https://ubc.academia.edu/SharonStein.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/confrontingcolonialism/
http://decolonialfutures.net
About
Research Interests
Bio
I am a white settler scholar whose research examines educational questions at the interface of systemic colonial violence and ecological unsustainability. Through this work, I seek to interrupt common colonial patterns of educational engagement, including: uneven, paternalistic, and extractive relationships between dominant and marginalized communities; simplistic solutions to complex problems; and ethnocentric imaginaries of justice, responsibility, and change. In my work on higher education and beyond, I emphasize both the importance and the difficulty of addressing the interrelated ecological, cognitive, affective, relational, political, and economic dimensions of local and global (in)justice. I am committed to supporting different communities to interrupt the attachments and desires that keep us invested in violent and unsustainable modes of existence, and to ethically encounter and engage other horizons of possibility without turning away from our complicity in systemic harm. This means that I also work beyond institutionalized educational contexts and conceptualize education in a broader sense as the practice of encountering and being taught by the world in its full depth, complexity, and contradiction. I do this work in collaboration with others, including through my work with the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective, the Critical Internationalization Studies Network, the Teia de 5 Curas Network of Indigenous communities in Brazil, and as a Visiting Professor with the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University.
Supervision
I am interested in supervising students working on critically-oriented, complexity-based approaches to: the ethics, philosophy, foundations, and political economy of education, especially higher education; and internationalization, decolonization, sustainability and climate change, and the politics of difference in both formal and informal educational contexts. My approach to research and supervision emphasizes self-reflexivity, critical generosity, and deep engagements with the complexities, paradoxes, contradictions, and uncertainties of educational research, pedagogy, and practice in a contemporary era characterized by multiple overlapping local and global challenges. If you are interested in working with me, please review my work,and send me an email with a bit of information about yourself and your interests, and how they relate to my areas of interest.
Research and Education
Books
Stein, S. (2022). Unsettling the university: Confronting the colonial foundations of US higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Jimmy, E., Andreotti, V., & Stein, S. (2019). Towards braiding. Musagetes Foundation.
Articles
Stein, S. (in press). Universities confronting climate change: Beyond sustainable development and solutionism. Higher Education.
Stein, S. (2023). Reflections on Unsetting the University and its call to responsibility. Critical Internationalization Studies Review.
Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Suša, R., Ahenakew, C. & Cajkova, T. (2022). From “education for sustainable development” to “education for the end of the world as we know it”. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54 (3), 274-287. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1835646
Erikson, K. & Stein, S. (2022). Good intentions, colonial relations: Interrupting the affective economy of Norwegian citizenship education. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 44(3), 210-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2021.1959210
Dring, C., Cajkova, T., Mendes, W., Stein, S., Valley, W., & Clegg, D.J. (2022). Ontological awareness in food system education. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.750776
Stein, S. (2021). Critical internationalization studies at an impasse: Making space for complexity, uncertainty, and complicity in a time of global challenges. Studies in Higher Education, 46(9), 1771-1784. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1704722
Stein, S. (2021). What can decolonial and abolitionist critiques teach the field of higher education? Review of Higher Education, 44(3), 387-414. doi:10.1353/rhe.2021.0000.
