Faculty of Education student wins StatsCan award

Faculty of Education student Joseph Silva has been selected as a co-winner of the 2004 Statistics Canada Award for Foundations of Education for his paper titled “Understanding the School and its Community to Inform an Effective and Inclusive Teaching.” The paper, which was supervised by Faculty of Education Professor George Frempong, focuses on efforts to make sense of what it takes to teach successfully in a society that is multicultural and pluralistic.


The award, which was created in conjunction with the Canadian Association for Foundations of Education (CAFE), is presented to a pre-service student who completes a project or paper involving the application of material from the Statistics Canada Web site or other Statistics Canada education resources. The award was presented to Silva, along with a second winner from Nipissing University, at the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE) held May 29 to June 1 at the University of Manitoba.


“This is a great tribute to a successful and imaginative student who shows great potential both as a classroom teacher and a community educator,” said Paul Axelrod, dean of the Faculty of Education.


The award was established to both recognize and promote excellence in research using the various disciplines of the foundations of education and to encourage the application of Statistics Canada information to the field of education. It includes:



  • a $500 cash prize, which may be shared between two winners;
  • an opportunity to present a paper based on the project in a special CAFE session at the CSSE annual conference;
  • nationwide publication of the paper or its abstract on the CSSE Web site, the CAFE Web site, on the Statistics Canada Web site, and, if approved by the editor, in a Statistics Canada publication such as Education Quarterly Review;
  • a complimentary one-year subscription to either the Canadian Social Trends, or Education Quarterly Review, (Statistics Canada quarterly journals);
  • a certificate of achievement for the student;
  • a letter of recognition written to the appropriate dean of education commending the supervising professor for innovation in teaching.

For further information on the award, please visit the Statistics Canada Web site. See the Learning Resources page for Postsecondary, and select Prizes & Awards for students.


This article was sent to YFile by Anderson Coward, communications coordinator for the Faculty of Education.