Catherine Vanner
Biographic Data
| ID | 4218484 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Catherine Vanner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Catherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Vanner |
| SIGNATURE | VANNER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Windsor |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7303-942X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Passing it to me: Cultivating youth leadership in transnational intergenerational feminist activism
Transforming Education: Intergenerational Support for Transnational Youth-Led Feminist Activism
Transform Education is a transnational network connecting youth-led organizations advancing gender equality in and through education, housed in the United Nations Girls Education Initiative. Our research in the Leading Change project used digital storytelling to document experiences of 12 Transform Education youth activists from Africa and Asia and describe the impact of involvement in this network. Participants described Transform Education as a…
Who Wants Gender Justice and Transformation? Efforts to Challenge Gender-Based Violence and Discrimination in Schools in Canada
Gender transformative education as explained by youth feminist activists
Gender transformative education is a concept gaining ascendance, in part because of the advocacy of youth feminist activists, particularly members of the Transform Education transnational coalition. This article describes research using digital storytelling to study the experiences and recommendations of youth feminist activists who are members of Transform Education to depict how they understand gender transformative education. 12 participants f…
Virtual Digital Storytelling: Building Solidarity in Transnational Participatory Research
Digital storytelling creates short videos that tell a story by combining images and/or video footage with an audio narrative, usually set to background music. In participatory research, they enable participants to tell their own stories and generate a rich form of multimodal data that can be shared both personally and through knowledge mobilization. In this article, we describe our use of virtual digital storytelling, which brought together 12 yo…
Teaching about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People: Implications for Canadian Educators
The 2019 National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls called on educators at all levels to raise awareness about the phenomenon of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people (MMIWG2S) and its root causes as connected to centuries of colonial violence and ongoing systemic discrimination. This article responds to that call by showcasing the experiences of eight teachers already teaching about MMIWG2S…
Efforts to Enhance Education About Gender-Based Violence: A Teacher Workshop and Toolkit
Sahra' is the Somali word for flower (Kusow, 2023).On May 26, 2023, our Windsor, Ontario, community lost a vibrant and beautiful flower when Sahra Bulle was killed.Two weeks later, her body was found and first degree murder charges were filed against her estranged husband.Her death, at the time, marked the region's fourth femicide in two years (Maru, 2023).Hiatus House, a local organization that provides resources, emergency shelter, and support …
What do you want your teachers to know? Using intergenerational reflections in education research
The Intergenerational Reflections technique was developed to bring together the voices of connected stakeholders of different ages and positions—in this case, students and teachers—to create recommendations that build on both groups’ perspectives. This article describes its use and results as piloted in the Time to Teach about Gender-Based Violence in Canada project. The project gathered 11 teacher participants in a participatory workshop to mobi…
Conclusion: Mobilizing Textbooks for an Equitable Future
South Sudanese Primary School Textbooks: Transforming and Reinforcing Conflict
Teaching Peace and Conflict: The Multiple Roles of School Textbooks in Peacebuilding
Teaching and learning with power and privilege: Student and teacher identity in education about gender-based violence
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global concern that disproportionately impacts girls and marginalized communities; there is a need to better understand public education's role in enhancing understanding of GBV. This study uses qualitative participatory methods to study the experiences of 14 Canadian teachers who teach about GBV. Participants struggled to balance teaching their most privileged students about GBV while protecting students more lik…
CER Moderated Discussion on “‘Participation Does Not Equal Voice’: Gendered Experiences in an Academic and Professional Society”
“Participation Does Not Equal Voice”: Gendered Experiences in an Academic and Professional Society
“Male culture” strongly persists in academic and professional societies, including at annual conferences and meetings, where women-identifying individuals report facing various forms of sexual harassment, discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization. This study goes beyond parity metrics to innovate the monitoring of gender by analyzing gender inequalities and inequities in the space of an academic and professional society and its annual meetin…
When My Hands Were Tied, You Were Able to Continue”
This paper discusses our experiences harnessing the complementarity of perspectives, positions, and resources as an outsider lead researcher and an insider research assistant while reporting a child abuse case that we learned of during qualitative case study research in Kenya. We use collaborative autoethnography to examine our experiences during the research process, with semi-structured individual interviews of each other and document analysis …
Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at Igsa@ND
We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the co…
Education about gender-based violence: Opportunities and obstacles in the Ontario secondary school curriculum
