91Ö±²¥

Merva Hutchinson is a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy (ELP) at the 91Ö±²¥ (OISE), University of Toronto. Her research examines institutional evaluation, access, and racialized inequities across education and social systems, with a particular focus on how policies and governance systems shape differential access to resources, opportunity, and well-being. Her work is grounded in equity-focused scholarship, critical policy analysis, and community-engaged research.

From September to November 2024, Merva served as a Graduate Assistant with the Journal of School Leadership through the Centre for Leadership and Diversity (CLD) at OISE, where she supported Editorial Board review processes, managed scholarly communications, assisted with manuscript distribution, and conducted in-depth research, literature reviews, and grant-related work. Previously, from August 2023 to July 2024, she worked as a Graduate Assistant with the Centre for Black Studies in Education (CBSE), conducting and disseminating research to Black students, faculty, and community stakeholders, supporting webinars and symposiums for knowledge mobilization, and coordinating community centered initiatives.

Merva also holds multiple leadership and governance roles at the University of Toronto. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the OISE Research Committee, Graduate Student Representative on the Academic Programs Committee, Graduate Student Representative on the Teaching Awards Selection Committee, and previously served as a Departmental (LHAE) and Graduate Student Representative on the OISE Council. Beyond OISE, she is an Alumni Representative on the MSW Studies Committee at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. Since November 2022, she has also been a Table Member and Co-Researcher with the Black Data Governance Table at Sunnybrook Research Institute, contributing to work on ethical, community-led approaches to Black data governance.

Merva chose OISE and the ELP program for its international reputation in critical, justice-oriented scholarship and its explicit focus on leadership, policy, and institutional analysis. The program’s emphasis on systems-level thinking, governance, and equity has been foundational in shaping her scholarly approach, supporting her transition from practitioner informed inquiry to theoretically grounded, policy relevant research. Through coursework, mentorship, interdisciplinary seminars, research workshops, and participation in reading groups, writing collectives, and conferences, she has strengthened her theoretical grounding, methodological rigor, and coherence.

Her doctoral research examines Black mothers’ interactions with financial and social institutions, conceptualizing education, finance, healthcare, housing, and legal systems as interconnected regulatory authorities rather than neutral service providers. Grounded in Black feminist epistemologies, intersectionality, and anti-Black racism, and using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the study centers Black mothers' lived experiences while analyzing institutional and policy-level dynamics. The research contributes by illuminating how race-neutral policies reproduce inequality through evaluative systems, highlighting Black mothers’ agency and institutional navigation, and offering policy relevant insights for educational leadership and systemic reform.

Across her research, service, and community-engaged work, Merva remains committed to producing scholarship that advances institutional accountability, centers Black knowledge and lived experience, and contributes to more equitable educational and social systems.