Stein, S. (2021). Reimagining global citizenship education for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 19(4), 482-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2021.1904212
Stein, S. (2021). Beyond the usual debates: Creating the conditions for academic freedom to flourish. Australian Universities’ Review, 63(1), 55-58. https://aur.nteu.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/AUR-63-01.pdf
Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Suša, R., Cajkova, T., Pitaguary, R., & Pitaguary, B. (2021). Calibrating our vital compass: Unlearning colonial habits of being in everyday life. Rizoma Freireano, 30. http://www.rizoma-freireano.org/articles-3030/calibrating-our-vita
Lobo, M., Bedford, L., Bellingham, R.A., Davies, K., Halafoff, A., Mayes, E., Sutton, B., Marwung Walsh, A., Stein, S. & Lucas, C. (2021). Earth unbound: Climate change, activism and justice. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(14), 1491-1508. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1866541
Stein, S. & Silva, J. (2020). The challenges and complexities of decolonizing internationalization in a time of global crises. Digital Thematic Education/Educação Temática Digital, 22(3), 546-566. http://dx.doi.org/10.20396/etd.v22i3.8659310
Stein, S. (2020). A colonial history of the higher education present: Rethinking land-grant institutions through processes of accumulation and relations of conquest. Critical Studies in Education, 61(2), 212-228. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1409646
Stein, S. (2020). ‘Truth before reconciliation’: The difficulties of transforming higher education in settler colonial contexts. Higher Education Research and Development, 39(1), 156-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1666255
Stein, S., Andreotti, V., de Souza, L.M., Ahenakew, C. & Suša, R. (2020). Who decides? In whose name? For whose benefit? Decoloniality and its discontents. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 3(7), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.17899/on_ed.2020.7.2
Stein, S., Andreotti, S., Hunt, D., Suša, R., Amsler, S., Ahenakew, C., Jimmy, E., Cardoso, C., Siwek, D., Cajkova, T., Pitaguary, B., Pataxo, U., Valley, W., D’Emilia, D., & Okano, H. (2020). Gesturing towards decolonial futures: Reflections on our learnings thus far. Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education, 4(1), 43-65. http://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.3518
Buckner, E. & Stein, S. (2020). What counts as internationalization? Deconstructing the internationalization imperative. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(2), 151-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319829878
Pashby, K., Costa, M., Stein, S. & Andreotti, V. (2020). A meta-review of typologies of global citizenship education: From description to critique. Comparative Education, 56(2), 144-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2020.1723352
Stein, S. (2019). Beyond higher education as we know it: Gesturing towards decolonial horizons of possibility. Studies in Philosophy & Education, 38(2), 143-161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9622-7
Stein, S. (2019). The ethical and ecological limits of sustainability: A decolonial approach to climate change in higher education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35(3), 198-212. https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2019.17
Stein, S. (2019). Navigating different theories of change for higher education in volatile times. Educational Studies, 55(6), 667-688. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2019.1666717
Stein, S., Andreotti, V. & Boxall, R. (2019). The ethics of private funding for graduate students in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. Critical Education, 10(16), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v10i16.186429
Stein, S., Andreotti, V., & Suša, R. (2019). ‘Beyond 2015’, within the modern/colonial global imaginary? Global development and higher education. Critical Studies in Education, 60(3), 281-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1247737
Stein, S. (2018). Confronting the racial-colonial foundations of US higher education. Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education, 3, 77-98. https://doi.org/10.28945/4105Stein, S. (2018). Frames of racial value in U.S. university presidents’ responses to the travel ban. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. 17(4), 893-919. https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1705
Stein, S. (2018). Higher education and the im/possibility of transformative justice. Critical Ethnic Studies, 4(1), 130-153. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/jcritethnstud.4.1.0130
Stein, S. (2018). National exceptionalism in the “EduCanada” brand: Unpacking the ethics of internationalization marketing in Canada. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(3), 461-477. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2016.1276884
Stein, S. (2018). Rethinking critical approaches to global and development education. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, 27, 1-13. https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-27/rethinking-critical-approaches-global-and-development-education
Andreotti, V.D.O., Stein, S., Amsler, S., Sutherland, A., Suša, R., Pashby, K. & the Gesturing Toward Decolonial Futures Collective. (2018). Mobilising different conversations about global justice in education: Toward alternative futures in uncertain times. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, 26, 9-41. https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-26/mobilising-different-conversations-about-global-justice-education-toward-alternative
Stein, S. (2017). A colonial history of the higher education present: Rethinking land-grant institutions through processes of accumulation and relations of conquest. Critical Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1409646
Stein, S. (2017). Internationalization for an uncertain future: Tensions, paradoxes, and possibilities. Review of Higher Education, 41(1), 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2017.0031
Stein, S. (2017). The persistent challenges of addressing epistemic dominance in higher education: Considering the case of curriculum internationalization.Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S25-S50. https://doi.org/10.1086/690456
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2017). Afterword: Provisional pedagogies toward imagining global mobilities otherwise. Curriculum Inquiry, 47(1), 135-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2016.1265441
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2017). Higher education and the modern/colonial global imaginary. Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies, 17(3), 173-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616672673
Stein, S., Hunt, D., Suša, R. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2017). The educational challenge of unraveling the fantasies of ontological security. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 11(2), 69-79. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2017.1291501
Stein, S. (2016). Rethinking the ethics of internationalization: Five challenges for higher education. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 12(2), 1-23. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2nb2b9b4
Stein, S. (2016). Universities, slavery, and the unthought of anti-Blackness. Cultural Dynamics, 28(2), 169-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374016634379
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V. D. O. (2016). Cash, competition, or charity: International students and the global imaginary. Higher Education, 72(2), 225-239. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-015-9949-8
Stein, S., Andreotti, V. D. O., Bruce, J., & Suša, R. (2016). Towards different conversations about the internationalization of higher education. Comparative and International Education/Éducation Comparée et Internationale, 45(1). https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cie-eci/vol45/iss1/2
Andreotti, V. D. O., Stein, S., Pashby, K., & Nicholson, M. (2016). Social cartographies as performative devices in research on higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 35(1), 84-99.
