Ruth Sandwell

Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

 

Ruth Sandwell is Associate Professor in the History and Philosophy of Education Program at the Department of Theory and Policy Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Founding co-director of THEN/HiER in 2004, Dr. Sandwell was also a co-director and educational director of the award winning "Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History" (www.canadianmysteries.ca), a pan-Canadian collaborative project that created twelve on-line archives and educational support materials relating to a particular mystery from Canada’s past. This project won the 2008 MERLOT on-line education History Classic Award and the Pierre Berton Award for Canadian History.

Dr. Sandwell’s research and teaching in history education continues to highlight the importance of the humanities to those trying to understand and work within the field of education. Her research in history is focused on the history of the family, the history of education, rural Canada, and a new project, “The Pedagogies of Modernity: Women, Fossil Fuels and Electricity in the Home.” Her recent publications include the edited collections To the Past: History Education, Public Memory and Citizenship Education in Canada (2006), and Beyond the City Limits: Rural History in British Columbia (1999), together with her 2005 monograph Contesting Rural Space: Land Policy and the Practices of Settlement, Saltspring Island, British Columbia, 1859-91 (2005). She has published widely on the subjects of history education, rural history, and public memory, including numerous book chapters and articles in Canadian Social Studies, International Journal of Social Education, Social Education, Canadian Historical Review, and McGill Journal of Education.

Publications, Grants, and Presentations

“‘We were allowed to disagree, because we couldn’t agree on anything’: Seventeen Voices in the Canadian Debates Over History Education.” In History Wars and the Classroom: Global Perspectives, edited by Tony Taylor and Robert Guyver. Charlotte NC: Information Age, 2011.

"History is a Verb: Teaching Historical Practice to Teacher Education Students." In New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, edited by Penney Clark. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

"Reflections on the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project: A Pedagogical Perspective." Canadian Diversity/Diversité canadienne 7(1) (2009): 88-92.

"Missing Canadians: Reclaiming the A-Liberal Past." In Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution, edited by Jean-François Constant and Michel Ducharme, 246-73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

"History as Experiment: Microhistory and Environmental History." In Method and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History,  edited by Alan McEachern and William Turkel, 122-36. Toronto: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008.

"Using Primary Documents in History and Social Studies." In The Anthology of Social Studies: Secondary Education, edited by Roland Case and Penney Clark, 293-305. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, 2008.