Joanne Weber, PhD

Associate Professor, Faculty of Education - Educational Psychology Dept

Pronouns: she/her

Curriculum Vitæ

Contact Overview Announcements Publications

Contact

Associate Professor, Faculty of Education - Educational Psychology Dept

Email: jweber1@ualberta.ca
Phone: (306) 994-4541

Overview

Area of Study / Keywords

Deaf education bimodal bilingual education dual language education sign language deaf studies applied linguistics

About

Joanne Weber, PhD (2018) is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in deaf education and an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include language and literacy education, arts-based literacy interventions, arts-based research, arts education, posthumanism, applied linguistics, and sign language studies. She was awarded the Governor General Academic Gold Medal at the University of Regina Convocation in June 2019. Joanne is also a published author. Her books, The Pear Orchard (poetry) and The Deaf House (creative non-fiction) were finalists in the Saskatchewan Book Awards (2007, 2013). Joanne is also a leader in the deaf community at provincial and national levels. Her lifelong passion is to improve the quality of education for deaf students. She is the artistic director of Deaf Crows Collective which aims to provide opportunities for theatre performance by deaf actors of all ages to celebrate Deaf culture, encourage self-expression, and foster relationships between hearing and Deaf communities.

Research

2023 - present Co-investigator, Developing an alternative approach to review of DHH programs within school divisions: Encapsulating the lived experiences of deaf students and their families. Co-investigators: Dr. Joanna Cannon, (University of Calgary), Dr. Natalia Rohatyn-Martin (Grant (MacEwan University), Dr. Charlotte Enns (University of Manitoba), Dr. Lynn McQuarrie (University of Alberta). Funded by the Durham School District Division, Ontario, Canada.

2023-present Co-investigator. Audience Experience of Vibro-tactile Deaf Dance Performance. Co-investigator, Dr. Pil Hansen (University of Calgary). Funded by Canada Research Chair funds.

2022-present Principal Investigator. Open-Access Education Resources in Deaf Education: E-Books as Pedagogy and Curriculum. Co-investigators, Michael Skyer (University of Tennessee), Genie Gertz (Gallaudet University). SSHRC Race, Gender, and Diversity Initiative. Awarded $448,952.00 CAD

2021-present Principal Investigator. Playbuilding Community Partnerships in Deaf Education: Co-creating culturally relevant art curricula. SSHRC Insight Development Grant. Awarded $70,618.00 CAD.

2021-present Principal Investigator. Arts Integration in Bimodal Bilingual Programs. SSHRC Partner Engage Grant. Awarded $24,801.00 CAD

2022-2023 Deaf Aesthetic in Inclusive Higher Online Learning: Re-presenting Material to Maximize Accessibility and Inclusive Education, Support for the Advancement of Scholarship (SAS). Awarded $7,000

2021-2022 Co-investigator. Inclusive early childhood service system project: A longitudinal study of familial viewpoints of early childhood disability. Principal Investigator: Kathryn Underwood (Toronto Metropolitan University). Awarded: $4050.00 CAD

2021-2022 Co-investigator. OpenEd Project. Worldwide University Network, Open and Inclusive Education: WUN and UNESCO Training and Research Networks. Principal Investigator: Maria Soledad Ramirez Montoya (Tecnologico de Monterrey).

2020-2022 Co-investigator. Troubling Vocalities: Disability and Deaf Art on the Canadian Prairies. Principal Investigator: Chelsea Jones (Brock University), Helen Pridmore (Independent Researcher). Abneet Atwal, PhD student (Brock University). SSHRC Insight Development Grant.

2020-2021 Collaborator. Reclaiming Indigenous Sign Languages and Cultures. Principal investigator: Kristin Snoddon (Toronto Metropolitan University). SSHRC Connections Grant.

Teaching

EDPY 301 Introduction to Inclusive Education

EDPY 470 Survey of Deaf Education

EDPY 474 Introduction to American Sign Language

EDPY 458/555 Assessment and Programming for Children with Reading Disability

Announcements

I have a limited number of graduate student openings. I only supervise students who are using a social science or humanities lens - not a scientific or medical one. If you are interested in working with me, please specify in your email how much training/experience you have had in deaf education that does not view deaf persons through a deficit lens or in need of a "cure". Your work in linguistics, sign language, deaf studies, sociology, political theory, philosophy, critical disability studies or related sociocultural fields will be a valuable asset to my research program.

