Sandra Acker

PhD (University of Chicago)
Professor Emerita, cross-appointed from SESE

E-mail: sandra.acker@utoronto.ca 
Tel: 416-978-0425 
 

Research Interests:

My research and teaching interests focus on women and education, teacher education, and careers and workplace cultures of teachers, graduate students and academics. Recent book publications include (with Anne Wagner and Kimine Mayuzumi, eds) Whose University Is It, Anyway? Power and Privilage on Gendered Terrain (Sumach Press, 2008), The Realities of Teachers' Work: Never a Dull Moment (Cassell & Continuum, 1999) and (with Elizabeth Smyth, Paula Bourne and Alison Prentice),  Challenging Professions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Women's Professional Work (University of Toronto Press, 1999).

Before coming to OISE/UT in 1991, I worked for a number of years in Britain, where I was involved in studies of graduate student thesis supervision and of the lives and careers of elementary school teachers. In Canada, I have been engaged in the study of academic work, with a particular concentration on changing conditions for women academics, starting with a project (with Linda Muzzin and others) that involved interviewing academics in university faculties of social work, education, pharmacy and dentistry. In addition, I was Principal Investigator for several other projects including "Traditions and Transitions in Teacher Education: The Experiences of Teacher Educators in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, 1945-2002"; "Gender, Leadership and Change", and "Key Features of the Graduate School Experience."  My current SSHRC project (with Michelle Webber and Elizabeth Smyth) is a study of academic tenure practices in the social sciences in Ontario. I am also working on a study of doctoral students' experience and am a co-investigator on a SSHRC project about changing conditions of academic work ( Michelle Webber, PI) "The New Scholarly Subject." 

From 1999 to 2002, I was Chair of OISE/UT's Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education (Associate Chair in 2007-2008) and from 2004-2006, I was Associate Dean (Social Sciences), School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto.