Dr. McKeen’s goal as a scholar and teacher is to create and encourage intellectual creativity but with an eye to the human conditions and the injustices and hardships faced by particular groups and individuals, locally and globally. Her research has a strong interdisciplinary character, and lies at the intersection of Canadian political economy, political sociology, public policy, and feminist theory.

Research Interests

Current Research Projects

Dr. McKeen’s goal as a scholar and teacher is to create and encourage intellectual creativity but with an eye to the human conditions and the injustices and hardships faced by particular groups and individuals, locally and globally. Her research has a strong interdisciplinary character, and lies at the intersection of Canadian political economy, political sociology, public policy, and feminist theory.

Dr. McKeen’s goal as a scholar and teacher is to create and encourage intellectual creativity but with an eye to the human conditions and the injustices and hardships faced by particular groups and individuals, locally and globally. Her research has a strong interdisciplinary character, and lies at the intersection of Canadian political economy, political sociology, public policy, and feminist theory. Her overarching interest is in showing how state policy and public policy are implicated in conditions of inequality based on gender, class, and race. She is concerned with analyzing the impact of policy changes on conditions of equality and justice, understanding how dominant cultural understandings of social issues and solutions are shaped and transformed in the context of policy debate and struggle, and more generally, the nature of the transformation of the Canadian welfare state in the contemporary period. Much of her research has been in the area of welfare state restructuring and the feminist voice in social policy debates. Her 2004 book, Money in Their Own Name: The Feminist Voice in Poverty Debate in Canada, 1970-1995, examines the relationship of the Canadian women’s movement to contemporary social policy development in Canada in the field of federal benefits for families and children. It was awarded the 2004 Canadian Women’s Studies Association book award. Dr. McKeen’s previous appointments include Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Dalhousie University (2001-2006); Researcher and Policy Analyst, Student Assistance Directorate, Federal Department of the Secretary of State (1987-88); Researcher, Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1984-87); and Consultant/Researcher for several federal government departments in Ottawa (1982-84).

Degrees

Community Contributions

Dr. McKeen is a long-time member of the editorial board of the Canadian Review of Social Policy. She has served on the Adjudication Committee for the Canadian Women’s Studies Association Book Award, as a Research Associate and Member of the Research Advisory Committee for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Nova Scotia, and as a member of the National Ad hoc Advisory Committee on the Women in Public Policy Initiative, Nova Scotia (funded by Status of Women Canada).

Research Interests