Bonny Norton
Wall Associate
Bonny Norton is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, UBC. Born and raised in South Africa in the turbulent apartheid years, she learnt at an early age the complex relationship between identity, language learning, and social justice, which are the focus of her research in the international community. She has published widely and received multiple awards for her scholarly contributions. Dr. Norton has also recently been involved in the African Storybook Project: Research for Social Change.
In 2010, she was the inaugural recipient of the Senior Researcher Award by the Second Language Research group of AERA (American Educational Research Association), and in 2012 was inducted as an AERA Fellow. Described as developing a new paradigm of research around conceptions of identity and critical pedagogy, she was credited with “changing the face of second language research”. She has been recognized at UBC through the award of a Killam Research Prize and a Killam Teaching Prize.
Link to Storybooks Canada
Interview with Bonny Norton on Multilingualism and Identity at the University of Cambridge, September 2019.
Co-Principal Investigator Awards
A broad area of concern in Dr. Mitchell’s research is the idea of engaging various publics in social change, particularly in relation to gender-based violence and other social justice concerns. Talking Public(s) in Socially Engaged Research with Young People will offer a public platform for deepening an understanding of two broad interdisciplinary areas of research crossing the humanities, social sciences, and health sciences: (1) young people and especially girls and young women speaking back (talking public) through the arts, media-making, and various participatory visual methods to address social justice issues, such as gender-based violence; and (2) researchers (talking public) in working with young people in the context of policy. This work cuts across a number of key disciplinary areas, including Film Production and Education as her host faculties, along with Health Research, Indigenous and First Nations Studies, Law, Sociology, Child and Youth Studies, and Social Work. She will be hosted by Drs. Shannon Walsh, Anthony Pare, Bonny Norton, and Heather McKay at UBC.
