Naomi Nichols
Associate Professor
Naomi Nichols
Associate Professor & Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Community-Partnered Social Justice
B.A. (Trent), B.Ed.(Queen's), M.A. & Ph.D. (York)
Otonabee College 232, ext. 7822, naominichols@trentu.ca
My research interests include:
My research program consists of three integrated streams of research-to-action. The first two streams focus on youth, specifically youth inequality, poverty and homelessness. The research brings into view the social, institutional and policy systems that produce conditions of inequity in the public sphere. This work includes an investigation of Canada’s move to embrace data-led governance in its efforts to resolve an emerging youth homelessness crisis. My third stream of research investigates and seeks to transform the capacity of Canada’s non-profit social innovation sector to engage in effective research and development activities in support of equitable social transformation.
How does your research translate into your teaching, both through courses and supervision?
I have an equity-driven approach to student development. Many of my students have lived experiences of the topics they investigate, meaning I actively support and mentor students who have experienced homelessness, poverty, racism, mental illness, gender-based violence, and other forms of systemic exclusion.
When I teach, I don’t reiterate what’s in readings, but engage with the content and invite others in the class to do this too. I love it when people bring their own experiential knowledge into conversation with the ideas we encounter in our readings or make connections to other courses they have taken, things they have read or observed. I also choose readings that prompt all of us (myself included) to move outside our comfort zones, as we confront the ways we are variously implicated in entrenched and naturalized patterns of social inequality.
My current or recent projects include:
I am most excited about the Community Research for Social Change Lab that is associated with my Canada Research Chair in Community-Partnered Social Justice because I see it as a way to link up all the exciting work I’m doing with community organizations and public institutions.
Five publications that exemplify my work:
Nichols, N. & Lewington, S. (2020). “Stepped Care” and the Work of Being Well on Campus: An institutional ethnography. Youth Studies.
Nichols, N. (2019). Youth, School and Community: Participatory Institutional Ethnographies.
Toronto, ON: The University of Toronto Press.
Nichols, N. (2017). Youth “out of sync:” revealing the intersectional social relations of educational inequality. Journal of Youth Studies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2017.1344773
Nichols, N. (2017). The social organization of access to justice for youth in “unsafe” urban neighbourhoods. Social & Legal Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663917703179
Nichols, N. (2017). Youth and technologies of evidence: an institutional ethnography of evidence-based policy and practice. Critical Social Policy. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018317690664
Nichols, N. & Braimoh, J. (2016). Community safety, housing precariousness and processes of exclusion: an institutional ethnography from the standpoints of youth in an "unsafe" urban neighbourhood. Critical Sociology. DOI:
Nichols, N. (2014). Youth Work: An institutional ethnography of youth homelessness. Toronto, ON: The University of Toronto Press.
What achievements and/or contributions in research are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of returning to Trent (my alma matter) as a Canada Research Chair.
Accepting new UG and Graduate student supervisions:
Please contact to discuss opportunities