Office Hours
Courses Taught
Research Interests
Publications

Office Hours

TBA

Courses Taught

EDST 314 (weblog)
EDST 426 Sec 922 and Sec 925
EDST 428
EDST 509
EDST 455
EDST 502A
EDST 506
EDST 507D

Research Interests

History of Children and Childhood
History of Education
Gender and Sexuality

Publications

Work in Progress

Research Grant: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Grant (2007-2010)

Building on the research associated with the Spencer Foundation Grant, my latest SSHRC project seeks to deepen our historical understanding of the place of disability in public education. During the first half of the twentieth century, public schools in both Canada and the U.S. solidified their status as centers of reform, charged with preventing delinquency and educating productive citizens. Healthy bodies and minds were seen as central to the project of educating for citizenship. At the same time, children with “abnormal” bodies and minds were often sequestered into separate classes and schools which it was argued both provided them with an “appropriate” education and made it possible for teachers to focus on “normal” children. Despite the success of North American scholars in demonstrating the role of formal education in fostering social attitudes towards the “normal” and the “abnormal,” particularly after World War II, little Canadian work has focused on disabled children. The education of disabled children what form it should take, and indeed if it should be formally pursued at all was guided by a powerful conception that the disabled child was somehow an entity “apart.” The roots of this discourse deserve critical scrutiny because their vestiges echo in the contemporary educational landscape for disabled children throughout North America and beyond.

Research Grant: Spencer Foundation (2006-2009)

Growing out of my research on the history of children and healthfulness in twentieth century English Canada, my most recent research had turned toward a critical investigation of the experience of disabled children, particularly in the context of public education. Entitled “Troubling ‘Normal’: Education and the “Disabled” Child in 20th Century Canada,” this project aims to provide a comprehensive view of the evolution of attitudes towards the education of disabled children in the Canadian context.  The project aims to do so on two fronts: in the first, I investigates professional attitudes, specifically on the part of medical and educational experts, towards disabled children between approximately 1850 and 1970 in Canada. A second focus explores how disabled children and their families responded to professional opinions regarding their capabilities and limitations.

Research Grant: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2001-2005)

I am finishing a manuscript tentatively entitled Small Matters: A History of Children in Sickness and Health in Canada.. The research for the book, conducted between 2001 and 2005, was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Aimed primarily at English Canada between 1900 and mid-century, the study explores how children learned to be healthy, how illness and disease was dealt with by teachers, conventional medical experts, and parents, and what this can tell us about children's part in shaping history.

Monographs

Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling, and the Family in Postwar Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999)

Edited Collections

Mona Gleason, Tamara Myers, Leslie Paris, and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., Lost Kids: Negotiating Disadvantage for Children and Youth in Canada, Australia, and the United States, 1900 to the Present (Vancouver: University of Vancouver Press, forthcoming).

Mona Gleason and Adele Perry, eds., Rethinking Canada - The Promise of Women's History, 5th Edition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Veronica Strong-Boag, Mona Gleason, and Adele Perry, eds., Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History, 4th Edition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Jean Barman and Mona Gleason, eds., Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd Edition (Calgary: Detselig Press, 2003)

Book Chapters

"Lost Voices, Lost Bodies?: Doctors and the Embodiment of Children and Youth in English Canada from 1900 to 1940" in Mona Gleason, Tamara Myers, Leslie Paris, and Veronica Strong-Boag, eds., Lost and Found: Vulnerable Children and Youth in Canada, the United States and Australia (Vancouver: University of Vancouver Press, forthcoming).

"Size Matters: Medical Experts, Educators, and the Provision of Health Services to Children in Early to Mid-Twentieth Century English Canada" in Cynthia Comacchio, Janet Golden, and George Weisz, eds., Healing the World's Children: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Health in the Twentieth Century, (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008)

"Constructing 'Normal': Psychology and the Canadian Family, 1945-1960," in Deborah Brock, ed., Making Normal: Social Regulation in Canada, (Toronto: Thomsen Nelson, 2003)

"Growing up to be 'Normal': Psychology Speaks to Children and Youth in Post-World War II Canada," in Edgar-Andre Montigny and Lori Chambers, eds., Family Matters: Papers in Post-Confederation Canadian Family History (Toronto: Canadian Scholarly Press, 1998): 39-56.

" ‘They Have a Bad Effect': Crime Comics, Parliament, and the Hegemony of the Middle-Class in Postwar Canada, 1948-1960," in John Lent, editor, Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999): 129-154

Referred Journal Articles

“Between Education and Memory: Health and Childhood in English Canada, 1900-1950,” Scientia Canadensis 29, 1 (2006): 49-72.

"From "Disgraceful Carelessness" to "Intelligent Precaution": Accidents and the Public Child in English Canada, 1900-1950," Journal of Family History 30, 2 (April, 2005): 230-241

"Beyond Disciplined Questions: Interdisciplinarity and the Promise of Educational Histories," Historical Studies in Education/ Revue d'histoire de l'education 17, 1 (2005): 169-178

"Race, Class and Health: School Medical Inspection and "Healthy" Children in British Columbia, 1890 to 1930," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, 1 (2002): 95 - 112

"Disciplining the Student Body: Schooling and the Construction of Canadian Children’s Bodies, 1930 to 1960," History of Education Quarterly 41, 2 (Spring 2001).

"Embodied Negotiations: Children’s Bodies and Historical Change in Canada, 1930- 1960." Journal of Canadian Studies 34, 1 (Spring, 1999): 113-137

"The History of Psychology and the History of Education: What Can Interdisciplinary Research Offer?" Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 9, 1 (Spring, 1997): 98-106.

"Psychology and the Construction of the 'Normal' Family in Postwar Canada, 1945-1960," Canadian Historical Review 78, 3 (September, 1997): 442-477.

"Disciplining Children, Disciplining Parents: The Nature and Meaning of Advice to Parents in Postwar Canada, 1945-1955," Histoire sociale/Social History, 29, 57 (May, 1996): 187-210.

"‘A Separate and Different’ Education: Women and Co-education at the University of Windsor’s Assumption College, 1950-1957," Ontario History, LXXXIV, 2 (June, 1992): 119-131.

RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLIC LECTURES

Gleason, M. "Navigating the Pedagogy of Failure: Medicine and Education Encounters the Disabled Child in English Canada, 1900-1960," Paper presented to the American Studies Association Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 17, 2008.

Gleason, M. “Leaving a Piece Out: Public Schooling and the ‘Disabled’ Child in Early Twentieth Century English Canada,” Paper presented to the European Social Science History Conference, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal, February 27, 2008.

Gleason, M. “Small Matters? Theorizing Age and Size in the History of Children and Youth,” Canadian Historical Association, York University, 29-31 May, 2006.

Gleason, M. Distinguished Speaker, Laurentian University's Public Lecture Series, Twelfth Annual Women's History Week. Papers presented: “Revisiting ‘Normalizing the Ideal: New Questions, New Interpretations” ; “Beyond Disciplined Questions: Interdisciplinarity and the Promise of Women’s History” ; “Contested Bodies of Knowledge: Children in Sickness and Health in English Canada, 1900-1960.” October 17-18th, 2005

"Small Bodies of Knowledge: Building the 'Healthy Child' in English Canada, 1890 to 1950," Society for the History of Children and Youth Biennial Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5-8, 2005.

"Beyond Disciplined Thinking: Interdisciplinarity and the Promise of Histories of Education," Keynote Address, Canadian History of Education Association Conference, University of Calgary, October 21-24, 2004.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

History of Children and Youth Group

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Canadian Historical Association

Canadian History of Education Association