Stein, S. (2015). Mapping global citizenship. Journal of College and Character, 16(4), 242-252.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V. D. O. (2015). Complicity, ethics and education: Political and existential readings of Spivak’s work.Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, 9(1), 29-43.
Andreotti, V. D. O., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society,4(1), 21-40.
Book chapters
Stein, S. (in press). Interrupting colonial circularities in critical approaches to the study of higher education. In A. Keet, J. Arday & D. Belluigi (Eds.), Advancing critical university studies for emancipatory imaginations.
Stein, S., & C. Ahenakew. Climate action and decolonization in higher education. Encyclopedia of social justice in education.
Stein, S. & Chiappa, R. B. (in press). Southern students and northern higher education: Navigating the house of Western academia. In K. Aparecido da Silva & L. Sergio Machado Pereira (Eds.), Internationalization of higher education in the Global South.
Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Andreotti, V. (2023). Power/knowledge: Global and Indigenous education. In R. Tierney, F. Rizvi, K. Ercikan & G. Smith (Eds), International encyclopedia of education (Fourth edition) (pp. 251-260). Elsevier.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.08040-4
Stein, S., Andreotti, S., Ahenakew, C., Suša, R., Valley, W., Amsler, S., Cardoso, C., Siwek, D., Cajkova, T., D’Emilia, D., Huni Kui, N., Tremembe, M., Pitaguary, R., Pitaguary, B., Pitaguary, N. Pataxo, U., de Souza, L.M. Calhoun, B., van Sluys, S., Duque, C.A., Fay, K.R., & Lickerman, B. (2022). Methodologies for gesturing towards decolonial futures. In A. Tachine & Z Nicolazzo (Eds.), Weaving an otherwise: Reframing qualitative research through relational lenses. Stylus Publishing.[1]
Stein, S., Andreotti, V.D.O, Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2022). The complexities and paradoxes of decolonization in education. In B. Lingard & F. Rizvi (Eds.), Reimagining globalisation and education (pp. 198-213). Routledge.
Andreotti, V.D.O. & Stein, S. (2022). Education for depth. In C. McKinney & P. Christie (Eds.), Teacher education in context of de/coloniality: Conversations within the borders (pp. 207-214). De Gruyter.
Stein, S. (2021). Internationalizing the curriculum in the shadow of US hegemony: Conceptual orientations and practical implications.In J. J. Lee (Ed.), U.S. Power in international higher education (pp. 187-204). Rutgers University Press.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V. (2021). Global citizenship otherwise. In E. Bosio (Ed.), Conversations on global citizenship education: Research, teaching and learning (pp. 13-36). Routledge.
Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Hunt, D., & Ahenakew, C. (2021). Complexities and challenges of decolonizing higher education: Lessons from Canada. In S. H. Kumalo (Ed.), Decolonisation as democratisation: Global insights into the South Africa experience. UKZN Press.
Suša, R., Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Cajkova, T., Siwek, D. & the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective (2021). Unconscious addictions: Mapping common responses to climate change and potential climate collapse. In J. Bendell & R. Read (Eds.), Deep adaptation: Pathways through climate chaos.