This article examines the Ontario secondary school curriculum’s inclusion of opportunities to teach about gender-based violence, drawing on analysis of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Canadian and World Issues, and Health and Physical Education curricula and seven teacher interviews. Analysis applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to show that opportunities for teachers to address gender-based violence issues exist, but the use of disco…
Toward a Feminist Framework for Virtual Conferencing
Personal, Powerful, Political
“Today I met my role model,” tweeted climate change activist Greta Thunberg on 25 February 2020, captioning a picture of herself with girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai, who also tweeted the picture, proclaiming that Greta was “the only friend I would skip school for.” The proclamations of mutual admiration illustrate a form of solidarity between the two most famous girl activists, who are often pointed to as examples of the power of the …
We Want Freedom Not Just Safety’: Biography of a Girlfesto as a Strategic Tool in Youth Activism
Girls are increasingly visible as activists demanding social change, equity and justice. Yet communication between girls and policymakers is fraught with challenges over how to translate young people’s knowledge into policy change. This article traces the history of the manifesto as a form for the marginalized to articulate new social visions, drawing on the Riot grrrl manifestos as examples of this genre. It describes the creation of the first G…
Toward a Definition of Transnational Girlhood
In this article, I join a conversation about the definition and value of the term transnational girlhood. After surveying the fields of transnationalism, transnational feminism, and girlhood studies, I reflect on the representation of girls who act or are discussed as transnational figures. I critique the use of the term, analyze movements that connect girls across borders, and close by identifying four features of transnational girlhood: cross-b…
This is a competition’: The relationship between examination pressure and gender violence in primary schools in Kenya
The role of triangulation in sensitive art-based research with children
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the critical role of triangulation to create authentic analytical frameworks amidst contradictory participant narratives in sensitive art-based research (ABR) with children. Design/methodology/approach Multiple qualitative case study research included three months of participant observation, individual semi-structured teacher interviews and open-ended art-based interviews using the Draw-Write-Narr…
Learning peace (and conflict): The role of primary learning materials in peacebuilding in post-war Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka
Post-war education is usually considered a positive contributor to peacebuilding; however, it can also reinforce divisive perspectives. Textbooks and learning materials can be instrumental in maintaining or exacerbating existing inequalities. This paper uses case study literature reviews of Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka to explore the ways in which primary learning materials extend existing challenges of post-war education and potentiall…
Positionality at the Center: Constructing an Epistemological and Methodological Approach for a Western Feminist Doctoral Candidate Conducting Research in the Postcolonial
As a Western feminist supporting and researching gender equality in education in postcolonial contexts, I often wonder: Am I doing more harm than good? The privilege of my social location means that my efforts to support education in postcolonial contexts risk being patronizing, insulting, threatening, imperialist, and recolonizing. Yet neglecting and ignoring postcolonial contexts similarly reflects and reproduces a privileged position. I provid…
Positionality at the Center: Constructing an Epistemological and Methodological Approach for a Western Feminist Doctoral Candidate Conducting Research in the Postcolonial
As a Western feminist supporting and researching gender equality in education in postcolonial contexts, I often wonder: Am I doing more harm than good? The privilege of my social location means that my efforts to support education in postcolonial contexts risk being patronizing, insulting, threatening, imperialist, and recolonizing. Yet neglecting and ignoring postcolonial contexts similarly reflects and reproduces a privileged position. I provid…
Toward a Definition of Transnational Girlhood
In this article, I join a conversation about the definition and value of the term transnational girlhood. After surveying the fields of transnationalism, transnational feminism, and girlhood studies, I reflect on the representation of girls who act or are discussed as transnational figures. I critique the use of the term, analyze movements that connect girls across borders, and close by identifying four features of transnational girlhood: cross-b…
We Want Freedom Not Just Safety’: Biography of a Girlfesto as a Strategic Tool in Youth Activism
Girls are increasingly visible as activists demanding social change, equity and justice. Yet communication between girls and policymakers is fraught with challenges over how to translate young people’s knowledge into policy change. This article traces the history of the manifesto as a form for the marginalized to articulate new social visions, drawing on the Riot grrrl manifestos as examples of this genre. It describes the creation of the first G…
Teaching and learning with power and privilege: Student and teacher identity in education about gender-based violence
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global concern that disproportionately impacts girls and marginalized communities; there is a need to better understand public education's role in enhancing understanding of GBV. This study uses qualitative participatory methods to study the experiences of 14 Canadian teachers who teach about GBV. Participants struggled to balance teaching their most privileged students about GBV while protecting students more lik…
Education about gender-based violence: Opportunities and obstacles in the Ontario secondary school curriculum
