Research Interests or Specialties

Multilingual/bilingual/minority language education

  • Teacher education in contexts of linguistic diversity
  • Relationships between mainstream education and linguistic minority families
  • Mutilingual education and multiliteracies
  • Linguistic diversity and ethics

Research Projects

Building school-based, community-referenced decision-making capacity for minority families

Principal Investigator: John Ippolito
Funding: SSHRC, Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, York University Knowledge Mobilization, York University Faculty of Education
Duration: On-going

In an effort to move the discussion around parent involvement, in particular minority parent involvement, in education beyond an exchange of information between parents and schools and a modeling of best practices, this project investigates the point where parents and caregivers themselves implement changes to their children’s public schooling. In order to do this, the project is training teams of parents and caregivers from minority families as researchers. The working hypothesis is that parents/caregivers can identify – in a more nuanced and direct way than can external researchers from school boards or external agencies – the needs and priorities of their peers in their children’s schools and neighbouring communities. The project further hypothesizes that professional research capacity will establish credibility and currency for collective parent voices and this credibility will provide a basis for parents/caregivers to better understand issues of importance to themselves and their peers and to make related submissions to schools, school boards, and government ministries on issues such as curriculum (including language policy); cultural aspects of teaching and learning; and health and safety issues. The project is taking place in two boards of education in the Greater Toronto Area.

Publications
Ippolito, J. (2010). Ethics and teacher practices in linguistic minority classrooms. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 5 (2), 107-117.

Ippolito, J. (2010). In(formal) conversation with minority parents and communities of a

Canadian junior school: Findings and cautions from the field. School Community

Journal, 20 (1), 141-157.
Ippolito, J., & Schecter, S. R. (2008). Promising practices: Parent involvement AS education: A case study. Education Canada, 48 (2), 55-58.
Schecter, S. R., & Ippolito, J. (2008). Parent involvement AS education: Activist research in multilingual and multicultural urban schools. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 5 (1), 163-183.
Schecter, S.R., Ippolito, J., & Rashkovsky, K. (2007, March). Schools in transition: Giving parents part of the PIE. Educational Leadership, 64 (6), 69-71