Suša, R., Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., Cajkova, T., Siwek, D., Cardoso, C., & Huni Kui, N. (2021). Global citizenship education and sustainability otherwise. In S. Saude, M. A. Raposo, N. Pereira, & A.I. Rodrigues (Eds.), Teaching and learning practices that promote sustainable development and active citizenship. IGI Global.
Stein, S. (2020). Framing the public good in the future of British Columbia international education policy. In R. Trilokekar, M. Tamtik, & G. Jones (Eds.), International education as public policy in Canada (pp. 135-157). McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Stein, S. (2020). Pluralizing possibilities for global learning in the context of Western higher education. In D. Bourne (Ed.), Bloomsbury handbook for global education and learning (pp. 63-75). Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2020). Afterword: Provisional pedagogies toward imagining global mobilities otherwise. In E. Toukan, R. Gaztambide-Fernandez, & S. Andwaruddin, Curriculum of global migration and translationalism.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2018). What does theory matter? Conceptualizing race critical research. In G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S.Rudolph and K. N. Gulson (Eds.), The relationality of race in education research (pp. 156-169). Routledge.
Haapakoski, J. & Stein, S. (2018). The ethical implications of internationalisation for a knowledge economy: A critical discourse analysis approach to contemporary strategies in Finland and Canada. In V. Korhonen & P. Alenius (Eds.), Internationalisation and transnationalisation in higher education (pp. 41-67). Peter Lang.
Naepi, S., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Andreotti, V. D. O. (2017). A cartography of higher education attempts at inclusion and insights from Pasifika scholarship. In C. Reid & J. Major (Eds.), Global teaching: Southern perspectives on working with diversity (pp. 81-99).Palgrave Macmillan.
Niziurski, J., Bruce, J., Stein, S., & C. McMaster. (2017). No cost at all: Opportunities for the international student. In C. McMaster, C. Murphy, & J. Rosenkrantz de Lasson (Eds.), The Nordic PhD: Surviving and succeeding. Peter Lang Inc.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2016). Postcolonial insights for engaging difference in educational approaches to social justice and citizenship. In A. Peterson, R. Hattam, M. Zembylas, & J. Arthur (Eds.), The Palgrave international handbook of education for citizenship and social justice (pp. 229-245). Palgrave Macmillan.
Haapakoski, J. & Stein, S. (2018). The ethical implications of internationalisation for a knowledge economy: A critical discourse analysis approach to contemporary strategies in Finland and Canada. In V. Korhonen & P. Alenius (Eds.), Internationalisation and transnationalisation in higher education. Peter Lang.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2018). What does theory matter? Conceptualizing race critical research. In G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S.Rudolph and K. N. Gulson, The relationality of race in education research. Routledge.
Naepi, S., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Andreotti, V. D. O. (2017). A cartography of higher education attempts at inclusion and insights from Pasifika scholarship. In C. Reid & J. Major (Eds.), Global teaching: Southern perspectives on working with diversity (pp. 81-99). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2016). Postcolonial insights for engaging difference in educational approaches to social justice and citizenship. In A. Peterson, R. Hattam, M. Zembylas, & J. Arthur (Eds.), The Palgrave international handbook of education for citizenship and social justice(pp. 229-245). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Op/Eds
Andreotti, V., Stein, S., & Huni Kui, N. (2022, Nov). Beyond doomism and solutionism in response to climate change. University Affairs. Available at: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/beyond-doomism-and-solutionism-in-response-to-climate-change/
Stein, S. (2021, May 3). When good intentions are not enough: Sustainable Development Goals at universities can perpetuate the issues they’re aimed to address. University Affairs. Available at: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/when-good-intentions-are-not-enough-how-sustainable-development-goals-at-universities-can-perpetuate-the-issues-theyre-aimed-to-address/
Hunt, D., Ahenakew, C., Stein, S., Andreotti, V., & Valley, W. (2021, November 1). From the Amazon, Indigenous peoples offer a new compass to navigate climate change. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/from-the-amazon-indigenous-peoples-offer-new-compass-to-navigate-climate-change-167768