Faculty of Education doctoral student Zainab Kizilbash has been named the recipient of the 2011 Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) Brick Robb Memorial Scholarship for Education Research.
Kizilbash was awarded the scholarship for her doctoral research project that will look at the field of teacher education and the teaching of global citizenship education. More specifically, her project will explore how teacher education programs can best prepare teacher candidates to foster global citizenship education in their future classrooms.
Left: Zainab Kizilbash
“The field of global citizenship education is one that has undergone intensified study in recent decades and as a secondary school teacher I observed that teachers need to be globally conscious in order to be able to teach global issues and to foster global citizens,” said Kizilbash. “To a large extent, the heightened interest in global citizenship education can be seen as a response to a world increasingly beset by the varied effects of globalization. Through my research, I plan to add to this highly relevant field of education by shedding light on the role of teacher education in relation to global citizenship education.”
The award is named in honour of I.M. (Brick) Robb, teacher and head of guidance at Northern Vocational School in Toronto, and a long-serving member of the OSSTF. He served as the organization's general secretary from 1964 to 1968.
In addition to the scholarship, Kizilbash has snagged a summer internship at the headquarters of the non-governmental organization WorldTeach, based at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. During her internship, she will be developing comprehensive teaching materials for English-language classes in the various countries where WorldTeach has programs. Kizilbash will be the curriculum developer for Tanzania and will also have an opportunity to work on the development of curricula for China in large part because of a previous York International internship where she served at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
“It’s going to be a great experience because I get to fuse my interests in international education, global citizenship education and teacher education,” said Kizilbash. “I will get exposure to, and learn about, the education system in East Africa while working collaboratively with Tanzanian teachers”.