Rebecca Friend
Ph.D. Candidate
| Degrees: | M.A. (Carleton), B.A. (Concordia) |
| Email: | rebeccafriend@cmail.carleton.ca |
Current Program:
Ph.D. Public History (2021)
Supervisors:
Academic Interests:
Children’s museology, monuments and national identity, curatorial studies, commemorations, history of childhood, childhood and youth studies, research creation, participatory methods.
Select Publications and Current Projects:
Friend, Rebecca. “Casting Childhood at Ottawa’s South African War Memorial.” Monumental Memories: A Critical Reading of Memorials, Monuments, and Statues in Canada’s Capital Region, edited by David Dean and Tonya Davidson. McGill-Queen’s University Press (forthcoming).
Friend, Rebecca and Monica Patterson. “Echoes of Experience: Encountering Children and Childhood in the Canadian History Hall.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, and Cultures 13, no. 2 (2021): 10-37.
Patterson, Monica and Rebecca Friend. “Beyond Window Rainbows: Collecting Children’s Culture in the COVID Crisis,” Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archive Professionals 17, no. 02 (2021): 167-178.
Friend, Rebecca. “Identity Formation and National Celebration: Canada 150 Edition.” Quebec Heritage News 11, no. 4 (2017): 10-11.
Select Conference Contributions:
Friend, Rebecca. “Beyond Classroom Walls: Engaging Young People in Public History Practice.” Underhill Graduatet Student Colloquium. Carleton University. 18 March 2022.
Friend, Rebecca. “Hollow Castings: Commemorations and Canadian Childhood.” Remembering Childhood Workshop. Nottingham Trent University. 10-11 March 2020.
Friend, Rebecca. “Echoes of Experience: Tracing Children’s Voices in the Canadian History Hall.” The Intersection of Youth and Museums. University of Lethbridge. 8 April 2019.
Friend, Rebecca. “From Cadet to Collector: The Irish Child in Transition.” Underhill Graduate Student Colloquium. Carleton University. 8 March 2019.
Teaching Experience:
Teaching Assistant, Public History: From Memory to Museums (D. Dean), Fall 2022.
Teaching Assistant, Women in Canada (N. Hrynyk), Summer 2022.
Contract Instructor, Experiential Learning in Childhood and Youth Studies, Winter 2021.
Teaching Assistant, Early Childhood Education and Care (B. Richardson), Fall 2021.
Teaching Assistant, The Making of Europe (N. Thornton), Fall-Winter 2019-2020.
Teaching Assistant, Design and Analysis in Research with Children (J. Sinclair-Palm), Winter 2019.
Teaching Assistant, Childhood in a Global Context (J. Sinclair-Palm), Fall 2018.
Description of Research:
This Ph.D. dissertation examines how museums position children and youth as content for and contributors to Canada’s diverse museological landscape. These interlocking facets reveal the types of attitudes young people are subject to in Canadian museums, both as museum participants and narratives on display. While museum offerings specifically dedicated to children are increasingly appearing in the forms of hands-on learning centres and children’s museums, how young people contribute to and are represented in adult-centred sites has received minimal critical attention.
In studying the representation of children, childhood, and youth in Canadian museums, as well as collaborations between young people and museums that solicit their unique experiences, this research presents an approach to conceptualizing young people’s place in Canada’s museum sector that pushes against their representation as passive consumers of museum content.