Introducing Esther Maeers & Her Important Work in Parent Engagement
Today we are so pleased to highlight Esther Maeers. Esther is a doctoral student at the University of Regina and Dr. Debbie Pushor’s research assistant for her study entitled: Systematic parent engagement in teaching and learning: Creating a prototype to enhance academic and social outcomes for children and parents.
Meet Esther
My journey as a parent, and specifically as a teen mother, has led me to the research that I am engaged in for my doctoral studies. As a young mother, I often felt that my parent knowledge was not valued and that my voice was not heard on the school landscape. I am committed to working alongside young parents in order to find new ways for parents and educators to connect and build reciprocal relationships that benefit the whole family.
I am a parent of three wonderful children, who enable me to learn and grow each day. My daughter is grown and has three children of her own now. I cherish being a Nana and experiencing the joys of grandchildren. The knowledge and experiences that I have from being a parent and a Nana are embedded in both my teaching and my research.
I spent 12 years teaching pre-kindergarten with Regina Public Schools and have now spent four years teaching early childhood education (ECE) classes at the University of Regina.
Esther’s Field of Study
Esther has been dedicated to the field of early childhood education and parent engagement for quite some time. Throughout her 12-year teaching career, Esther came to realize the significance of making space for families and family stories as a way to deeply understand her students and their home lives. During her time as a teacher, she worked closely with both families and children. “I created and organized a program where young mothers from
the teen parent program at a nearby high school came to my classroom weekly. I helped the mothers learn valuable skills for working with young children and I encouraged them in their future careers, as I too had been a teenage mother in high school. While teaching Prekindergarten, I conducted home visits which enabled me to understand the families of my students through their family stories and objects of significance (i.e. photos, food),” she shared.
“As a sessional instructor at the University of Regina, in the field of early childhood education (ECE), I have structured my classes to include parent engagement philosophy and pedagogy, to emphasize the importance of parent knowledge and family stories.”
Current Work
Esther is working as research assistant on two projects funded through Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants. First, Dr. Christine Massing, associate professor at the University of Regina, and myself, along with a group of ECE academics from eight institutions across Canada, are engaged in a Connection project entitled: Sketching narratives of movement towards comprehensive and competent early childhood educational systems across Canada.
“Through this work, I am networking with Canadian academics, advocates, policy makers, and
practitioners from across the country with the goal of understanding how local ECE narratives of change might inform ECE policy development and improve services for children and families. Knowledge mobilization activities in this project have included holding a series of virtual webinars, presenting at the Canadian Society of Studies in Education (CSSE) conference, creating a website (https://ecenarratives.opened.ca/), and writing research briefs and articles,” said Esther.
As mentioned above, Esther is also working alongside Debbie in her research on systematic parent engagement. “In this project, as a narrative inquirer, I have engaged in recorded conversations with participants, analyzed and interpreted transcripts and field text, and compiled and reviewed literature in the field. Debbie and I have collaboratively written a book chapter focused on parent engagement, entitled, Re/Centring Families: Principal as School Landscape Architect. It is published by Brill in Re/centring Lives and Lived Experience in Education (2022). We have also presented many aspects of our work at academic conferences: the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and British Educational Research Association (BERA) virtual conferences in 2021, the American Educational Research Association annual meeting in San Diego in April 2022, virtually at CSSE and in person in Atlanta at the Narrative Matters conference in May 2022.
In addition, Esther is collaborating with Debbie and a group of former graduate students, Debbie Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative V, on a book about systematic parent engagement. Structured as a parent engagement journey through the course of a year, the book features parent engagement concepts and practices specific to each month. “I am writing a chapter which is focused on re-thinking taken for granted school practices in December,” Esther said.
Further to these major undertakings, Esther has provided research assistance this past year to Dr. James McNinch, Professor Emeritus of the University of Regina, with his research on the province of Saskatchewan’s relational home visits pilot project, funded by the Ministry of Education.
This is just a small glimpse into the vast work Esther is doing in this space.
Further Research Contributions
Maeers, E. (2021, July 19). Unpacking a child’s backpack: Object stories and the power of things in the lives of young children [paper presentation]. Things We Think With: Object Symposium, Regina, SK, Canada.
Oduolowu, E., Ashton, E., Maeers, E., & Paquette, A. (2021). Indigenous and international inspirations: Indigenous early childhood care and education (IECCE) curriculum framework for Africa. https://ecenarratives.opened.ca/indigenous-and-international-narratives/
Ricketts, K., Maeers, E. & Munro, R. (2022). Bitter toughness meets fierce love: Reflections on a project with teen mothers (pp. 95-108). In E. Lyle (Ed.), Rehumanizing education. Brill Publications.
Note from Debbie
I love working with Esther; she is an absolute gift! Besides being one of life’s nicest people, she is an incredibly committed, passionate, and hard-working researcher. She is talented in locating reference materials, in foregrounding new and valuable conceptualizations, and in working with metaphors and imagery. She has great skills with technology and superb organizational and time management skills. We work hard together and, at the same time, enjoy each other’s company and have so much fun!
I am so excited about Esther’s program of research, as her work will add something new and important to the field of parent engagement. Interweaving foci on teen parents, parent engagement, and object stories, Esther is studying the movement of children’s backpacks between home and school. How are parents, children, and educators positioned through what is put in the backpack at home and at school and how it is received/taken up the recipient? What stories do the humans tell about these interactions? What stories do the objects tell? As Esther brings theories and understandings of new materialism into thinking about parent engagement, she is making a truly unique and exciting contribution! Esther’s research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is definitely work to watch!
