Amanda Gebhard, PhD, MSW, MEd, BEd, BA
Contact Info
I am a white settler scholar in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Regina. I completed my PhD at the University of Toronto in 2015. My dissertation analyzed how taken for granted discourses about Indigenous peoples cited by educators (re)produce colonial subjectivities that lead to schooling exclusions and contact with the justice system.
Issues of social (in)justice and inequality are at the heart of my scholarship. I am interested in producing research that forms a counter-narrative to oppressive and constraining discourses that shape us both individually and socially. I anchor my projects in critical, feminist, anti-racist, and poststructural theories. I have utilized the methodologies of autoethnography and self- study, poststructural discourse analysis, community-based research, and appreciative inquiry.
My research interests are broad and interdisciplinary, and include: language and power, race and racism in education, the school/prison pipeline, whiteness and colonialism in the helping professions, consciousness-raising and critical literacy with young people, and anti-oppressive approaches to addressing violence. More recently, I have begun exploring disenfranchised grief and loss in infertility through feminist autoethnography.
My courses invite students to adopt a critical theoretical orientation to practice in social work and education. Courses taught in the Faculty of Social Work include: Critical and Transformative Social Work Practice; Critical Thinking, Critical Issues; Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice; Communication in Social Work; Research in the Human Services; and Feminist Social Work. I also lecture for the Faculty of Education, and have taught Anti-Racist and Multicultural Curriculum at the Master’s level and Pedagogy of Intersecting Anti-Racist Education at the undergraduate level, both through community-based programs at the Gabriel Dumont Society in Prince Albert. Prior to joining the Faculty of Social Work, I was a sessional lecturer in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan.
Recent Publications and Presentations
White Benevolence Book Launch: Available on Youtube
Gebhard, A. (Un)managing my Heart: A Feminist Autoethnography of Grief and Infertility.
Eighteenth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana Champaign, Ilinois, May 2022.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Allen, W.S, Gebhard, A., & Pino, F. (2021). Navigating the Brick Wall: School Settlement Workers Respond to Exacerbated Inequities for Newcomer Students in COVID-19. Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity and Practice. Special Edition: Pandemic Social Work: Practice, Education and Activism in the Time of COVID
Gebhard, A. (2020). Power Relations, Knowledge Productions, and Teaching Against Oppression on the Canadian Prairies: A Self-Study, Studying Teacher Education, 16(2), 204-221, DOI: 10.1080/17425964.2020.1742105
Gebhard, A. (2019). Discursive (re)productions of (im)possible students in the Canadian Prairies, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2018.1452714
Gebhard, A. (2018). ‘Let’s make a little drum’: Limitations and contradictory effects of cultural discourses in Indigenous education, Race Ethnicity and Education, DOI:10.1080/13613324.2017.1377172
Gebhard, A. (2017). Reconciliation or racialization? Contemporary discourses about residential schools in the Canadian Prairies, Canadian Journal of Education, 40(1).
Gebhard, A. (2013). Schools, prisons and Aboriginal youth: Making connections. Journal of Educational Controversy, 7(1).
Peer-Reviewed Edited Books & Chapters
Gebhard, A., Mclean, S., & St. Denis, V. (Eds.) (2022). White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions. Fernwood Press.
Gebhard, A., Mclean, S., & St. Denis, V. (2022). Introduction, in White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions. Fernwood Press.
Gebhard, A., Mclean, S., & St. Denis, V. (2022). Conclusion, in White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions. Fernwood Press.
Gebhard, A. (2022). Policing Indigenous Students: The School/Prison Nexus in the Canadian Prairies, in White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions. Fernwood Press.
Other Publications & Reports
Gebhard, A., Allen, W., & Pino, F. (2021). Final Research Report: Settlement Work in Schools During COVID-19. A report prepared for Saskatchewan Association of Immigrant Settlement and Integration Agencies.
Gebhard, A. (2020). Rethinking Pink Day: Ending the bullying catch-all. Our Schools, Our Selves: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Summer/Fall, 23–25
Gebhard, A. (2018). Review of “Schooltalk: Rethinking what we say about—and to—students every day”, by Mica Pollock. Canadian Journal of Education, 41(4), xi–xiv.
Gebhard, A. (2014). Talking about residential schools today: When good intentions fail. Briarpatch. July/August.
Gebhard, A. (2013). Connecting the hidden dots: An essay book review of Erica Meiner’s Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons and the Making of Public Enemies. Journal of Educational Controversy, 7(1)
Gebhard, A., & Hopson, R.L. (2012). Let's talk about teacher race. Our Schools/Our Selves, 12(4), 125—136
Gebhard, A. (2012). Pipeline to prison: How schools shape a future of incarceration for Indigenous youth. Briarpatch. September/October
Conference Proceedings (Past 5 Years)
Gebhard, A., Allen, W.S., & Pino, F. School Settlement Work during COVID-19: A Community-Based Appreciative Inquiry. Canadian Society for the Study of Education Conference, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Edmonton, Alberta, June 2021
Pino, F., Allen, W.S., Gebhard, A. & Watson-Jones, P.G. Racialized Immigrants' Settlement During COVID-19 in the Prairies: Understanding the role of school settlement workers from a transnational feminist perspective. Canadian Association of Social Work Education Conference, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Edmonton, Alberta, June 2021
Gebhard, A., Allen, W.S & Pino, F. Taking a critical turn in Appreciative Inquiry: Lessons learned and Insights Gained in Community-Based Research. Seventeenth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Urbana Champaign, Ilinois, May 2021
Gebhard, A., Allen, W., & Pino, F. “The issues we encounter are bigger than ourselves…But we are very determined:” School settlement work during COVID-19. 23rd Metropolis Canada Conference: Migrants, Migration and Mobility: COVID-19 Response and Recover, March 22, 2021
Allen, W., Gebhard, A. & Pino, F. Centering the Voices of Settlement Workers who Support Newcomer Youth in Schools: Critical Insights. Metropolis Canada Summit: The Economic and Social Impact of Covid-19 on Immigration, Integration and Settlement in Canada, November 2020.
Noubarian, A. & Gebhard, A. (October 2019). Critical Advising for Anti-Oppressive Practice. Advising Association of Saskatchewan Conference
Gebhard, A. (April 2019). Troubling Discourses on Race and Gender: A Self-Study. American Educational Research Association Conference, Toronto, ON
Gebhard, A. (May 2018). Anti-oppressive Practice and Slippery Subjectivities: A Self-Study. Canadian Society for the Study of Education Conference, Regina, SK
Gebhard, A. (October 2017). Troubling Discourses on School Discipline in the Canadian Prairies: Nation Building and Schooling Exclusions. Canada 150 years…More or less Conference, Saskatoon, SK
Gebhard, A. (June 2017). “People see my school as the school where kids don’t succeed”: Teachers of Indigenous Students Negotiate Racializing Subjectivities. Canadian Society for the Study of Education Conference, Toronto, ON
Gebhard, A. (June 2016). “I’m not quite sure that a lot of them are getting it”: Questioning Cultural Theories in Aboriginal Education. Canadian Society for the Study of Education Conference, Calgary, AB