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Dr. Mela Sarkar

Title: 
Associate Professor
Dr. Mela Sarkar
Contact Information
Email address: 
mela.sarkar [at] mcgill.ca
Phone: 
514-398-4527 Ext 094468
Alternate phone: 
514.294.5819
Address: 

Duggan House
3724 rue McTavish
MontrĂ©al, Quebec H3A 1Y2Ěý
Canada

Division: 
Educational Leadership Supervisors
Educational Studies (Ph.D.) Supervisors
Education and Society Supervisors
Department: 
Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE)
Professional activities: 

Content curator and editor, BILD blog:

Senior advisor, journal:

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Area(s): 
Arts, Languages and Literacy Education
Diversity, Identity and Indigenous Topics
Areas of expertise: 
  • Critical sociolinguistics
  • Pedagogical grammar
  • Indigenous language revitalization
  • Second language acquisition and pedagogy

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Biography: 

Mela Sarkar was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, to a Ukrainian-Canadian mother and a Bangladeshi Brahmin father who had met as grad students at the University of Manitoba. They settled in Toronto, Canada, where she grew up. Issues of heritage versus dominant languages, plurilingualism/ multiculturalism, and biracial/hybrid identities were therefore woven into the fabric of everyday normal for her. Since taking up her current position at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, in 2001, she has branched out from mainstream second language acquisition research into critical sociolinguistic inquiry, with a focus on empowering minority-language speakers through diversification of their communicative repertoires. Her research projects have included work with preschoolers in Quebec “welcome class” kindergartens, with South Asian women in Montreal learning French, with the language mixing of Hip-Hop-identified youth in Montreal, and with teachers of the Mi’gmaw language in Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation in the Gaspé region. She has been involved with the (Belonging, Identity, Language and Diversity) research community since its inception in 2014. As a member of BILD, she helps to curate a collectively authored biweekly blog and is senior advisor of the journal. She has two children and several grandchildren.

Link(s): 
Degree(s): 

Ph.D., Concordia University, Montreal, 2000.

M.A. in Applied Linguistics, Concordia University, Montreal, 1993.

Diploma in Education, McGill University, Montreal, 1984.

B.A. Honours, East Asian Studies, McGill University, Montreal, 1982.

Selected publications: 
  • Sterzuk, A., & M. Sarkar. (published online 08 Feb 2024). Belonging, conflict and loss: Learning Ukrainian online during COVID-19. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, DOI:
  • Ortega, Y., Passi, A. L., dela Cruz, J. W. N., Nii Owoo, M. A., Cale, B., & Sarkar, M. (2023). Beginning the quilt: A polygonal and diverse collective seeking new forms of knowledge production. International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
  • Halcomb-Smith, L., A. Crump, & M. Sarkar. (2020). Publishing as pedagogy: Reflections on innovating in the ivory tower. In S. Palahicky (Ed.), Enhancing learning design for innovative teaching in higher education, pp. 57-82. IGI Global
  • Sarkar, M. (2017). Ten years of Mi’gmaq language revitalization work: A non-Indigenous applied linguist reflects on building research relationships. Canadian Modern Language Review (special themed issue on Indigenous language teaching, learning, and identities) 73(4), 488-508.
  • Burkholder, C., A. Crump, L. Godfrey-Smith & M. Sarkar. (2017). Unofficial multilingualism in an intercultural province: Polyvocal responses to policy as lived experience. Journal of Belonging, Identity, Language and Diversity (J-BILD), 1(1), n.p.
  • Sarkar, M., & C. Lavoie. (2014). Language education and Canada’s Indigenous peoples. In J. Cenoz & D. Gorter (Eds.), Minority languages and multilingual education (pp. 85-103). London: Springer-Verlag.
  • Sarkar, M., J. Metallic, B.A. Baker, C. Lavoie & T. Strong-Wilson. (2013). Siawinnu’gina’masultinej: A language revitalization initiative for Mi’gmaq in Listuguj, Canada. Norris, M.J., Anonby, E., Junker, M.-O., Ostler, N., & Patrick, D. (Eds.) Foundation for Endangered Languages (FELXVII) Proceedings (pp. 39-46). Bath, UK: Foundation for Endangered Languages.
  • Sarkar, M., M.A. Metallic, J. Vicaire & J. Metallic. (2013). [Re]-Acquiring Mi’gmaq in Listuguj through a “visual-oral grammar” pedagogy. K.S. Hele & J.R. Valentine (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Algonquian Conference (pp. 279-298) Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
  • Low, B., & M. Sarkar. (2012). Le plurilinguisme dans les arts populaires, un terrain inexplorĂ©? L’étude du langage mixte du rap montrĂ©alais en guise d’exemple. KinĂ©phanos, 3(1), 20-47.
  • Sarkar, M., & M.A. Metallic. (2009). Indigenizing the structural syllabus: The challenge of revitalizing Mi’gmaq in Listuguj. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66(1), 49-71.
  • Low, B., M. Sarkar, & L. Winer. (2009). "Chus mon propre Bescherelle": Challenges from the Hip-Hop nation to the Quebec nation. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 13(1), 59-82.
  • Sarkar, M. (2009). Getting into med school or becoming a healer? Western medical education and Indigenous knowledges. In J. Langdon (Ed.), Indigenous knowledges, development and education (pp. 109-133). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
  • Sarkar, M. (2008). “Ousqu’on chill Ă  soir?”: Pratiques multilingues comme stratĂ©gies identitaires dans la communautĂ© hip-hop montrĂ©alaise. DiversitĂ© Urbaine (NumĂ©ro thĂ©matique : Plurilinguisme et identitĂ©s au Canada), 27-44.
  • Bouffard, L. A., & M. Sarkar. (2008). Training 8-year-old French immersion students in metalinguistic analysis: an innovation in form-focused pedagogy. Language Awareness, 17(1), 3-24.
  • Park, S.M., & M. Sarkar. (2007). Parents’ attitudes toward heritage language maintenance for their children and their efforts to help their children maintain the heritage language: A case study of Korean-Canadian immigrants. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 20(3), 223-235.
Program: 

Ph.D. in Educational Studies

M.A. in Second Language Education

B.Ed. TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language)

Graduate supervision: 

Not accepting Master’s or Ph.D. thesis students for 2024-25.

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