Heather McGregor

BA (Acadia), MA (OISE/University of Toronto), PhD (University of British Columbia)

Associate Professor of Curriculum Theory

Dr. Heather McGregor is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. Through her research and scholarly activities, she is active in the fields of environmental education, climate justice education, Arctic and Indigenous education, historical thinking and historical consciousness in history education, and most recently, environmental and climate change education. Whatever her focus, Dr. McGregor maintains a commitment to, and curiosity about, decolonizing approaches to teaching, learning and research. 

Current Research 

Dr. McGregor holds a SSHRC Insight Grant (2025-2030) with co-investigators Dr. Thashika Pillay (Queen’s), Dr. Alice Johnston (St. FX), and collaborators Dr. Sara Karn (McMaster) and Lindsay Borrows (Queen’s). The project, Climate Justice Education in Ontario: Creating and Sustaining a Professional Learning Community, aims to create space and relationships for the hard work of engaging in climate justice education in teaching and learning. We are bringing educators from a variety of contexts together at least annually over three years through Climate Justice Land Camps, and supplemental programming emerging from participant needs. Through connection, land-based learning, and holistic pedagogies, we hope to better navigate fears, silos, and isolation in our work. As we inquire into what climate justice means to us locally and globally, this community aims to sustain relationality, pedagogical creativity, joy, hope, and agency. The research objectives include better understanding what motivates educators to seek professional learning in climate education, what pedagogies or resources best support educators, how professional learning is translated into teaching practice, and identifying personal and professional benefits of sustained holistic community-building.

Previous Research

Dr. McGregor held a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2021-2023) for her project entitled Social Studies & History Education in the Anthropocene. This project sought to develop a theoretical framework, pedagogical approaches, lesson plans, and learning outcomes for teaching history in ways that are responsive to environmental crisis and relations with the more-than-human world. Check out her work on the SSHEAN website.

Listen to Heather talk about this research on the podcast FookNConversation.

Dr. McGregor serves as a co-investigator on the national Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future project (P.I. Carla Peck, UofA, SSHRC Partnership Grant).

Research Interests 

• Climate justice education 
• Environmental education 
• Decolonizing curriculum, pedagogy and research 
• Inuit and Arctic education 
• History education, Social Studies education and Historical thinking 
• Curriculum theory