This article examines the Ontario secondary school curriculum’s inclusion of opportunities to teach about gender-based violence, drawing on analysis of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Canadian and World Issues, and Health and Physical Education curricula and seven teacher interviews. Analysis applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to show that opportunities for teachers to address gender-based violence issues exist, but the use of disco…
The role of triangulation in sensitive art-based research with children
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the critical role of triangulation to create authentic analytical frameworks amidst contradictory participant narratives in sensitive art-based research (ABR) with children. Design/methodology/approach Multiple qualitative case study research included three months of participant observation, individual semi-structured teacher interviews and open-ended art-based interviews using the Draw-Write-Narr…
Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at Igsa@ND
We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the co…
This is a competition’: The relationship between examination pressure and gender violence in primary schools in Kenya
Learning peace (and conflict): The role of primary learning materials in peacebuilding in post-war Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka
Post-war education is usually considered a positive contributor to peacebuilding; however, it can also reinforce divisive perspectives. Textbooks and learning materials can be instrumental in maintaining or exacerbating existing inequalities. This paper uses case study literature reviews of Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka to explore the ways in which primary learning materials extend existing challenges of post-war education and potentiall…
We are the Assets of the School’
Children’s participation in decision-making is a universal right as articulated by the un Convention on the Rights of the Child. This right to participation is a central feature of Save the Children’s primary school School Health and Nutrition ( shn ) project in El Salvador. This article presents the results of a qualitative study that examined the nature and extent of children’s participation in the shn project in three schools. The findings ind…
We are the Assets of the School’
Children’s participation in decision-making is a universal right as articulated by the un Convention on the Rights of the Child. This right to participation is a central feature of Save the Children’s primary school School Health and Nutrition ( shn ) project in El Salvador. This article presents the results of a qualitative study that examined the nature and extent of children’s participation in the shn project in three schools. The findings ind…
Positionality at the Center: Constructing an Epistemological and Methodological Approach for a Western Feminist Doctoral Candidate Conducting Research in the Postcolonial
As a Western feminist supporting and researching gender equality in education in postcolonial contexts, I often wonder: Am I doing more harm than good? The privilege of my social location means that my efforts to support education in postcolonial contexts risk being patronizing, insulting, threatening, imperialist, and recolonizing. Yet neglecting and ignoring postcolonial contexts similarly reflects and reproduces a privileged position. I provid…
Learning peace (and conflict): The role of primary learning materials in peacebuilding in post-war Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka
Post-war education is usually considered a positive contributor to peacebuilding; however, it can also reinforce divisive perspectives. Textbooks and learning materials can be instrumental in maintaining or exacerbating existing inequalities. This paper uses case study literature reviews of Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka to explore the ways in which primary learning materials extend existing challenges of post-war education and potentiall…
The role of triangulation in sensitive art-based research with children
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the critical role of triangulation to create authentic analytical frameworks amidst contradictory participant narratives in sensitive art-based research (ABR) with children. Design/methodology/approach Multiple qualitative case study research included three months of participant observation, individual semi-structured teacher interviews and open-ended art-based interviews using the Draw-Write-Narr…
This is a competition’: The relationship between examination pressure and gender violence in primary schools in Kenya
Toward a Definition of Transnational Girlhood
In this article, I join a conversation about the definition and value of the term transnational girlhood. After surveying the fields of transnationalism, transnational feminism, and girlhood studies, I reflect on the representation of girls who act or are discussed as transnational figures. I critique the use of the term, analyze movements that connect girls across borders, and close by identifying four features of transnational girlhood: cross-b…
Toward a Feminist Framework for Virtual Conferencing
Personal, Powerful, Political
“Today I met my role model,” tweeted climate change activist Greta Thunberg on 25 February 2020, captioning a picture of herself with girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai, who also tweeted the picture, proclaiming that Greta was “the only friend I would skip school for.” The proclamations of mutual admiration illustrate a form of solidarity between the two most famous girl activists, who are often pointed to as examples of the power of the …
We Want Freedom Not Just Safety’: Biography of a Girlfesto as a Strategic Tool in Youth Activism
Girls are increasingly visible as activists demanding social change, equity and justice. Yet communication between girls and policymakers is fraught with challenges over how to translate young people’s knowledge into policy change. This article traces the history of the manifesto as a form for the marginalized to articulate new social visions, drawing on the Riot grrrl manifestos as examples of this genre. It describes the creation of the first G…
