Our Mission
The mission of the Department of Integrated Studies in Education is to improve the quality of schooling in Quebec, Canada and internationally by working in partnership with educational organizations and related groups to identify and meet the evolving needs of their schools and educational institutions.
Specifically, the Department is dedicated to: (1) educating effective teachers and educational leaders for educational organizations, (2) engaging scholarship in the areas of pedagogy, curriculum, literacy education, educational policy and educational leadership, (3) serving the academic and professional communities in ways related to its teaching and scholarship, and (4) engaging in policy research and consultation aimed at the improvement and reform of educational systems. The Department makes special contributions to the McGill academic community and to the professional educational community.
In all its programs, the Department is committed to excellence and innovation in its teaching, to the continuous updating of its programs, and to a high quality of student life within its programs.
At the undergraduate level, the Department prepares beginning teachers to meet the demands of contemporary Canadian schooling. It particularly capitalizes on the distinctive bilingual and multicultural nature of Montreal-area schools and works in close partnership with these local schools to deliver its elementary and secondary teacher education programs. A special focus within the Department's teacher education efforts is the education of Indigenous teachers for Indigenous schools.
At the graduate level, the Department prepares educators to be leaders within educational organizations in Canada and beyond. Students are educated as researchers who influence practice and policy, as master teachers who play leadership roles in schools and professional organizations, as teacher educators who work within school systems and universities, as teacher leaders who work within schools to improve their performance, and as managers who lead educational organizations at various levels.
As teachers and learners, we are committed to:
- understanding education in its fullest sense as a collective endeavor that supports the integration of theoretical, practical, and experiential knowledge, in both formal and non-formal environments;
- assuring the development of deep knowledge and understanding in discipline area specializations;
- fostering a culture of questioning, critical reflection, and the construction of professional knowledge leading to excellence in the field;
- developing communities of teacher education that embrace collaboration and that model responsive, innovative, and effective teaching practices;
- strengthening an awareness of the fullness and complexity of the whole person, and of the implications of this for teaching and learning;
- deepening our inquiry to extend below the surface of issues emerging from daily practice;
- promoting advocacy for change in response to the diverse needs of communities in local and global contexts, through a sustained commitment to social justice as a process;
- engaging in this work with an ethos of care and concern for humanity.
