Dr. Michal Perlman

Michal is a Professor at the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She is cross appointment at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is the Director of the Dr. R.G.N. Laidlaw Research Centre, also at the University of Toronto. 

She studies how early environments are associated with children’s wellbeing. She is particularly interested in the quality of interactions that children have with their caregivers both at home and in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. She has helped develop efficient ways of measuring the quality of interactions (and more global measures as well) and is developing interventions to improve the quality of interactions children experience. She also studies how to conceptualize and measure ECEC quality, parents as consumers of ECEC services, associations between ECEC quality and child outcomes and a range of policy questions related to ECEC. More recently Michal and colleagues who co-lead the FutureSkills centre at the University of Toronto have been identifying key skills needed for success in the 21st century and how to teach these skills to young children.  

Professor Perlman received her undergraduate degree from McGill University, her MA and Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo and did a SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA. All degrees were in psychology. Michal worked at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica for a few years before taking her current position at the University of Toronto.

Responsive Interactions for Learning
https://rifl.ca/

Future Skills Canada
https://futureskillscanada.com/