Heather

Heather Phipps is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Heather’s research interests in early childhood literacy and curriculum studies have emerged from her prior experiences as a French immersion Kindergarten teacher in Alberta and an ESL elementary teacher in Québec. Heather teaches and supervises pre-service teachers in the Bachelor of Education program and First Nations and Inuit Education at McGill. While pursuing graduate studies, she has also worked as a Research Assistant for Dr. Teresa Strong-Wilson on two SSRHC funded projects investigating Canadian children’s literature and social justice with pre-service and in-service teachers. As an educator, avid reader and emerging researcher, Heather is inspired by the writer Ursula Nordstrom’s words, “I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” Drawing on research in Childhood studies and early literacies, Heather is interested in the multiple ways that young children engage with the words and images in diverse picture books. In her current dissertation research, she is studying young children’s responses to diverse Canadian picture books in the context of a culturally and linguistically diverse public elementary school in Montreal. Through ethnographic and qualitative methodologies, Heather is interested in listening to and respecting children’s voices, particularly in relation to the rights of the child.