Selected Publications

Articles

• McGregor, H. E., & Dressler, H. (2026). The acclimation of historical thinking to the “northern spirit” of northern Canadian social studies curricula. Historical Thinking, Culture, and Education, 3(1), 27-46.
• Kukkonen, T., McGregor, H. E., Flavin, M., & Karn, S. (2026). Change with the Earth in mind: Clay as medium and metaphor for listening to the Earth. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 42, 526-543.
• McGregor, H. E., & Evans, R. S. (2026). Pedagogical approaches for climate justice orientations in teaching history and social studies. History Education Research Journal, 23(1), 1-15.
• McGregor, H. E., & Karn, S. (2025). Overcoming anthropocentrism: Experiences for learning history. Historical Thinking, Culture, and Education, 2(1), 10-27.
• Kukkonen, T., McGregor, H. E., Flavin, M., & Cooper, A. (2025). Inviting engagement with climate change education research: An arts-based knowledge translation approach. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 26(2).
• Evans, R. S., McGregor H. E., & Reed, B. (2024). Pedagogical principles for encouraging (socially just) youth climate action: A schema for citizenship education curriculum analysis. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. Online first. 1-19. https://doi-org.proxy.queensu.ca/10.1177/17461979241289280
• McGregor, H. E., Karn, S., & Flavin, M. (2024). Regenerative capacities: Centering Indigenous perspectives in climate change-responsive social studies and history education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 26, 119-140. https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/view/1831
• McGregor, H. E. & Higgins, M. (2023). Relations in the alluvial zone: Place and Indigenous knowledges in Michael Marker’s scholarship. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 18(2), 10-23.
• McGregor, H. E., Karn, S., Evans, R. S. & Pind, J. (2022). Piloting historical thinking lessons to address climate change, Canadian Social Studies, 53(1), 1-16.
• McGregor, H. E., Pind, J., & Karn, S. (2021). A ‘wicked problem’: rethinking history education in the Anthropocene. Rethinking History, 25(4), 483-507. DOI: 10.1080/13642529.2021.1992159
• McGregor, H. E. (2021). Becoming Arctic ambassadors: Preparing Inuit youth for leadership on expeditions and beyond. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 24(1), 50-67.
• McGregor, H.E. & McGregor, C.A. (2020). Inuit Elder policy guidance for system-wide educational change in Nunavut, 2000-2013. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration & Policy, 193, 128-142.
• McGregor, H.E. & Marker, M. (2018). Reciprocity in decolonizing research methodologies: Relationships and inquiry in Indigenous education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 49(3), 318-328.
• McGregor, H.E. (2018). An Arctic encounter with Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth as pedagogy for historical consciousness and decolonizing. Historical Encounters: A journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures, and history education, 5(1), 90-102.
• McGregor, H.E., Madden, B., Higgins, M., & Ostertag, J. (2018). Braiding designs for decolonizing research methodologies: Theory, practice, ethics. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, 9(2), 1-21.
• McGregor, H.E. & McGregor, C.A. (2017). Behind the scenes of Inuit curriculum development in Nunavut, 2000-2013. Études Inuit Studies, 40(2), 109-131.
• McGregor, H.E. (2017). One classroom, two teachers?: Historical thinking and Indigenous education in Canada. Critical Education, 8(14), 1-18.
• McGregor, H.E. (2015). Listening for more (hi)stories from the Arctic’s dispersed and diverse educational past. Historical Studies in Education, 27(1), 19-39.
• McGregor, H.E. (2014). Exploring ethnohistory and Indigenous scholarship: What is the relevance to educational historians? History of Education [UK], 43(4), 431-449.
• Madden, B. & McGregor, H.E. (2013). Ex(er)cising student voice in pedagogy for decolonizing: Exploring complexities through duoethnography. Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, 35(5), 371-391.
• McGregor, H.E. (2013). Situating Nunavut education with Indigenous education in Canada. Canadian Journal of Education, 36(2), 87-118.
• McGregor, H.E. (2012). Curriculum change in Nunavut: Towards Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. McGill Journal of Education, 47(3), 285-302.
• McGregor, H.E. (2012). Nunavut’s education act: education, legislation and change in the Arctic. The Northern Review, 36(1), 27-52.

Books

• McGregor, H.E. (2010). Inuit education and schools in the eastern Arctic. Vancouver: UBC Press. 220 pages

Chapters

• Brant-Birioukov, K., Pind, J., Karn, S., & McGregor, H. E. (2023). Towards Indigenous place-based metaphors for environmental history education. In M. Kress-White & K. Horn-Miller, (Eds.), Land as Relation: Teaching and learning through place, people and practices (pp. 259-269). Canadian Scholars’ Press.
• McGregor, H. E. (2023). A school for the Anthropocene: Questions about hospitality in a curriculum of existential threat. In P. P. Trifonas & S. Jagger (Eds.) Handbook of Curriculum Theory, Research and Practice. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer.
• McGregor, H. E., Pind, J. & Karn, S. (2022). Listening, witnessing, connecting: Histories and storytelling in the Anthropocene. In A. J. Farrell, C. L. Skyhar & M. Lam (Eds.), Teaching in the Anthropocene (pp. 69-81). Canadian Scholars’ Press.
• McGregor, H.E. (2019). Time chased me down, and I stopped looking away. In C. Coates & G. Wynne (Eds.), The Nature of Canada (334-351). On Point Press.
• McGregor, C.A. & McGregor, H.E. (2017). Teacher education in and for the North: Programs and place in Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In T. Christou (Ed.), Canadian Teacher Education: A Curriculum History (pp. 213-230). Studies in Curriculum Theory Series, Routledge.
• McGregor, H.E. & McGregor, C.A. (2017). When oral history calls on you: Stories from Nunavut. In K. Llewellyn & N. Ng-A-Fook (Eds.), Oral History and Education: Theories, Dilemmas and Practices (pp. 87-105). Palgrave Macmillan US.