Featured Publications

Story dramas: an exploratory study toward a deaf-led arts-integration model

Joanne Weber, Jah-Amaka Enwedo, Amel Benkohila, Nyla Kurylowich, Brenda Hillcox, Kirsten Olson

Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. 2026 June; 10.1093/jdsade/enag015

Frank conversations about the wickedness of problems in deaf education. In C. Chovaz, Deaf people and mental health: Research to lived experience.

Weber, J., & Thom, J.S.

Gallaudet University Press. 2026 February;

Disrupting Binarized Diversity Discourses in ASL/English Bimodal Bilingual Deaf Education through Examining Affects within Apple Time, a Theatre Play

Joanne Weber

The Canadian Modern Language Review. 2021 August; 10.3138/cmlr-2020-0078

Cyborgs and fox wives: Interrogating sign language ideologies and moving toward survival, resistance, and resilience

Weber, J.

Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. 2021 July; 10 (1):54-83 10.15353/cjds.v10i1.729

Introduction: Plurilingualism and (in)competence in deaf education. In K. Snoddon & J. Weber (Eds.), Critical perspectives on plurilingualism in deaf education: policies and practices in the acquisition of signed and other languages

Snoddon, K. & Weber, J.

Multilingual Matters. 2021 June;

Plurilingualism and Policy in Deaf Education

Critical perspectives on plurilingualism in deaf education. 2021 June;

The deaf way out of no way: Adaptation of a culturally relevant arts education (CRAE) model in a Deaf community devastated by cultural linguicide. In D. Grushkin & L. Monaghan (Eds.) Deaf empowerment: Toward decolonization of sign language peoples

Weber, J.

Elm Academic Press. 2021 March;

Intelligibility as a methodological problem in the rehearsal spaces of “Apple Time”

Weber, J. & Snoddon, K.

Sign Language Studies. 2020 July; 20 (4):595-618 10.1353/sls.2020.0020

“We make art, too”: A panel discussion on disability art and activism on the Canadian Prairies.

Culbert, K., Temple Jones, C., Foster, T., Loeppky, J., & Weber, J.

Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. 2020 June; 9 (4):138-145 10.15353/cjds.v9i4.672

Interrogating local sign language ideologies in the Saskatchewan deaf community. In M. Green, A. Kusters, E. Moriarty Harrelson, K. Snoddon (Eds.) Sign language ideologies in practice

Weber, J.

Mouton De Gruyter / Ishara Press. 2020 June;

Becoming deaf in the posthumanist era: Posthumanism, arts-based research and deaf education [Dissertation].

Weber, J.

University of Regina. 2018 December;

Captive songs of resistance: A posthumanist cartography of a deaf diaspora. In Trifonas, P. & S. Jagger (Eds.), Handbook of cultural studies in education

Weber, J.

Routledge Cultural Studies.. 2018 April;

Reinterpreting arts based data through a posthumanist lens

Synnyt/Origin. 2017 August;

Negotiating Deaf Identity in an Audist Educational Environment: An Arts-Based Inquiry

Ubiquity: The Journal of Literacy, Literature and the Arts. Research Strand. 2015 January;

The Deaf House

Thistledown Press. 2013 January;

Community Literacy Plan for Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners

Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services. 2012 December;

SDHHS Literacy Needs Assessment

Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services. 2011 January;

The Pear Orchard

Hagios Press. 2007 January;

Cree/English Family Literacy Program for FAS/FAE programs - Curriculum and Facilitator's Guide

Ministry of Health Canada. 2003 January;

Teacher Support in Mainstreaming Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in Rural Saskatchewan: A Pilot Project

CAEDHH Journal. 1997 January;

Northwest Regional College Literacy Needs Assessment

National Literacy Secretariat. 1997 January;

Language Lab: A Pilot Project at R.J.D. Williams School for the Deaf, Saskatoon

ACEHI. 1992 January;

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