Biography

Dr. Vidya Shah is an educator, scholar and activist committed to equity and racial justice in the service of liberatory education. She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University and her research explores anti-racist and decolonizing approaches to leadership in schools, communities, and school districts. She also explores educational barriers to the success and well-being of Black, Indigenous, and racialized students. Dr. Shah teaches in the Master of Leadership and Community Engagement, as well as undergraduate and graduate level courses in education. She has worked in the Model Schools for Inner Cities Program in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and was an elementary classroom teacher in the TDSB. Dr. Shah is committed to bridging the gaps between communities, classrooms, school districts and the academy, to re/imagine emancipatory possibilities for schooling. 

Faculty & School/Dept

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Courses Taught

• Educating for Activism (ED/EDST 4010)
• Race, Culture and Schooling (GS/EDUC 5420)

Selected Publications

• Shah, V. (2021). In/Visible POC: Narratives of a Brown professor in teacher education. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086211051787.
• Shah, V. (2021). The case against exoticism: Troubling "identity" in identity-based data collection. In S. Schecter & C. James (Eds.), Critical approaches toward a cosmopolitan education (pp. 101-118). Routledge
• Shah, V & Peek, M. (2020). Mythologies of "we": Whiteness in cross-racial solidarity work19 (1), 41-54.
• Shah. V. (2020). The (un)intended outcomes of educational policy for equity on family and community engagement. In S. Winton & G. Parekh (Eds.), Critical perspectives on education policy and schools, families and communities (pp. 161-182). Charlotte, NC, United States: Information Age Publishing
• Shah, V. (2019). Calling in the self: Centering Socially Engaged Buddhism in critical pedagogy through personal narrative The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 10 (2), 45-67.
• Shah, V (2018). Different numbers, different stories: Problematizing "gaps" in Ontario and the TDSB Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy (187), 31-47.
• Shah, V. (2018). Leadership for Social Justice through the Lens of Self- Identified, Racially and Other-Privileged Leaders Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education, 6 (1).