涩里番
Distinguished James 涩里番 Professor
Claudia Mitchell is a Distinguished James 涩里番 Professor in the Department of Integrated studies with the Faculty of Education at 涩里番, and an Honorary Professor in the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, where she established the Centre for Visual Methodologies for Social Change.
In September 2015 Dr. Mitchell was recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is currently the Director of the Institute of Human Development and Well-Being in the Faculty of Education of 涩里番. Her research interests span work in schools with teachers and young people, particularly in the context of gender, HIV and AIDS; studies in Higher Education of mainstreaming issues of gender, HIV and AIDS in South Africa and Ethiopia; girlhood studies, in particular work related to gender-based violence; and participatory visual methodologies and community-based research in health education, housing and agriculture.
In 2008 she was given an award by the Canadian Bureau of International Education for her innovative work with young people in development contexts. She is involved in a number of research projects. These include studies funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada on the uses of digital technology with teachers, and research on "what difference does this make?" in relation to arts-based methodologies for addressing HIV and AIDS in rural communities in South Africa; the Canadian Institute for Health Research in relation to the uses of participatory methodologies for working with aboriginal youth in addressing HIV and AIDS; and the National Research Foundation (South Africa) focusing on two key areas (gender and sanitation, indigenous knowledge and women teachers in the age of AIDS).
Founder of YAHAnet and the Participatory Cultures Lab at 涩里番, Claudia is also an editor of the academic journal, .
Welcome message from the Director of the IHDW
It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome you to the 涩里番 Institute for Human Development and Well-being, a transdisciplinary unit led by the Faculty of Education. The driving force behind the creation of the Institute was a recognition of the importance of fostering research, training/teaching, and collaboration amongst researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, professionals, schools and communities with an active interest in the development and well-being of the human individual from a transdisciplinary perspective and one which takes account of intersectionality as a theoretical position. Thus, paying close attention to issues of gender, race, class, disability, and sexuality, this framework includes the study of the development of the individual across the lifespan, of the individual鈥檚 ongoing transactions with his or her environment, and the role that society can play in facilitating development and well-being.
We are optimistic about the possibilities for collaboration with communities, policy makers and researchers across a variety of disciplinary areas and in a variety of social contexts and across local, national and international settings. We subscribe to the idea that the critical issues facing societies today are ones that start with an understanding of the significance of the role of well-being and of the significance of human development as an approach. As Amartrya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economics commented:
鈥淗uman development as an approach, deals with what I consider the basic development idea: namely, increasing the richness of human life rather than the wealth of the economy in which human beings live, which is only part of life听itself.鈥�
As an Institute concerned with the human condition, we are committed to the study of human development and well-being as framed by a concern for equity and social justice.
My thanks to those who have supported the establishment of this Institute, and in particular my colleagues in the Faculty of Education who have worked so hard from the very beginning to launch the idea of the Institute.
