Research

The Faculty of Education and Social Work is committed to research as a form of service to others. Our faculty specialize in education, English for academic purposes, university and employment preparation, social work and human services.

TRU Research Storyteller

Research by Dr. Carol Rees, associate professor with the Faculty of Education and Social Work, helps inform science and math education — providing children with a love of discovery and the confidence to ask great questions that look to science for answers. Watch Dr. Rees talk about her findings in our TRU Research Storyteller series.

More research videos

This section describes how we are advancing our research culture in these disciplinary areas by addressing questions of local, national and international importance, particularly in the strategic areas of education, health and diversity; Indigenous understanding; and community and culture.

In this way our research is interwoven with core academic themes: power, politics and social justice; sustainability (environmental, economic, social and cultural); and science, technology and applied skills in society.

Our research mission is knowledge creation to move debates forward in ways that improve student success, enhance social and human opportunity, enable equity, advance reconciliation, and support well-being. In short, our research is in service to realizing potential — in education, language acquisition, and social and human development.

Our priorities include research that contributes to Aboriginal advancement and to reconciliation. We take a strengths-based approach to enabling Indigenous research scholarship and scholars. We recognize that the TRU campus is situated on the traditional and unceded Tk’emlupsul’ecw ell Stk’emlupsemc territory and are committed to exploring research areas of mutual benefit, with exceptional consideration for Secwe̓pemc world-view and belief system.

In order to serve in meaningful ways, our research as reported here reflects a range of theoretical and methodological orientations, and often incorporates interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of educational and social theory, policy and practices. Our intent is to generate new knowledge of the highest quality and importance, which makes original theoretical and/or empirical contributions across both formal and informal education, social and human development contexts.

Through our research and scholarship, Faculty of Education and Social Work scholars critically engage with historic and contemporary arrangements in education, social and human development settings, and offer meaningful, research-informed alternatives to these arrangements.