Rate My Professor Dareen Charafeddine

Dareen Charafeddine is a part-time faculty member in Early Childhood Education at Seneca College within the Education field. She is pursuing a PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, where her research examines equity, agency, resistance strategies, and leadership practices in education amid neoliberal influences.

In March 2025, Charafeddine co-presented at the OISE Graduate Student Research Conference in a panel entitled 'Responding, Resisting, Risk-taking – Maintaining an Equitable and Impactful Practice in an Era of Neoliberal Reform,' with Ihana Grace Kim, Stephanie Fowler, Jaclyn Frail, and Amanda Pau. The panel addressed how teachers, principals, adult learners, and college administrators foster inclusive, just, and caring educational environments despite neoliberal reforms that prioritize efficiency, standardization, accountability, managerialism, and performativity. Presenters highlighted navigation of policy-value tensions through risk-taking and resistance to uphold professional responsibility and an ethics of care. Employing quantitative and qualitative methods, the discussion showcased pervasive performative cultures and innovative boundary-pushing for equity and social justice across educational roles.

At the OISE #CLDConference2025 in October 2025, she delivered 'Equity, Agency, and the Everyday Hustle: Lessons in Resistance from Public School Principals.' This qualitative research featured semi-structured interviews with twelve Greater Toronto Area principals—six public and six independent. Thematic analysis contrasted entrepreneurial leadership mindset enactment across contexts. Public principals exhibited resistance, risk-taking, and social justice leadership via advocacy, equity initiatives, and creative solutions for marginalized students within bureaucratic constraints, contrasting with greater autonomy in independent schools. The study portrays public principals as resilient innovators advancing change through integrity and equity commitments. Charafeddine's contributions bridge teaching in early childhood education and advanced scholarship on transformative leadership.