Biography

I am a PhD Candidate at York Unviersity in the Faculty of Education. I am also a long-term occasional teacher in the Toronto District School Board. I am certified to teach French, Drama, and Senior Social Sciences. I have taught at several different secondary schools and over 15 different courses as an LTO.

My research focuses on issues of race, racism, and equity in French programs, specifically French immersion. I am interested in how we can approach colonial language programs through an anticolonial antiracist lens. In 2021, I was awarded the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship for my doctoral research.

Faculty & School/Dept

• Faculty of Education -

Selected Publications

• Kunnas, M. Masson, M., & Wernicke, M. (2023). Stories and counter-stories from French second language researchers. Glottopol, 39, 212-230. doi:https://doi.org/10.4000/glottopol.4039 .
• Kunnas, M (2023). Who Is Immersion for?: A Critical Analysis of French Immersion Policies. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 26 (1), 46-68. doi:https://doi.org/10.37213/cjal.2023.32817 .
• Masson, M., Kunnas, M., Boreland, T., Prasad, G. (2022). Developing an anti-biased anti-racist stance in second language teacher education programs. Canadian Modern Language Review (Special Issue), 78 (4), 385-414. doi:https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.2021-0100 .

Research Projects

Racialized experiences in French immersion programs