Rachel Berman
Dr. Rachel Berman is an immigrant and white settler who grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the traditional territory of many nations, including the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, covered by Treaty 13. Dr. Berman is a professor at the School of Early Childhood Studies, where she served as the graduate program director of the MA program from 2016 to 2023. She is also an adjunct member of the graduate programs in Gender, Feminist, & Women's Studies, and Education at York University. Her research and teaching focus on ‘race’ and anti-racism in early childhood settings, and theoretical frameworks in ECS. Her work has appeared in the International Critical Childhood Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of Childhood Studies, Children & Society, and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, amongst others.
- CS8904 Theoretical Frameworks in ECS
- CS8934 Special Topics in ECS
- CLD 447 Equity Issues in Ontario ECE
Research projects:
- From 2023-2025, I will be working with Dr. Janelle Brady (PI) as a co-applicant on the SSHRC Insight Development Grant project entitled "Honouring Black Refusal Through the Counter-Stories and Lived Experiences of Black Community Members in Early Childhood Education and Care: A Study with Black Mothers, Early Childhood Educators, and Elders".
- During 2021-2022, I was team lead with co-investigators Drs. Beverly-Jean Daniel, Alana Butler, and Zuhra Abawi, and collaborator Natalie Royer, MA, on the SSHRC Connections Grant, "Give Race its Place: An Anti-Racist Knowledge Sharing Initiative for Early Childhood Educators". Our team partnered with the College of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario and the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario and offered a series of four two hour no-cost on-line workshops over four consecutive evenings. This project grew out of our 2014 SSHRC IDG project, which revealed that acts of racism in early childhood education spaces are systematically ignored and overlooked to the detriment of racialized children, families, and communities (Berman, Daniel, Butler, Royer, & MacNevin 2017; Daniel & Escayg, 2019; MacNevin & Berman, 2017). Our IDG project also revealed a lack of anti-racism knowledge among early childhood educators and a lack of access to practical research-based information. We sought to address these gaps through the workshop series where we shared tailored information about anti-racist practices, particularly those related to anti-Black racism, with over 300 participants from the ECE sector.
- During 2014-2016, I was the Principal Investigator on a SSHRC Insight Development Grant project entitled, "Can we talk about race? Confronting Colour-Blindness in ECE settings." This project examined ways to foster conversations about race in early childhood settings.
- During 2008-2011, I was part of the SSHRC funded multi-university, interdisciplinary project examining adolescent well-being in military families (external link, opens in new window) .
- From 2006-2009, I was involved in a community based project funded by the Canadian Council on Learning that sought success stories and examined barriers to immigrant women's English language learning.
- From 2002-2005, I participated in a community based research project funded by Human Resources Development Canada that developed an evaluation toolkit based on what family support program participants value.
- YSGS Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Education Award, 2018