Sandwell, Ruth

Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

 

Ruth Sandwell is Associate Professor in the History and Philosophy of Education Program at the Department of Theory and Policy Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Founding co-director of THEN/HiER in 2004, Dr. Sandwell was also a co-director and educational director of the award winning "Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History" (www.canadianmysteries.ca), a pan-Canadian collaborative project that created twelve on-line archives and educational support materials relating to a particular mystery from Canada’s past. This project won the 2008 MERLOT on-line education History Classic Award and the Pierre Berton Award for Canadian History.

Dr. Sandwell’s research and teaching in history education continues to highlight the importance of the humanities to those trying to understand and work within the field of education. Her research in history is focused on the history of the family, the history of education, rural Canada, and a new project, “The Pedagogies of Modernity: Women, Fossil Fuels and Electricity in the Home.” Her recent publications include the edited collections To the Past: History Education, Public Memory and Citizenship Education in Canada (2006), and Beyond the City Limits: Rural History in British Columbia (1999), together with her 2005 monograph Contesting Rural Space: Land Policy and the Practices of Settlement, Saltspring Island, British Columbia, 1859-91 (2005). She has published widely on the subjects of history education, rural history, and public memory, including numerous book chapters and articles in Canadian Social Studies, International Journal of Social Education, Social Education, Canadian Historical Review, and McGill Journal of Education.

Publications Since 2007

Powering Up Canada: Essays on the History of Heat, Light and Work from 1600, edited by Ruth Sandwell. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.

Canada’s Rural Majority, 1870-1940: Household, Environment, Economies. Part of Themes in Canadian History Series edited by Colin Coates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

“Introduction: Towards a History of Energy in Canada.” In Powering Up Canada: Essays on the History of Heat, Light and Work from 1600, edited by Ruth Sandwell. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.

“Rural Households, Subsistence and Environment on the Canadian Shield, 1901-1941.” In Bringing Subsistence Out of the Shadows: Essays on Markets and Self Provisioning, edited by James Murton, Dean Bavington, and Carly Dokis, 121-53. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.

“Pedagogies of the Unimpressed: Re-Educating Ontario Women for the Mineral Economy, 1900-1940.” Ontario History 107, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 36-59.

Review of Put that Damned Old Mattock Away by David J. Spalding. Victoria: Printoria Books, 2013. BC Studies (Spring 2015). http://bcstudies.com/book-reviews/put-damned-old-mattock-away

With Penney Clark and Stéphane Lévesque. “Dialogue Across Chasms: History and History Education in Canada.” in History Teacher Education: Global Interrelations, edited by Elisabeth Erdmann and W. Hasberg, 163-82. History Education International Series, Schwalbach/Ts: Wochenschau Verlag, 2014.

Becoming a History Teacher: Sustaining Practices in Historical Thinking and Knowing, edited by Ruth Sandwell and Amy von Heyking. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

With Amy von Heyking. "Introduction" and "Conclusion." In Becoming a History Teacher: Sustaining Practices in Historical Thinking and Knowing, edited by Ruth Sandwell and Amy von Heyking, 3-10, 313-20. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

"On Historians and Their Audiences: An Argument for Teaching (and Not just Writing) History." In Becoming a History Teacher: Sustaining Practices in Historical Thinking and Knowing, edited by Ruth Sandwell and Amy von Heyking, 77-90. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

“Mapping Fuel Use in Canada: Exploring the Social History of Canadians’ Great Fuel Transformation.” In Historical GIS in Canada, edited by Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, 239-68. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2014.

With John Lutz. “What Has Mystery Got To Do With It?” In Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology, edited by Kevin Kee, 23-42. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.

Review of Canadians and Their Pasts by the Pasts Collective (Margaret Conrad, Kadriye Ercikan, Gerald Friesen, Jocelyn Letourneau, Delphin Muise, David Northrup, Peter Seixas). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. In Canadian Historical Review 95, no. 4 (2014).

“Notes towards a History of Rural Canada, 1870-1940.” In The Social Transformation of Rural Canada: New Insights into Community, Culture and Citizenship, edited by John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012.

“Introduction to Special Issue on the History of Rural Education.” Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation, guest editor Ruth Sandwell, 24(1) (2012): 43-7.

“‘Read, Listen, Discuss, Act’: Adult Education, Rural Citizenship and the National Farm Radio Forum in Canada, 1941-1965.” Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 24(1) (2012): 170-94.

“Showing How Locals Supported the World Economy: A Review of Beatrice Craig’s, Backwoods Consumers and Homespun Capitalists: The Rise of Market Culture in Eastern Canada.” Review solicited for CHR Macdonald Roundtable, Canadian Historical Review 93(1) (2012): 92-7.

“Synthesis and Fragmentation: The Case of Historians as Undergraduate Teachers”; and with Lyle Dick, “Synthesis and Fragmentation in Canadian History: An Introduction.” In round table panel publication, “So What IS the Story? Exploring Fragmentation and Synthesis in Current Canadian Historiography,” edited by Lyle Dick and Ruth Sandwell, Active History, April 2011. www.activehistory.ca.

“‘We were allowed to disagree, because we couldn’t agree on anything’: Seventeen Voices in the Canadian Debates Over History Education.” In History Wars and the Classroom: Global Perspectives, edited by Tony Taylor and Robert Guyver, 51-76. Charlotte NC: Information Age, 2011.

"History is a Verb: Teaching Historical Practice to Teacher Education Students." In New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, edited by Penney Clark, 224-42. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

"Reflections on the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project: A Pedagogical Perspective." Canadian Diversity/Diversité canadienne 7(1) (2009): 88-92.

"Missing Canadians: Reclaiming the A-Liberal Past." In Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution, edited by Jean-François Constant and Michel Ducharme, 246-73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

"History as Experiment: Microhistory and Environmental History." In Method and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History,  edited by Alan McEachern and William Turkel, 122-36. Toronto: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008.

"Using Primary Documents in History and Social Studies." In The Anthology of Social Studies: Secondary Education, edited by Roland Case and Penney Clark, 293-305. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, 2008.