Office:
Ponderosa Commons 3078
Website:
http://ubc.academia.edu/MonaGleason
blogs.ubc.ca/monalee/
About
Research Interests
Research Supervision Interests
Please note that I am no longer accepting doctoral level students (Phd, EdD). I am available to supervise Masters level students who wish to do research in the history of education and/or the history of children and youth.
Individual research Interests
Bio
I am an historian focussed on education, children and youth. I teach and conduct research in various areas, including age and size as categories of historical analysis, gender and sexuality, health and the body, race and nation, research methods in education, schooling, and the family. The responses of young people and their families to the interventions of professionals – educational, medical, and psychological – are centrally important in my historical research. I’ve authored two books, co-edited five books, and numerous book chapters on topics foregrounding the history of children and education in multiple contexts. My article publications appear in the History of Education Quarterly, Qualitative Inquiry, the Canadian Historical Review, the Journal of Family History, the Journal of Canadian Studies, Childhood, BC Studies, and Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures.
With my colleague Dr. Tamara Myers (UBC – History), I co-founded the History of Children and Youth Group , now an officially affiliated group of the Canadian Historical Association. I am past Vice President of the Canadian History of Education Association. Along with Dr. Penney Clark (UBC – EDCP), I was co-editor of Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation between 2015 and 2020. Between 2015 and 2017, I served as President of the Society for the History of Children and Youth, the major professional association for scholars in the field.
Current Research and Writing
My most recent research project (2024-2027), undertaken with Dr. Tamara Myers, investigates the Royal Commission on Family and Children’s Law that was chaired by Justice Thomas Berger. The Commission was charged with modernizing British Columbia’s approach to family and child protection in the 1970s. The resulting reports, community consultation, and political wrangling surrounding the Commission’s sometimes radical recommendations makes it an incredibly rich source of information on a range of issues, including education, Indigenous issues, social welfare, and children’s rights. In some ways ahead of its time, the Royal Commission provides opportunities to better understand seismic shifts in social policy direction for young people and their families during these years.
Research and Scholarly Awards
- 2020, UBC Killam Research Award, Senior Scholar Category, Killam Trust Office
- 2018-2021, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (Canada)
- 2018, Neil Sutherland Prize for Best Article in the History of Children and Youth in Canada, Canadian Historical Association, “Avoiding the Agency Trap: Caveats for Historians of Children, Youth, and Education,” History of Education 45, 4 (2016): 446-459.
- 2018, Best Article Prize – History of Sexuality in Canada, Canadian Committee on the History of Sexuality, Canadian History Association, for Mona Gleason, “‘Knowing Something I Was Not Meant to Know’: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood, 1900-1950,” Canadian Historical Review 98, 1 (March 2017): 35-59.
- 2015-2016, Spencer Foundation Grant (USA)
- 2013, Hampton Research Grant, Large Grant (Canada)
- 2010-2012, Best Article, English Language, Canadian History of Education Association for Penney Clark, Mona Gleason and Stephen Petrina, “Preschools for Science? The Child Study Centre at the University of British Columbia, 1960-1997,” History of Education Quarterly 52, 1 (2012) : 29-61.
- 2007, Arts Alumni Research Award, University of Waterloo (Canada)
- 2006-2009, Spencer Foundation Grant (USA)
- 2007-2010, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant
- 2005-2006, Early Career Scholar Award, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study (UBC)
- 2005, Hampton Research Grant, Large Grant (UBC)
- 2001 – 2004, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant
- 2001, Hampton Research Grant, Small Grant, 2001 (UBC)
- 2001-2002, Outstanding Article Award, Society for the History of Children and Youth.
