Margaret Little
Professor
She/Her
PhD York University (Politics); MA Queen’s University (Politics); BJHons University of King’s College (Journalism)
Political Studies
Gender and Politics
Professor
Research Interests
Welfare; poverty; Basic Income; gendered & racialized violence; Canadian social policy; marginalized women’s activiism
Margaret Little would be interested in supervising graduate students in the areas of poverty in Canada, marginalized women’s activism in Canada, gender/race/indigeneity/sexuality and Canadian social policy.
Brief Biography
I like to think of myself as an anti-poverty activist and academic who works in the area of poverty, welfare reform, anti-poverty activist politics. I am jointly appointed to Gender Studies and Political Studies. In my spare (?!) time I am currently working on a 5-year SSHRC funded project exploring Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and low-income women’s political organizing in Canada during the 1960s-1980s. We are conducting archival and oral interviews to explore how their political strategies and agendas were quite distinctive from white mainstream feminist activism in the same era. Don’t ask me about it unless you want to hear a steady stream of excitement for 30 minutes!
I am most interested in supervising students in the areas of poverty, Canadian social policy, and marginalized women’s activism.
I am very fortunate to have been the recipient of a number of research awards including my current SSHRC Insight Grant (2018-23) entitled “Alternative visions: the politics of motherhood and family among Indigenous, immigrant, racialized and low-income activist women’s groups in Canada, 1960s-1980s”; a SSHRC Standard Grant (2006-2009) entitled "Who's Hurting Now? A Race, Class and Gender Analysis of Neo-Liberal Welfare Reforms in Canada", and the Chancellor's Research Award (2000-2005) to study the impact of welfare reforms under the Ontario Mike Harris Government.
Teaching
For detailed information about political studies courses and instructors, please refer to the Undergraduate and Graduate pages.
Service (2024/2025)
- Departmental Committee
- Field Convenor (Gender and Politics) - Winter 2025
Selected Publications
If I Had a Hammer: Women’s Retraining that really Works, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005
No Car, No Radio, No Liquor Permit: The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1996, Toronto: University of Oxford Press, 1998.
PUBLICATIONS – JOURNAL ARTICLES (PEER REVIEWED)
Little, M., “’An Unexpectedly Significant Finding’: Poverty and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women,” Labour/ Le Travail, Volume 89, Spring 2022, pp. 203-214.
Little, M., L. Marks, M. Beck, E. Paszat and L. Tom, "Family Matters: Immigrant Women’s Activism in Ontario and BC, 1960s-1980s,” Maxime Dagenais and Amanda Ricci, eds., Atlantis: Journal of Women’s Studies, Special Section: Transnational Feminism, 2020, 41(1) pp. 105-123.
Little, M., L. Marks, M. Gaucher and T.R. Noddings, “’A job that should be respected’: Contested Visions of Motherhood and English Canada’s Second Wave Women’s Movements, 1970-1990,” Women’s History Review, September, 25(5) pp. 771-790.
Little, M., P. Collins, M. Gaucher and E. M. Power,"Implicating Municipalities in Addressing Household Food Insecurity in Canada: A Pan-Canadian Analysis of News Print Media Coverage," Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2016, 107(1): e1-e7.
Little, M., “Between the Abuser and the Street: An Intersectional Analysis of Housing Challenges for Abused Women,” Critical Social Policy: A Journal of Theory and Practice in Social Welfare. Vol. 72,/73, Fall 2015, pp. 35-54.
Little, M.; E. Power and P. Collins, “Should Canadian Health Promoters Support a Food Stamp-style Program to Address Food Insecurity?” Health Promotion International, September 2014, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 184-193.