Special Projects 2025-2026 | Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP)

Special Projects Main | 2024-2025 | 2023-2024 | 2022-2023

Addressing Polarization in the Classroom

Politically speaking, classrooms have never been a more challenging space to navigate. Students come to school armed with new and ever-changing conspiracy theories with which to provoke their classmates and teachers. Anti-vax parents demand that their scientifically suspect views be aired and given respect. Teachers find themselves under fire from local communities and politicians when they attempt to give instruction on politically tense topics like climate change, or respect for gender diverse people.

In response, CSLP members seek to address urgent theoretical and practical questions and solutions about the role of education in politically polarized societies and to further understanding of what problems arise when political polarization infiltrates schools and classrooms, and how teachers and schools can productively address these problems.

CSLP members implicated in ongoing research and programming on this project include David Waddington (Concordia University), Kevin McDonough (McGill University), Bruce Maxwell (Université de Montreal), and Ilya Zrudlo (UQAM).

Recent news and events:

Unveiling Equity

The Unveiling Equity series invites participants to unpack, unsettle, and critically reposition themselves from a decolonized perspective in order to engage more actively with social justice issues. Through thought-provoking discussions and reflective activities, the series challenges conventional views, encourages deeper self-awareness, and promotes meaningful action toward equity and justice. This series is designed to inspire participants to critically examine their roles and responsibilities in fostering inclusive and transformative change within their communities and professional spaces.

The series began in the 2023-2024 academic year, and continued with further programming in 2024-2025.

News from the ongoing 2025-2026 (Year 3) of Unveiling Equity programming:

Plurilingualism in Education

In 2024, the CSLP co-sponsored a two-day conference, Plurilingualism in Education: Cultivating Inclusion and Diversity to Teach and Learn in a Plural World, that took place at Concordia’s 4th Space and online via Zoom.

The conference was made possible thanks to funding from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connection grant obtained by Diane Querrien (Département d'études françaises, Concordia University), Kathleen Sénéchal (Département de didactique des langues, UQAM), and Angelica Galante (Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill).

Other CSLP members working on plurilingualism in Sunny Lau (Bishop's), Maria-Lourdes Lira-Gonzales (Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue), and Mélissa Villella (UQAT).

Please see our event coverage for more information.

A second conference is currently being planned for May 12, 2026.

Pedagogical Innovation Awards

The Pedagogical Innovation Awards and Symposium looks to acknowledge and reward teachers who implement creative practices in their classrooms by offering them a prize and the opportunity to promote their innovation and discuss it with peers and researchers. Any teacher (full-time or part-time) in a government-recognized public or private elementary or secondary school in Quebec is eligible to apply for these awards (two prizes of $1,000 each), which have three purposes:

To recognize innovative teaching practices.
To bring teachers together with educational researchers to discuss how their innovations connect with recent research findings.
To spread the word about these innovative practices to other teachers and researchers.

Technological innovation

Innovations of this kind could include new uses for computer programs, mobile phone applications, video games, or other kinds of digital tools to engage students.

Curriculum innovation

These innovations can include new Learning and Evaluation Situations (LES) that teachers have designed, fresh approaches to an especially difficult topic, or experiential learning activities that students do outside the classroom.

Student Teaching

At the 2025 awards a new category was introduced to highlight accomplishments and innovation in student teaching.

Outcomes

The first edition of the Pedagogical Innovation Awards took place on May 4, 2023.

The second installment of the awards was held on May 8, 2024.

The third installment of the awards were held September 11, 2025.

Voix de la colère et de l'espoir

This international SSHRC-funded research project investigates how young adults across Canada, Europe, and the Maghreb use digital and ethnographic narratives to express and manage feelings of anger and hope in an increasingly uncertain and polarized world. Led by anthropologist Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, the project brings together an interdisciplinary and international team—including CSLP members Diana Miconi, Cécile Rousseau, and Vivek Venkatesh—to explore how storytelling, digital media, and lived experience shape emotional expression, social engagement, and meaning-making among youth across diverse cultural and political contexts.

Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, an anthropologist in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Université Laval, is leading a large-scale international research project entitled « Voix de la colère et de l'espoir: Stratégies narratives numériques et ethnographiques de gestion de la colère et de l'espoir par les jeunes adultes au Canada, en Europe et au Maghreb » [Voices of Anger and Hope: Digital and Ethnographic Narrative Strategies for Managing Anger and Hope among Young Adults in Canada, Europe, and the Maghreb]. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to the amount of $2.5 million, the project examines the narrative strategies young adults use to express anger and hope in a world shaped by uncertainty and polarization.

Urban Gardening at the Grey Nuns

Mitch McLarnon (Department of Education, Concordia) has been granted access to space on the Grey Nuns grounds to build an urban garden as part of his research in environmental education and the challenges of working in urban environments. Along with Kim McDonough (Department of Education, Concordia), McLarnon has obtained funding from Concordia University's Sustainable Transitions Team Research Initiative to pursue the project.