CER Moderated Discussion on “‘Participation Does Not Equal Voice’: Gendered Experiences in an Academic and Professional Society”
“Participation Does Not Equal Voice”: Gendered Experiences in an Academic and Professional Society
“Male culture” strongly persists in academic and professional societies, including at annual conferences and meetings, where women-identifying individuals report facing various forms of sexual harassment, discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization. This study goes beyond parity metrics to innovate the monitoring of gender by analyzing gender inequalities and inequities in the space of an academic and professional society and its annual meetin…
When My Hands Were Tied, You Were Able to Continue”
This paper discusses our experiences harnessing the complementarity of perspectives, positions, and resources as an outsider lead researcher and an insider research assistant while reporting a child abuse case that we learned of during qualitative case study research in Kenya. We use collaborative autoethnography to examine our experiences during the research process, with semi-structured individual interviews of each other and document analysis …
Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at Igsa@ND
We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the co…
Education about gender-based violence: Opportunities and obstacles in the Ontario secondary school curriculum
This article examines the Ontario secondary school curriculum’s inclusion of opportunities to teach about gender-based violence, drawing on analysis of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Canadian and World Issues, and Health and Physical Education curricula and seven teacher interviews. Analysis applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to show that opportunities for teachers to address gender-based violence issues exist, but the use of disco…
Conclusion: Mobilizing Textbooks for an Equitable Future
South Sudanese Primary School Textbooks: Transforming and Reinforcing Conflict
Teaching Peace and Conflict: The Multiple Roles of School Textbooks in Peacebuilding
Teaching and learning with power and privilege: Student and teacher identity in education about gender-based violence
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global concern that disproportionately impacts girls and marginalized communities; there is a need to better understand public education's role in enhancing understanding of GBV. This study uses qualitative participatory methods to study the experiences of 14 Canadian teachers who teach about GBV. Participants struggled to balance teaching their most privileged students about GBV while protecting students more lik…
What do you want your teachers to know? Using intergenerational reflections in education research
The Intergenerational Reflections technique was developed to bring together the voices of connected stakeholders of different ages and positions—in this case, students and teachers—to create recommendations that build on both groups’ perspectives. This article describes its use and results as piloted in the Time to Teach about Gender-Based Violence in Canada project. The project gathered 11 teacher participants in a participatory workshop to mobi…
Teaching about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People: Implications for Canadian Educators
The 2019 National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls called on educators at all levels to raise awareness about the phenomenon of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people (MMIWG2S) and its root causes as connected to centuries of colonial violence and ongoing systemic discrimination. This article responds to that call by showcasing the experiences of eight teachers already teaching about MMIWG2S…
Efforts to Enhance Education About Gender-Based Violence: A Teacher Workshop and Toolkit
Sahra' is the Somali word for flower (Kusow, 2023).On May 26, 2023, our Windsor, Ontario, community lost a vibrant and beautiful flower when Sahra Bulle was killed.Two weeks later, her body was found and first degree murder charges were filed against her estranged husband.Her death, at the time, marked the region's fourth femicide in two years (Maru, 2023).Hiatus House, a local organization that provides resources, emergency shelter, and support …
Gender transformative education as explained by youth feminist activists
Gender transformative education is a concept gaining ascendance, in part because of the advocacy of youth feminist activists, particularly members of the Transform Education transnational coalition. This article describes research using digital storytelling to study the experiences and recommendations of youth feminist activists who are members of Transform Education to depict how they understand gender transformative education. 12 participants f…
Virtual Digital Storytelling: Building Solidarity in Transnational Participatory Research
Digital storytelling creates short videos that tell a story by combining images and/or video footage with an audio narrative, usually set to background music. In participatory research, they enable participants to tell their own stories and generate a rich form of multimodal data that can be shared both personally and through knowledge mobilization. In this article, we describe our use of virtual digital storytelling, which brought together 12 yo…
Passing it to me: Cultivating youth leadership in transnational intergenerational feminist activism
Transforming Education: Intergenerational Support for Transnational Youth-Led Feminist Activism
Transform Education is a transnational network connecting youth-led organizations advancing gender equality in and through education, housed in the United Nations Girls Education Initiative. Our research in the Leading Change project used digital storytelling to document experiences of 12 Transform Education youth activists from Africa and Asia and describe the impact of involvement in this network. Participants described Transform Education as a…
Political science (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works)