Research and Education
Education
University of Western Ontario, BA
University of Windsor, MA
University of Waterloo, PhD
Research Projects
The Royal Commission on Family and Children’s Law, BC, 1972-1975
2024-2027
Role: Co-Investigator. Granting Agency: Explore Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Canada)
Talking Back to Victoria: Parental Advocacy for Rural Education in British Columbia, 1920 to the Present
2018 – 2021
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Canada)
Families Without Schools: Rurality, Remoteness and the Promise of Schooling in Western Canada, 1920s to 1960s
2015 – 2016
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Spencer Foundation (USA)
The Land is My School: Children and the Landscape in British Columbia’s Past and the Enrichment of Contemporary Environmental Learning”
2013 – 2015
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Hampton Research Funds – Large Grant (UBC, Canada)
Schooling and the Disabled Child in 20th Century Canada
2007 – 2010
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Canada)
Troubling ‘Normal’: Education and the ‘Disabled’ Child in Canada, 1850 to 1970
2006 – 2009
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Spencer Foundation (USA)
“Building Healthy Children: Education, Medicine, and the Healthy Child in English Canada, 1850-1950
2001 – 2004
Role: Principal Investigator. Granting Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada)
Selected Publications
Selected Recent Refereed Journal Articles
Mona Gleason and Tamara Gene Myers, “Settler Stalling: Integrated Schooling and the “Native Conferences” of the Royal Commission on Family and Children’s Law in British Columbia,” Historical Studies in Education/ Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 37, 2 (Fall, 2025): 161-181.
Mona Gleason, ” “The Archived Child: Strategies for Amplifying Children’s Contributions to Historical Change,” Qualitative Inquiry 30, 10 (December, 2024): 764-773.
Mona Gleason, “ ‘Children obviously don’t make history’: Children’s Modalities of Power and Their Contribution to Historical Change.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 16.3 (Fall, 2023): 343-360.
Yotam Ronen, and Mona Gleason, “ ‘I am desirous that she should have as good an education as possible’: A Century of Parental Advocacy for Rural Education in BC.” BC Studies 214 (September, 2022): 39-57.
Yang Tao and Mona Gleason, “Study on the History of the Child from an Educational Perspective: An Interview with Mona Gleason,” Global Education 48, 2 (2019): 3-16.
Penney Clark, Katie Gemmell, and Mona Gleason, “Historical Studies in Education – A Journal’s Journey from Past to Present,”Scholarly Research and Communication 9, 1 (2018): 1-11.
Mona Gleason, “Metaphor, materiality, and method: the central role of embodiment in the history of education.” Paedagogica Historica 54, 1-2 (2018: 4-19.
Mona Gleason, “Families Without Schools: Rurality and the Promise of Schooling in Interwar Western Canada,” History of Education Quarterly 57, 3 (August 2017): 305-330.
Mona Gleason, ” ‘Knowing something I was not meant to know’ “: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood,” Canadian Historical Review 98, 1 (March 2017): 35-59.
Mona Gleason, “Avoiding the Agency Trap: Caveats for Historians of Children, Youth, and Education,” History of Education 45, 4 (2016): 446-459. (Special Issue on Marginalized Children and Vulnerable Histories).
Books
Authored
Gleason, M. (2013). Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health 1900 to 1940. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. pp. 203.
Gleason, M. (1999) Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling and the Family in Postwar Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 196.
Edited
Gleason, M. and Myers, T. (Eds). (2017) Bringing Children and Youth into Canadian History: The Difference Kids Make. (Toronto: Oxford University Press). pp. 488.
Gleason, M., Perry, A., and Myers, T. (Eds). (2011). Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History. 6th Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. pp. 460. (equal contribution)
Gleason, M., Myers, T., Paris, L., and Strong-Boag, V. (Eds). (2010). Lost Kids: Vulnerable Children and Youth in Twentieth-Century Canada and the United States. Vancouver: UBC Press. pp. 258. (equal contribution)
Gleason, M., and Perry, A. (Eds). (2006). Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History. 5th Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. pp. 400. (equal contribution.
Barman, J., and Gleason, M. (Eds). (2003). Children, Teachers and Schools in the History of British Columbia. 2nd Edition. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises. pp. 438. (equal contribution)
Strong-Boag, V., Gleason, M., and Perry, A. (Eds). (2002). Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History, 4th Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. pp. 419. (equal contribution)
Selected Book Chapters
Penney Clark, Mona Gleason, and Katie Gemmell, “Scientific Journals of the History of Education – Historical Studies in Education/ Revue d’histoire de l’éducation,” in J. L Hernández Huerta, A. Cagnolati, and A. Payà Rico (Eds). Connecting History of Education: Global Networks of Scientific Communication and Collaboration, Collection Ágora, n. 3, Series Educación (Valencia: Tirant Humanidades Edita, 2022), pp. 223-233.
