ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Harriet Akanmori is a fifth year PhD candidate in the Collaborative Program: Sociology of Education and Comparative International Development Education at the University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her research centres on equity and access to education, the disengagement and dropout of minority youth in general, black male youth in particular, from Canadian high schooling, and their subsequent criminalization. She seeks to address their marginalisation from schooling and reintegration into society from the criminal justice system through an Indigenous knowledges approach that acknowledges their cultural heritage and identity and incorporates their African spirituality.

Isaac Nortey Darko holds a PhD from the University of Toronto. A teacher, researcher and activist, Isaac spends most of his time, academic and professional, teaching and engaging conversations around equity, race, Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, education/schooling, environmental sustainability, health, governance, and information communication technology. He occasionally speaks at African- Canadian community events raising consciousness on parental, educational and cultural challenges that African immigrants, especially parents, face in Canada. He also shares his academic life as quest speaker and lecturer in universities around Africa.

George J. Sefa Dei is Professor of Social Justice Education and Director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of anti-racism, minority schooling, international development, anti-colonial thought and Indigenous knowledges systems.

Anna Hugo is an emeritus professor and research fellow in the College of Education at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. She has been in teacher training for 26 years, during which period inclusive education was one of the subjects that she offered. She was a senior researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council, before which she was a remedial teacher at a school for physically impaired learners.

Dikeledi Mahlo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Inclusive Education at the University of South Africa. She teaches Inclusive Education modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, while supervising masters and doctoral students. Her research interests are in teacher, learner, parental support and human rights in inclusive settings.

191 About the Contributors

Serefete Molosiwa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Foundations (Special Education Section), within the Faculty of Education at the University of Botswana. She is a former Secondary School teacher. Currently, Serefete has spent over 23 years working and receiving training in Special Education, which in part contributed to making her an inclusive education advocate. Further involvement in a three-year consultative (Learning for Democracy and Inclusive Education) MiET-SA and SIDA project and membership in Inclusive Education Committees shaped her approach to inclusive education. Diversity is an opportune platform to showcase expertise in inclusive education skills and knowledge.

Jabulani Mpofu is a native African and lecturer in the Department of Disability Studies and Special Needs Education at Zimbabwe Open University. With more than 15 years’ experience working with people with disabilities as an advocate for inclusive communities, Mr Mpofu has published several research articles in peer-refereed journals, book chapters, and modules on disability issues. His primary teaching assignment focuses on issues around inclusive communities and his perceptions of disability and inclusive education are immersed in professional preparation and work experience which values diversity in learners.

Dionisio Nyaga is a PhD student of/at Social Justice Education/OISE University of Toronto. He has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in social work from Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario. Dionisio is a lecturer at Department of Social work/ Ryerson University. He is currently a college instructor in Toronto. His research and teaching interests are on issues of Indigenous studies, men and masculinities,curriculum development, anti-colonial theory, diasporic and transnational theorising, post- colonial studies, gender studies, community development, anti-oppressive practice and research and labour studies.

Nareadi Phasha is a Professor in Inclusive Education and currently Head the Department of Inclusive Education at the University of South Africa. Her research specialisation is Inclusive Education, focused on sexual abuse/violence of learners, school processes and practices that promote sexual violence in school, as well as interference of the experience with school functioning. She develops special ways in which schools can reverse the negative consequences of sexual abuse and violence. Learners from all walks of life are included in her research, as well as those with intellectual and physical disabilities and challenges.

Rose Ann Torres has a PhD in Sociology of Education and Women and Gender Studies at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She has been teaching in the Sociology Department at Ryerson University and Trent University, and in the department of Women and Gender Studies at Brock University. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of inclusive education, anti-racism, social justice, inequality, race, gender, class, Indigenous knowledge, transnational

192 About the Contributors feminism and qualitative research methods. She is currently conducting research on “The Diasporic Resiliency, Agency and Resistance of Filipino Women: Roles, Influences, and Experiences”.

Therese Tchombe is the UNESCO Chair for Special Needs Education at the University of Buea. She has participated in the activities of the European Organization for Special Education Needs and Inclusive Education. Her research activities with Sight Savers International in Yaounde was on Situational Analysis of Policies, Practices and Barriers to Inclusive Education, in Primary Schools in Cameroon. Further research was on inclusive education, examining the Preparedness of Educational Institutions in five African countries: A Transnational Research Funded by Teachers Taskforce Paris. This acknowledged a need to understand better the epistemology of inclusive education.

Mahlapahlapana Themane is the head of department in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Limpopo. His thinking on inclusive education has evolved from three research projects, the UNICEF project Child Friendly Schools, where he and his colleagues, the Limpopo Department of Education and LINK studied conditions of schools in the Limpopo Province. The second project is the National Research Foundation collaboration research between the University of Johannesburg, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Limpopo on Inclusive Education in Teacher Education. The third project involves his involvement with the University of Pretoria on schools as enabling environments.

Elizabeth Walton came to teacher education after 20 years in high school teaching and school management, where she was introduced to inclusive education, undertook postgraduate study in the field, and actively pursued inclusivity in the school. She became convinced that inclusive education cannot represent additional inclusive strategies layered onto existing practice. Instead, it must challenge the exclusion in educational structures and practices. Her current teaching and research builds on this, focusing on teacher education for inclusion. This extends to work with full-service schools to develop professional learning communities for inclusive education.

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