I am currently in my third year of the PhD program within the Curriculum Studies and Studies in Applied Linguistics academic research cluster. I am privileged to be working under the supervision of Dr. Kathy Hibbert, who also supervised my previous Master’s work entitled: “Enrichment programming for secondary school gifted students: A narrative inquiry.”

My research interests have emerged out of my experiences as a secondary classroom teacher, former Acting Department Head of Special Education, and my current role as a system-level staff—Gifted Itinerant, Secondary Programming—where I have the privilege of programming with and for gifted, bright and talented learners within all secondary schools for a large, local public school board. I further support classroom teachers, administrators, and designated teacher contacts for gifted programming within each secondary school and am honoured to have worked—and continue to work—alongside some of the finest, most dedicated, and innovative educators who are truly making a difference for high-ability learners.

My work as a public educator has largely focused on supporting exceptional learners and advocating for accessibility for all pupils, with my body of scholarly work focused on the intellectual accessibility of identified gifted learners in the current system. Critical disability theorists have made significant advancements toward more socially just systems of education (Gable, 2014) for individuals with exceptionalities who have been stigmatized for their impairments by investigating the attitudinal, structural, and political barriers that create the disability of one’s impairment (Malhotra & Rowe, 2014). Using critical narrative inquiry (CNI) as a methodological approach with attention to material semiotics—Actor-Network Theory—for analysis, my dissertation is focused on the construction, the de-construction, and the re-conceptualisation of pedagogical responses to the needs of secondary gifted learners in public education in Ontario, Canada.

Gable, A. S. (2014). Disability theorising and real-world educational practice: A framework for understanding. Disability and Society, 29(1), 86-100.

Malhotra, R., & Rowe, M. (2014). Exploring disability identity and disability rights through narratives: Finding a voice of their own. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Kathryn Hibbert, PhD

Supervisor