Penney Clark and Mona Gleason, “Scientific Societies and Associations in the History of Education – Canadian History of Education Association/ Association canadienne d’histoire de l’éducation (CHEA/ ACHÉ),” in J. L Hernández Huerta, A. Cagnolati, and A. Payà Rico (Eds). Connecting History of Education: Global Networks of Scientific Communication and Collaboration, Collection Ágora, n. 3, Series Educación (Valencia: Tirant Humanidades Edita, 2022), pp. 407- 418.
Mona Gleason and Tamara Myers, “Introduction,” in Gleason, M. and Myers, T. (eds). (2017) Bringing Children and Youth into Canadian History: The Difference Kids Make. (Toronto: Oxford University Press). pp. 1-16.
Anika Stafford and Mona Gleason, “Referred for Special Service: Children, Youth, and the Production of Heteronormativity at Alexandra Neighbourhood House in Postwar Vancouver,” in Tracy Penny Light, Wendy Mitchinson and Barbara Brookes, eds., Bodily Subjects: Essays on Gender and Health, 1800-2000 (Kingston-Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014): 227-244.
Mona Gleason and Tamara Myers, “History of Childhood in Canada,” in Heather Montgomery, Ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Oxford Bibliographies URL: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ (Entry URL: http://bit.ly./1keaowa)
Mona Gleason, “Navigating the Pedagogy of Failure: Medicine, Education and the Disabled Child in English Canada, 1900 to 1945,” in Graham Allan and Nathanel Lauster, eds., The End of Children? Changing Trends in Childbearing and Childhood (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), pp. 140-160
Mona Gleason and Veronica Strong-Boag, “Community,” in Joseph M. Hawes and N. Ray Hiner, A Cultural History of Childhood and Family, Volume 6, In the Modern Age (Oxford: Berg Publishing, 2010): 39-57.
Mona Gleason, “Lost Voices, Lost Bodies?: Doctors and the Embodiment of Children and Youth in English Canada from 1900 to 1940” in Mona Gleason, Tamara Myers, Leslie Paris, and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., Lost Kids: Vulnerable Children and Youth in Twentieth-Century Canada and the United States (Vancouver: University of Vancouver Press, 2009).
EDST Activity
Students Supervised
Examples
PhD Dissertation Supervision
Claudia Diaz Diaz, Places that speak: Diversity and Social Responsibility in Canadian Early Childhood Education (2020)
Joyce Schneider, Indigenist Knowledge Seeking, Making and Activating: Building Community and Academy (co-supervision with J. Hare, 2018)
Anika Stafford, Exploring Everyday Gender Culture in a Vancouver Elementary Classroom (2013)
Andreé Gacoin, Teaching empowerment?: Exploring the social relationships of teaching and learning about gender in the context of sexuality education for HIV prevention in South Africa. (Co-supervision with L. Loutzenheiser, 2015)
EdD Dissertation
Iris Berger, Narration as Action: The Potential of Pedagogical Narration for Leadership Enactment in Early Childhood Education Contexts (2013)
M.A. Thesis
Arushi Goswami, Deconstructing the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Framework and The Happiness Curriculum in the Context of Educational Neoliberalism and Emotional Governance (2025)
Annie Montague, A Case for Complexity: Contextualizing Places of Learning in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (2019)
Mariah Franzmann, Critical Readings of BC School Dress Codes (2018)
Anthony Meza-Wilson, Educational Projects for Decolonization: Anti-authoritarian Allyship and Resistance Education in the Americas (2012)
Zahra Rasul, Official Spaces: An examination of the privatization and marginalization of Muslim women’s bodies in Canada post 9/11 (2006)
Jeannie Stubbs, Undressing the Body: A Narrative Inquiry Into Childhood (2006)
Isabeau Iqbal, Mothers’ Experiences of French Mothertongue Maintenance: Towards a Critical Literacy Approach (2003)
Courses taught
EDST 314 Social Issues in Education
EDST 401 Education, School and Social Instititutions
EDST 426 History of Education
EDST 455 History of Childhood and Youth
EDST 502A Growing Up in History: The Meanings of Childhood
EDST 506 Educating the Body: Physicality and Identity in Historical Perspective
EDST 509 Constructing “Citizens:” Canada and the Educational Past
EDST 507D Topics in the History of Education: Histories Confronting White Supremacy
EDST 571 Introduction to Educational Research: Relating Questions, Theories, and Methods
EDST 601 Doctoral Seminar
Additional