Roberta de Oliveira Soares
Roberta De Oliveira Soares
Assistant Professor




As an Assistant Professor in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, Roberta Soares aims to teach and conduct research that emphasizes social justice. She holds a PhD in educational sciences from the University of Montreal and she was a FRQSC postdoctoral fellow in sociology at the University of Ottawa. She also holds a master in sociology, a bachelor’s in social sciences and a bachelor’s in business administration from Brazil. From the combination of extensive university training and work experience in administration, teaching and research in different environments (from community organizations to university) in Brazil and Canada, her research and pedagogy take on notably sociology and education from a critical standpoint to understand issues of equity, diversity, inclusion, social justice and decolonization in relation to different social categories, namely immigration, language and race for youth in school. Her recent work explores the experience of young immigrants learning the language of schooling in a French-speaking context in Canada in terms of educational and social inequalities based on their stories and the discourse of school actors. 

Journals & other

Soares, R. (2024). The dynamic of intersected social categories in social interactions in a Brazilian psychosocial care center. Brazilian Journal of Health and Biomedical Sciences, 23(1), 45-55.

Magnan, M.-O., Melo, F., Soares, R. et Anne, A. (2024). Les plans d’action Équité, Diversité et Inclusion (EDI) dans les universités québécoises : portrait et pistes de réflexions et d’action. Relais Revue de vulgarisation scientifique sur la réussite en enseignement supérieur, 10. 

Soares, R., Borri-Anadon, C., Russo, K. et Gonçalves, G. (2023). Points de vue de parents immigrants à l’égard d’un modèle de services d’accueil et de soutien à l’apprentissage du français hybride au Centre-du-Québec. Éducation et francophonie, 51(2), 1-22. 

Soares, R. et Magnan, M.-O. (2022). “I didn’t know what to do, where to go”: The voices of students whose parents were born in Latin America on the need for care in Quebec universities. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 52(4), 1–14. 

Darchinian, F., Magnan, M.-O. et Soares, R. (2021). The construction of the racialized Other in the educational sphere: The stories of students with immigrant backgrounds in Montréal. Journal of Culture and Values in Education, 4(2), 52-64. 

Full list of publications and other scholarly contributions.

Research interests

  • Sociology of education
  • Equity and social justice in schools
  • Ethnocultural and linguistic diversity
  • Inclusive education and immigrant students
  • Power relations in education
  • School actors and professional practices
  • Francophonie and immigration in education
  • Qualitative critical research and ethnography
  • Discourse analysis and social interactions
  • Mental health and institutionalization