DR. BONNY NORTON, FRSC Professor and Distinguished University Scholar Department of Language and Literacy Education (LLED) University of British Columbia Research Advisor, African Storybook Research Lead, Storybooks Canada http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/ Contact: [email protected] Degrees • PhD, University of Toronto: Language Education, 1993. (SSHRC Doctoral Fellow) • MA, Reading University, UK: Theoretical Linguistics, 1984. (Rotary Graduate Scholar) • BA Hons, Univ. of Witwatersrand, SA: Applied Linguistics, 1982. (Ranked 1 in program) • BA HDipEd, University of Witwatersrand, SA, 1978: English and History. • BA, Univ. of Witwatersrand, SA: English & History, 1977. (Ranked 1 in History program) Career • Professor and Distinguished University Scholar, LLED, UBC, 2004 – present • Assistant/Associate Professor, Language and Literacy Education, UBC, 1996-2004 • USA Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, McMaster University, 1995-1996 • SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Witwatersrand and Toronto, 1993-1995 • Language Tester, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ, 1984-1987 • Language Tutor, Linguistics Department, University of Witwatersrand, SA, 1980-1983 • English and History Teacher, Johannesburg, SA, 1979 Awards and Distinctions • UBC Great Supervisor, 2017 • Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2016 • TESOL Distinguished Research Award (co-recipient), USA, 2016 • Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, 2015 • Pack Distinguished Scholar and Convocation Speaker, Otterbein University, USA, 2015 • Peter Wall Distinguished Scholar in Residence, UBC, 2013 – 2014 • Research Advisor, African Storybook initiative, 2013 - present • Fellow, American Educational Research Association (AERA), 2012 • UBC Library Innovative Dissemination of Research, Honorable Mention, 2011 • Inaugural recipient, Research Leadership Award, Second Language SIG, AERA, 2010 • Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King’s College, University of London, 2007-2010 • Honorary Professor, University of Witwatersrand, 2007-2010 • UBC Killam Research Prize, 2007 • UBC Killam Teaching Prize, 2003 • International Language Testing Association Award for Best Article, 1994 • Co-recipient, Malkemes Prize, for 1989 article that “opens new era in profession”, 1990 E-mail: [email protected] Courier Address: 2034 Lower Mall Road, Room 100 Web Site: www.LLED.educ.ubc.ca UBC, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2 BONNY NORTON BIOGRAPHY http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/ Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the turbulent apartheid years, Dr. Bonny Norton learnt at an early age the complex relationship between language, power, and identity. Now a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC, her passion for social justice and the role of language education in social change has fuelled her extensive body of research in North America and Africa. Her research is centrally concerned with the promotion of multilingual literacy for children, youth, and adults, and is informed by her seminal work on identity and language learning, described in her 2010 AERA award as “changing the face of second language research”. Her work has introduced novel conceptions of identity to the field of language education, and has been the subject of journal special issues in the USA (1997, 2003, 2017), Japan (2002), China (2007), and Europe (2016). Her publications have been translated into French, Chinese, Portuguese, and German. Dr. Norton’s construct of investment has had a profound impact on international scholarship, and is the topic of a special issue of the leading journal, Langage et Société (2016). Her theory, based on extensive research, holds that while a language learner may be highly motivated (a psychological construct), the learner may not be invested (a sociological construct) in the language practices of a given classroom or community, which may, for example, be racist, sexist, or homophobic. A highly productive scholar, her publications include 5 books, 4 journal special issues, and 125 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her current research addresses multilingual literacy for children in African and Canadian communities, and is included in the 2014 special issue she guest edited for the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development on “Multilingual literacy and social change in African communities” and her 2017 co-edited special issue of the Modern Language Journal on “Transdisciplinarity and language teacher identity”. The impact of her work has been extensive, with over 17,000 Google Scholar citations, including almost 10,000 in the last 5 years. A sought-after speaker, she has given over 70 keynote addresses across six continents, and has been an invited scholar in more than 80 educational institutions outside Canada. Dr. Norton is deeply committed to sharing her research findings with the wider public and with policymakers to maximize research impact. For example, she established her own YouTube channel (2013), publishes in influential online newspapers like The Conversation (2015), and in 2012 held a summit with the Ugandan Ministry of Education in Kampala, in which she and her team shared with policymakers the findings of 10 years of collaborative educational research in the country. Her research contributions have been recognized through multiple international awards, including 2012 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and 2016 co-recipient of the TESOL Distinguished Research Award. In 2010, she was the first recipient of the Senior Leadership Award of AERA’s Second Language Research SIG, and in 2017 she was named a UBC Great Supervisor. Dr. Norton’s efforts to democratize flows of information between the Global North and the Global South are particularly noteworthy. She is committed not only to her many UBC graduate students, who have received numerous research awards (e.g. Vanier, SSHRC and UBC Public Scholar), but also to emerging scholars in less well-resourced communities internationally. As a section Editor of the influential TESOL Quarterly for 12 years, she provided multiple publication opportunities for emerging scholars worldwide, and she was an inaugural co-editor of a Multilingual Matters book series on “Critical Language and Literacy Studies”. The acclaimed Africa Research Network on Applied Linguistics and Literacy, which she co-founded in 2006, remains a vibrant network (http://renafrica.org/en) and her work as Research Advisor for the groundbreaking African Storybook initiative has been extensive. At present, Dr. Norton serves as a research lead of the new cross-disciplinary Language Sciences Initiative at UBC, with the mandate to develop the institution’s interdisciplinary research capacity. Her current work on Storybooks Canada is an exciting partner of the African Storybook, and has much potential for supporting immigrant, refugee, and Indigenous languages in Canada. Her intersectoral work on digital storytelling and Reconciliation is included in the Canada 150+ initiative of UBC’s Peter Wall Institute in 2017, a volume described by Canada’s former Governor General as “a timely and relevant gift of thoughts and ideas on some the most pressing issues of our time.” 2 .