We are a multi-generational team of researchers who are passionate about refugee and immigrant wellbeing
Neda Maghbouleh
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga
Graduate Faculty, University of Toronto
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga
Graduate Faculty, University of Toronto
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Neda's scholarship brings together the study of international migration and race/ethnicity to learn how refugees and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) navigate new worlds in North America. In three streams of research (the racialization of Iranians in the U.S.; the early experiences of Syrian newcomers to Canada; and an experimental survey on racial classification), she cuts strategically across class, ethnicity, and citizenship differences to understand the broader social forces that construct MENA communities as white/not-white, welcome/unwelcome, compatible/ incompatible, and invisible/hyper-visible in the Canadian and American polity. Winner of a 2018 Ontario Early Researcher Award and 2018-2023 SSHRC Insight Grant, she is the author of The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race (Stanford University Press), published in 2017.
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Melissa Milkie
Co-Investigator
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga
Chair of the Graduate Department, University of Toronto
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga
Chair of the Graduate Department, University of Toronto
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As a social psychologist impassioned with analyzing well-being in a changing world, Melissa's research engages interactionist, life course, and stress process models, spanning the areas of gender, family, culture, and mental health. One central strand of her research focuses on family stressors such as parenting strains & work-family conflicts, and how these link to health and well-being. Another strand of research documents parents’ feelings about time and family life, and how mothers’ and fathers’ time with children and time in housework, paid work and leisure has changed over recent decades. Related projects have examined children’s views of what makes mothers and fathers special, parents’ assessments of the division of childcare, and adults’ views of their childhoods. A third strand of her research focuses on cultural meanings, identities and media frames linked to social groups; including mothers, fathers, girls, African-Americans, and feminists and how these frames influence us. Her research is published in Social Forces, Society and Mental Health, Journal of Marriage and Family, American Sociological Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, Gender & Society and more.
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Ito Peng
Co-Investigator
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Director, Centre for Global Social Policy
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Director, Centre for Global Social Policy
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Ito Peng is the Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy and Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the Department of Sociology, and the School of Public Policy and Governance. She is also the Director of the Centre for Global Social Policy, University of Toronto. She has written extensively on family and gender policies, labour market changes, care economy, and social and political economy of care. Professor Peng is the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC funded partnership research project called Gender, Migration and the Work of Care: International Comparisons, that examines how the reorganization of care influences the global migration of care workers, and how this migration in turn impact family and gender relations, gender equality, government policies, and global governance.
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Rula Kahil
Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate
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Winner of the UTM Postdoctoral Fellowship award, Rula's recently completed doctoral research (2017, PhD in Philosophy of Education, OISE) addressed the role of emotions and shame in identity formation and immigrant mental health. In her dissertation, she advanced a theory of shame as a complex emotion that mediates women’s role identities and their access to sociopolitical power. Her dissertation argues that by considering shame more thoroughly, educators and advocates who care about refugee and immigrant women’s wellbeing may be able to build more effective and more culturally appropriate resources. Her current research program has two streams: (1) an analytic reconsideration of the role of the researcher and paradigms like “identity matching” in best practices for conducting research with vulnerable populations and (2) the development of a practical toolkit for newcomer refugees and their advocates, which offers strategies for emotional wellbeing and coping.
Education PhD (Philosophy of Education), OISE, University of Toronto MA (Philosophy of Education), OISE, University of Toronto MA (Educational Psychology), American University in Beirut BA (Philosophy), American University in Beirut |
Laila Omar
Research Assistant
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Laila is a second year PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie within the fields of immigrant and refugee integration and qualitative methods. More specifically, Laila is interested in the integration process of refugee and immigrant youth from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Canada. Her current research focuses on three main areas: (1) examining the process of language acquisition in the host country, (2) investigating the role of religious identity in the integration process, and (3) understanding the hopes and aspirations of Syrian newcomer youth in Canada.
Education MA (Sociology), University of Toronto BA (Sociology, Minors in Middle East Studies and International Development Studies), McGill University |
Dalal Badawi
Research Assistant
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Dalal is a Masters student in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie within the field of refugee resettlement and service/support access. She is especially interested in therapeutic, trauma-informed, and culturally sensitive approaches to working with children and families, and the intergenerational impacts of specific experiences on family dynamics.
Education Honours BA (Political Science and Diaspora & Transnational Studies, Minor in Philosophy), University of Toronto |
Anmul Shafiq
Research Assistant
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Anmul is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto Mississauga, where she took a variety of coursework in the area of international migration. She is interested in the politics of identity, particularly within the Middle East. More specifically, she is interested in exploring the experiences of individuals who are the product of biracial marriages and the impact that their identity has on their citizenship and sense of belonging.
Education Honours BA (Political Science and Criminology), University of Toronto Mississauga |
Mohamed Afify
Research Assistant
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Afify is a 4th-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He is pursuing a specialist program in Sociology and a major in Criminology. His research interests are in the areas of economic inequality and stratification, particularly the relationship between socioeconomic status and voting trends. As a member of the RISE Team, he is also interested in assessing differences in integration patterns between voluntary and forced migrants.
Education BA (in progress, Sociology and Criminology), University of Toronto Mississauga |
Fatima Al Saadie
Research Assistant
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Fatima is a 3rd-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She is broadly interested in social stratification, race and ethnicity, refugee resettlement, residential segregation, and Islamophobia. As a member of the RISE Team, she is interested in Syrian refugees’ experiences with anti-Muslim racism.
Education BA (in progress, Sociology and Criminology), University of Toronto Mississauga |
Nour Habli
Research Assistant
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Nour is a 4th-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, St. George campus. He is pursuing a double major in International Relations and Architectural Theory. He is broadly interested in comparative foreign policy, sustainable development, how political culture influences policy decision-making, and the way space shapes social interactions. As a member of the RISE Team, he is interested in how the cultural values and identities of young newcomers from the Levant are influenced by their integration into a Western society.
Education BA (in progress, International Relations and Architectural Theory), University of Toronto St. George |
Iman Abdul Razzak
Research Assistant
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Iman is a recent graduate of Monmouth College in Illinois. Her current research interest stems from personal experience as a refugee in the United States and Canada. Iman is interested in the acculturation process of Syrian refugees. The main elements of her research interests feature the difficulties that some refugees face during acculturation and the psychological distress those individuals may experience.
Education BA (Psychology and Music), Monmouth College |