support the dissemination of findings emerging from this research.
Daniel Lachapelle Lemire: Examining the history of Japanese-Canadian collective identity
McGill Department of History and Classical Studies, University
Tell us about your research.
I am studying the history of the Japanese immigration to Canada, specifically the historical process which led to the imagination and the re-imagination of the Japanese-Canadian collective identity. Beginning with the social, economic, and cultural background of the immigrants, I examine how certain factors, both internal and external, shaped the Japanese Canadians’ own sense of identity. Their reaction to events, such as their internment during WWII, and the influence of ideological forces, such as the idea of the Canadian mosaic, are of particular importance in the understanding of this process.
What makes this research so important?
I hope to offer new perspectives into the study of ethnic groups in multicultural societies, and also to provide tools that will help gauge the impact of policies affecting immigrants and cultural communities in Canada.
How will the Vanier Scholarship help your research?
The Vanier Scholarship will allow me to fully devote myself to the research and the writing of my thesis. It will also provide me with the necessary funds for at least one extended research trip to Japan, as well as allowing me to mine archives located throughout Canada. Finally, the Scholarship will help me to connect with other experts on the question of the Japanese immigration to Canada, as the vast majority of specialists are either based on the West Coast or Japan.
Daigo Shima: Using cinematic representations to analyze and assess intersecting Cold War anxieties over gender and race in Japan and North America.
McGill Department of East Asian Studies
Tell us about your research.
I will examine two related topics to analyze and assess intersecting Cold War anxieties over gender and race in Japan and North America. First, I will explore how Hollywood reflected and responded to U.S. domestic racial politics through filmic depictions of interracial relationships between American (invariably white) characters and Asian characters during the 1950s, paying particular attention to two films that warrant special consideration in terms of audience responses: The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and Sayonara(1957). I will also consider how Japanese cinema connected masculinity with images of “American-ness.” Specifically, I will explore how the “Americanized” image of Yujiro Ishihara, arguably the biggest Japanese star of his era, was constructed and consumed during the 1950s.
What makes this research so important?
Through this research, I seek to contribute to contemporary understandings of Cold War masculinity and democracy, particularly the ways in which masculinity was tethered to phenotype along with democracy. By exploring what marked some of the figures I study as “manly” and others as safely deracinated of “manliness,” I hope to demonstrate the extent to which Cold War fears over the vulnerability of democracy were inextricably linked to anxieties over the vulnerability of normative racial and gender roles.
How will the Vanier Scholarship help your research?
Thanks to this scholarship, my research will be able to involve extensive archival investigations of newsreel and print media produced in Japan, the U.S., and Canada. I do appreciate the fact that I will focus on my research without worrying about my financial situation.
Sean P. A. Desjardins: The continuity of Inuit hunting practices and beliefs in the Canadian Arctic, AD 1200 to present
McGill Department of Anthropology
Tell us about your research.
I am examining the development of sea-mammal hunting practices among Inuit, as well as the meaning Inuit attribute to prey animals, from around AD 1200 to the present. The project integrates archaeological data on prehistoric Inuit diets and animal-product uses in the resource-rich Foxe Basin region of Central Nunavut; oral histories and ethnographic accounts; and firsthand interviews with hunters and elders from the Foxe Basin communities of Igloolik and Hall Beach.
What makes this research so important?
Inuit have always maintained highly meaningful relationships with the animals they once relied upon as their sole sources of food. Today, Inuit cultural identity is tied intrinsically to hunting. It is my hope that this research will aid scholars and policymakers in developing a more nuanced understanding of the contemporary nature and rich history of Inuit hunting, a politically charged and often misunderstood topic.
Further Reading:
To read about the McGill 2011 Vanier Scholarship winners funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) visit http://publications.mcgill.ca/reporter/2011/08/meet-the-mcgill-vanier-scholarship-recipients-cihr/
To read about the McGill 2011 Vanier Scholarship winners funded by the by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) visit http://publications.mcgill.ca/reporter/2011/08/meet-the-mcgill-vanier-scholarship-recipients-nserc/