Grace-Camille Munroe

Grace-Camille Munroe is an applied researcher and scholar-activist with over 15 years’ international experience in the fields of education and social development. She has held a number of senior and influential positions in the Ministry of Education, Jamaica as deputy executive director & director, education services at the Jamaican Foundation for Lifelong Learning, technical assistant, policy and research analyst to the permanent secretary, senior director for research at the National Education Inspectorate, and technical assistant to the director general, Planning Institute of Jamaica. She has also worked as programme manager for the Centre of Excellence Project, a J$100 million school improvement initiative sponsored by Jamaica National and Victoria Mutual Building Societies.

She holds a doctoral degree in Adult Education and Community Development with a focus on transformative learning from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her landmark research explored the involvement of parents in the education of their children in Jamaica with specific focus on the psycho-social and environmental factors that motivate parents to become involved in the education of their children. 

Her overarching interest in education is to better understand the factors that contribute to quality education, optimal learning opportunities and outcomes for Black youth that lead to the thriving and flourishing of Black families and communities. Her research focuses on the intersection of youth and adolescent development, education, poverty, and community development. As a community-based researcher, her positionality, theoretical orientation and practice are rooted in approaches that promote scholarly advocacy and activism, social justice, collective emancipation, liberation, and empowerment of the Black community. Her worldview, how she theorizes and makes sense of the world, is shaped by inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives that expose anti-Blackness and anti-Black racism, and other forms of systemic inequities that marginalize and exclude, while centering Black joy and flourishing as resistance. 

She is a sought-after researcher who has been engaged in numerous research projects in Jamaica and the Caribbean, such as the Commonwealth Secretariat commissioned study on advancing the education of boys in four regional territories - Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbados and Trinidad. She has also collaborated with the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, UNICEF conducting and producing situation analyses exploring key issues in education, crime and violence, poverty, justice system, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, and the environment and their impact on Jamaican children, adolescents and youth, and their families. She is currently Jamaica’s only CONFINTEA Fellow (2016), an honour bestowed on her by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning for her outstanding contribution to the development of adult literacy and adult basic education in Jamaica.

Since returning to Canada in 2019, Munroe has held the position as the program manager for the Presidential Implementation Committee to Confront Anti-Black Racism at Toronto Metropolitan University. In this role,  she  was responsible for supporting the student, faculty and staff working groups implementing the 14 recommendations of the Anti-Black Racism Climate Review (2020). She was also the manager for research, projects and operations for the Leadership By Design Program (external link) . The Lifelong Leadership Institute (LLI) is an educational organization that provides innovative leadership development programs for Canadian Black youth of African descent, and Research Analyst for the Centre for Excellence for Black Student Achievement at the Toronto District School Board (external link) . 

Munroe claims among her inspiration her grandmother and mother for shaping her personal and scholastic ambitions. Her life’s ambition is to use her gifts and talents in the service of community and others.

Research interests:

• Afrocentric theoretical orientation and research methodologies
• Contribution of People of African Descendant to Human Civilization
• Adolescent Youth and Community Development
• Remembering Grandma - The Role of Eldership in the Restoration and Revitalization of African Consciousness, Cultural Agency & Memory in Community Development

Research projects:

2021

• Research Associate 

Focussed Conversations with African, Afro-Caribbean and Black Students, Families and Community. Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement. Toronto District School Board. Toronto, Canada

• Lead Researcher 

Promoting Resilience & Success for Black and Racialized Learners During Post COVID-19: The Student Support Learning Program Re-Imagined. Consultancy. KAME Consulting. Toronto, Canada

• Lead Researcher
  

Links to Justice: School to Prison Pipeline. Consultancy. KAME Consulting. Toronto, Canada

• Research Associate
  

York University & TDSB Black Students Summer Leadership Program - Youth Participatory Action Research Project. Collaborative Project Between York University and the Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement, Toronto District School. Toronto, Canada

2019

• Research Consultant, Curriculum and Training Development Specialist
  

Adolescent Sexual & Reproductive Health & Reducing Adolescent Pregnancies in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica

2018  

• Lead Evaluator
  

Alternative Pathway to Secondary Education (APSE)-System-Wide Evaluation. Policy & Program Evaluation Unit, Ministry of Education, Kingston, Jamaica

• Researcher and Author
  

Situational Analysis on Children and Youth in Jamaica UNICEF/Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI)

2017

• Research Consultant
  

Curriculum & Training Development Specialist, Curriculum and Training Development, National Family Planning Board

2013

• Lead Researcher
  

An Analysis of Students’ Academic Progress and Attainment for Selected Cohorts (2006-2010) and Projections for Student Matriculation 2014-2018: The Case of Jamaica College

• Researcher and Co-Author
  

Jamaica Transformation of Education Since Independence: Handbook on Education Development in Commonwealth. Bloomsbury Comparative International Education Series

• Research Consultant and Research Methodologist 
  

Advancing the Education of Boys in Jamaica: Exploring the Factors Contributing to the Under-Performance of Boys in Education, Commonwealth Secretariat and Universalia