Shaheen Shariff

Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE)

 

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PhD Simon Fraser University, Legal Issues in Education
MA Simon Fraser University, Educational Psychology
BA Simon Fraser University, Criminology and Education

Curriculum vitae
 

Description of research/teaching activities

My research and teaching are grounded in the study of legal considerations that impact educational policy and practice. I am currently principal investigator on three SSHRC funded projects: 1) to study school policy and legal boundaries involving cyber-bullying and internet harassment; 2) to study the impact of Quebec’s intercultural policies on ethnic students and 3) an international study that looks at online interactions of children and youth and stakeholder responsibilities. I am an associate of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill’s Law Faculty.

Areas of Interest

School policy, leadership, education law, censorship, Human rights, legal pluralism, constitutional and tort law,Secularism, religion, competing rights/values in schools,Cyber-bullying, freedom of expression and student privacyContribution of Islamic scholarship to Western education

Shaheen Shariff, Ph.D.Department of Integrated Studies, Faculty of Education,McGill University: Dr. Shariff is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, and international expert on cyber-bullying. Her research and teaching are grounded in the study of law as it impacts educational policy, pedagogy and practice. Specifically, her work addresses the emerging policy vacuum on parent and school responsibilities to supervise and intervene when children and teenagers engage in bullying at school and in cyber-space. Her work identifies limits on student free expression in school and cyber-space; privacy rights, cyber-safety, cyber-libel; and school supervision (in the physical school setting and on-line). She has developed guidelines for school administrators, teachers and parents regarding the extent of their legal responsibilities to address cyber-bullying in various contexts. Her work also focuses on human rights, constitutional and tort law as they inform institutional responsibilities to provide safe and productive school and work environments; censorship and diversity in schools. She has served on an international advisory committee working with UNESCO and CIDA as part of a group of consultants working with the International Institute for Educational Planning to develop a toolkit for drafting Teacher Codes of Conduct at the global level. She was also recently a panelist with the(US) First Amendment Center’s online symposium which featured her scholarship on the legal implications for educational institutions in relation to policy issues around cyber-bullying.

Her publications are listed at http://people.mcgill.ca/shaheen.shariff and include the following books: 1) Cyber-bullying: Issues and solutions for the school, the classroom,and the home, Routledge (Taylor & Frances Group, U.K.); 2) Confronting Cyber-bullying: What schools need to know to control misconduct and avoid legal consequences, Cambridge University Press, New York. Dr. Shariff is Principal Investigator on three collaborative national and international projects studying the phenomenon of cyber-bullying, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She has presented her work internationally at the American Education Research Association (AERA) in San Francisco, Chicago and New York; Learning Conference in Grenada, Spain; Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, UK. In Canada, her keynote addresses include “I Am Safe” National conference in Ottawa; Canadian Association for the Practical Study of Law in Education (CAPSLE); Centre for Innovation, Law and Policy; Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers; Television Ontario; Canadian Broadcasting System (CBC). She will be delivering the keynote address at the upcoming National Centre Against Bullying (NCAB) conference in Melbourne, Australia and at the forthcoming ExBus Conference at the University of Aarhus in Copenhagen.

Impact of Scholarship: Media Relations

A Cormex Research, Media Relations Survey (2006) disclosed Shariff, Shaheen among top 20 academic experts cited/quoted nationally in all forms of media reporting (print, television, radio, Internet), between 2001–2005. Media exposure increased significantly in 2006-2007 resulting in a 15th overall ranking through an internal survey at McGill.

Refereed Grants & Fellowship

Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

National 2009-2012 SSHRC Standard Grant $176,132. Principal Investigator: Shaheen Shariff, McGill University. Co-investigators: Victoria Talwar, McGill University;Tanya Beron, University of Calgary;Dawn Zinga, Brock University; France Bouthillier, McGill University.Title: Developing an interactive virtual forum to study children’s on-line interactions and stakeholder responsibilities to promote cyber-safety for Canada’s youngest technology users technology users.

International 2006-2008 SSHRC International Opportunities Fund $143,471 Principal Investigator: Shaheen Shariff, McGill University Inter-university collaborative project involving 8 countries Title: Cyber-bullying: A project to address the policy vacuum & develop international guidelines for schools.

National 2007-2010 SSHRC Standard Grant $183,304 Principal Investigator: Tanya Beron, University of Calgary Co-Investigators: Shaheen Shariff, McGill University, Faye Mishna, University of Toronto Ross Heatherington, Toronto Hospital for Sick Children Title: The impact of cyber-bullying

2005-2008 SSHRC Standard Research Grant $ 92,974 Principal Investigator: Shaheen Shariff, McGill University Co-investigators: Margaret Jackson, Wanda Cassidy, Simon Fraser University Colleen Sheppard, McGill Faculty of Law Title: Cyber-bullying: Are schools obliged to prevent bullying in a virtual school environment?

2004-2005 SSHRC Strategic Multicultural Initiative $ 50,000 Principal Investigator: Shaheen Shariff, McGill University Co-investigators: Mela Sarkar, Michelle Hartman McGill Faculty of Education and Institute of Islamic Studies Title: Investigating inclusion: From educational policies to practices

2002-2003 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship $ 17,700 Title: A system on trial: Legal obligations of schools to prevent bullying.

Montréal Centre for Immigration et Métropolis (IM)

2005-2007 Principal Investigator , Shaheen Shariff. Project 4.7 $ 7,500 Title: Exploring legally defensible policy standards for Quebec educators: Safety, equality and citizenship through reasonable accommodation of students from diverse backgrounds.

2005-2007 Principal Investigator , Shaheen Shariff. Project 4.6 $ 5,000 Title: Reasonable accommodation of immigrant and refugee students in cyber-space: Investigating the policy and programming challenges of inclusive student discourse in the information age.