Susan Prentice

I enjoy working with honours and graduate students inside and outside sociology. I have worked with MA and PhD students in Anthropology, Applied Health Sciences, City Planning, Community Health Sciences, Computer Science, Economics, Education, English, Family Social Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, History, Human Rights, Individualized Inter-disciplinary Studies, Marketing (Asper School), Political Science, Public Administration, Rural Studies, Social Work.

I warmly invite students interested in the intersections of gender, care, families, social policy, and social movements to contact me about possible research assistantships.

My research program begins with my concerns about social inequality and social change, and my interests in public policy and systemic discrimination. I work in two broad areas of scholarship, each of which I undertake with a critical intersectional focus on gender relations. I am trained as an historical sociologist, and so bring an historical as well as a sociological imagination to my work.

My primary specialization is social and family policy broadly, and childcare policy specifically. My interdisciplinary research program is indebted to feminist political economy traditions, and consistently addresses questions of care, gender, social movements, and the Canadian state. My secondary arena of specialization is higher education, where I am keen to understand how formally neutral institutions co-exist with inequality and marginalization. 

• PhD (Sociology), York University
• MES (Environmental Studies), York University

Research interests

• Public policy: family and social policy, especially childcare
• Work/family reconciliation; work-family 'balance'
• Social movements and social change
• Systemic discrimination, especially in higher education

• Gallagher, Aisling, Breheny, Mary, Haami, Deanna, & Prentice, Susan (2026). The Childcare Policy Gap Affecting Low-income Families Engaged in Non-Standard Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Policy Quarterly, 22(3), 54–63. 
• Prentice, Susan. (2025). Childcare in Manitoba: Austerity’s Harms. In Jesse Hajer, Ian Hudson, & Jennifer Keith (Eds.), Public Service in Tough Times: Working Under Austerity in Manitoba (pp. 2–12). Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
• White, Linda, Prentice, Susan, & Ganness, Anika. (2025). Childcare Policy in the Liberal Welfare States of North America. In Costanzo Ranci & Tine Rostgaard (Eds.), Research Handbook on Social Care Policy (pp. 394–409). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Friendly, Martha, & Prentice, Susan. (2024). Trudeau and the Changing Childcare File: From “Institutional Daycare” to “Early Learning and Childcare for All”. In Katherine Scott, Laura MacDonald, & Stuart Trew (Eds.), Trudeau Record: Promise and Performance (pp. 224–235). Toronto: Lorimer.
• Prentice, Susan, Lindsey McKay and Trina McKellep. (2024). Teaching Family? Care/Work Policy in Selected Family Courses in Canada’s Research-Intensive Universities. Teaching Sociology. 
• Susan Prentice, Jennifer Protudjer, Alicia Nijdam-Jones, Souradet Shaw, Lauren Kelley, and Aleeza Gerstein. (2023). “Please Help Us: Canadian Childcare Providers’ Calls for Aid During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Journal of Early Childhood Research. 
• Richardson, Brooke, Susan Prentice, Donna Lero. (2023). "I’m Kind of in a Dilemma’: The Challenges of Non-standard Work and Childcare. Community, Work, and Family. 16(4) 428-443.
• Prentice, Susan & Linda White (2022). "The Politics of Early Years and Family Investments in the US and Canada." In J. L. Garritzmann, S. Hӓusermann, & B. Palier (Eds.), The World Politics of Social Investment Volume II: The Politics of Varying Social Investment Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Prentice, Susan and Lisa Pasolli (2022, Feb 11). "No Good Reason for Ontario to Delay Signing Child-Care Agreement." Policy Options. 
• Prentice, S. (2022). "Women as Caregivers and Canada’s Care Economy." In J. Robson & L. Tedds (Eds.), Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women in Canada (pp. 57 - 60). Royal Society of Canada.
• Prentice, Susan and Pat Armstrong. (2021). “We Must Eliminate Profit-making from Child Care and Elder Care.” The Conversation. 
• Ballantyne, Morna, Martha Friendly, and Susan Prentice. (2021). “Building a National Childcare System Requires a Coherent, Ambitious Approach.” Policy Options (March 1). 

• 2026 - Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Campbell Outreach Award for Outreach, University of Manitoba
• 2023 - Trailblazer Award, International Women's Day, University of Manitoba
• 2022 - Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal
• 2022 - Children’s Services Recognition Award, Manitoba Child Care Association 
• 2021 - Equity Award, Canadian Association of University Teachers 
• 2018 - Diplôme honorifique, Université de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg

I practice public sociology and work closely with social movements. I believe community-university collaboration is a site of exciting scholarship and knowledge generation. I actively work on knowledge mobilization oriented to popular audiences, social movements, elected officials, decision makers, and the media.

Community-based research is one of my key priorities. I partner with national feminist and childcare advocacy groups and campaigns, collaborate with social justice organizations, Indigenous organizations, and trade unions and provide advice to interested governments, political parties, and others.