Parmis Aslanimehr is a doctoral student in Human Development, Learning and Culture at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her academic background in psychology and interest in pedagogy has shaped the focus of her Master’s thesis, which revealed the struggles newcomer immigrant children face when adjusting to life in Canada. She has recently presented about this topic at the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) Conference and at the Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG) International Conference in June 2015.
Parmis has received training sessions on facilitating philosophical dialogue with children and adults, and is a Graduate Research Assistant in Dr. Barbara Weber’s project, Engaged Philosophical Inquiry: Fostering Empathy and Perspective Taking, where she co-facilitated philosophical inquiry sessions in elementary and middle schools across Greater Vancouver. In addition, she is involved in a cross-cultural study with Dr. Eva Marsal and Dr. Barbara Weber, Nature Gives and Nature Takes: A Qualitative Comparison Between Canadian and German Children About Their Concepts of ‘Nature,’ which she presented a poster at the North American Association for the Community of Inquiry (NAACI) Conference at Quebec in June 2014.
She is currently exploring the phenomenology of immigration and being stranded in-between cultures in a post-multicultural context, as the focus of her doctoral research with Dr. Barbara Weber.