Temilade Adesina, MA candidate (Applied Disability Studies), will present the following talk:

Exploration of Concerns Affecting the Mental Well-being of Disabled Students who withdrew from Post-secondary Education in Ontario

Disabled students are enrolling in post-secondary education in Canada at increased rates compared to the last decade. Despite this improvement in enrollment, only a smaller percentage of them graduated. Systematic and structural barriers affect the health and participation of disabled students in academic activities. Therefore, understanding the experiences of disabled students and the factors that led them to withdraw from post-secondary education is necessary. Informed by critical disability studies and academic ableism, I sought to understand the factors that affect the mental well-being of disabled students and how they lead them to withdraw from post-secondary education in Ontario. This research utilized an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology to investigate their life experiences. Five (n = 5) disabled students who withdrew from post-secondary education were recruited for online interviews via social media. Five descriptive themes were developed from the data, capturing the experiences of the participants: (1) positive beginnings undermined by insurmountable endings, (2) disabled students’ encounters with academic ableism, (3) retrogressive emotional experience of disabled students, (4) withdrawal as a slow unravelling of hope and belonging, and (5) envisioning change. Identifying that some began with good mental well-being, while others described challenges as they progress in their studies. This study described impending issues that impact well-being and identified potential areas for intervention in post-secondary education to avert the withdrawal of disabled students. Likewise, areas where ableism still exists in post-secondary institutions were identified. The results also provide recommendations for society, academic institutions, and policymakers to support disabled students in successfully navigating post-secondary education.

supervisor: Laura Mullins, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Disability Studies

Mackenzie Rockbrune, MA candidate (Social Justice and Equity Studies), will present the following talk:

The Experiences, Awareness and Impact of Generative AI on Ontario Post-Secondary Students

This study investigates first-year undergraduate students’ awareness, experiences, and perceptions of generative AI deepfakes in the context of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) at Brock University, an Ontario post-secondary institution. Preliminary survey data (N=85) reveal a significant gap between terminology awareness and lived experience: while 81% of respondents were unfamiliar with the term TFSV, 71% reported personal or secondhand experience with it. Participants overwhelmingly found AI-generated deepfake scenarios emotionally distressing (95%), privacy-violating (89%), and disruptive to academic or professional life (68%). These findings underscore the urgent need for proactive policy and educational interventions addressing AI-enabled harms, particularly within digital consent frameworks. The data further suggest that early consent education may enhance digital literacy and awareness of online risks, especially as generative technologies evolve. This research contributes to the growing discourse on digital safety and gender-based violence in higher education, emphasizing the importance of equipping students with the tools to navigate emerging digital threats.

supervisor: Karen L Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film

Erika Savage, PhD candidate (Child and Youth Studies), will present the following talk:

Cognitive Engagement Across Academic and Extracurricular Activities

As young people move from middle childhood through adolescence, school disengagement tends to increase, placing some adolescents at risk of drop out (Archambault et al., 2022; Widlund et al., 2021). Youth engagement involves active participation both inside and outside of school settings, including involvement in extracurricular activities (Fredricks et al., 2019; Vandell & Simpkins, 2024; Wong et al., 2024). Cognitive engagement is considered one element of engagement that involves an investment in learning and seeking to understand and apply the efforts necessary for success (Skinner & Raine, 2022). It is linked to positive outcomes for youth, such as learning and skill development (Skinner & Raine, 2022; Vandell & Simpkins, 2024). Despite apparent developmental benefits of cognitive engagement in school and extracurricular contexts, limited research examines how cognitive engagement in one context contributes to the other.

supervisor: Heather Ramey, Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies

Charlis Raineki, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, will present the following talk:

Understanding how early environments shape health and disease: A translational approach using prenatal alcohol exposure

My research focuses on uncovering the biological mechanisms underlying neurobehavioural deficits caused by adverse or stressful early-life experiences, with a particular emphasis on identifying factors that increase vulnerability to psychopathology and cognitive impairment following prenatal alcohol exposure. To address these questions, I take a translational approach that integrates findings from rodent and non-human primate models with data from human cohorts to examine whether disruptions in gut microbiota-immune interactions contribute to the emotional dysregulation and cognitive deficits associated with prenatal alcohol exposure. The ultimate goal of this work is to identify core biological effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, rather than species-specific phenomena, thereby enhancing their potential as reliable diagnostic indicators and informing the development of targeted treatment strategies.

Julie Ham, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, will present the following talk:

Hypersexualisation and racialised erotic capital in sex work

Eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, at three massage spas were killed on 16 March 2021 in Atlanta, USA by a 21-year-old White man who sought to eliminate ‘temptation’ for a sex addiction he claimed to experience. This mass killing compelled public discussion about the hypersexualisation of Asian women in White, Western contexts and the risks faced by Asian women in ‘intimate labour’. This occurred alongside a dialogical shift towards sex worker rights in public and media discourses, yet these public dialogues appeared to occur alongside each other, rather than in interaction with each other. In between these dialogues remained questions about the legacies of hypersexualisation and what this means for Asian women in sex work, an industry that resists convenient understandings of desire and power and where hypersexuality may be simultaneously contested and deployed. This presentation bridges these dialogues to explore how a sex worker rights framework can engage with questions of race, hypersexualisation and erotic capital for Asian women in sex work. This is followed by an analysis of responses to hypersexualisation within Asian diasporic communities, and the implications for a more inclusive sex worker rights movement.