Faculty Bio
Dr. Cory Wright-Maley
Professor, Education. Chair, Department of Education
Cory Wright-Maley is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Education at St. Mary’s University. He was born and raised in Mohkinstsis (Calgary) and completed honours degrees in History and Political Science at the University of Calgary before moving south of the border to complete his master’s degree at Stanford University. He taught high school social studies in Woodside, California, for six years before backpacking around the world for a year, visiting more than 40 countries. After his return, he began his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. His research is anchored broadly in social studies education, focusing on simulations and how to empower teachers to support marginalized populations in social studies contexts. His past and current works have explored democracy in the face of economic inequality, teaching about family diversity and supporting Trans youth in Catholic elementary contexts, understanding the needs and challenges of English language learners (ELLs) in the content classroom, addressing the history of slavery in Canada, and troubling western temporality with Indigenous perspectives of time. Still learning and growing, he has been dedicated to learning from Indigenous Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to work toward his obligations to Truth & Reconciliation.
Specialization/Research Interest:
Social studies education, Social and Historical Simulations, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Effective ELL instruction, Interactive Pedagogy, Powerful Teaching, History Education, Democratic Education, Populism
Current Research Interests
His passion for simulation research continues to be stoked by new questions that continue to emerge. Cory is particularly interested in several dimensions of simulation-based teaching. He is exploring how teachers learn to facilitate simulations in K-12 classrooms effectively. This has implications for how we train teachers, how we understand their perspectives on using them, and what challenges emerge in learning how to teach this way. The second set of questions concerns chaos theory: How, if at all, does chaos theory apply to human simulations? Do we act in predictable, non-linear ways that aren’t readily obvious? If so, how might chaos theory help us understand human interactions across social domains better? Finally, he is interested in how we address toxic populism and what Indigenous ways of knowing and being might contribute to that task.
Education
Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction, University of Connecticut
M.Ed., Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP), Stanford University
BA (Honours) History, University of Calgary
BA (Honours) Political Science, University of Calgary
- Books: Wright-Maley, C. (Ed.). (2019). More like life itself: Simulations as powerful and purposeful social studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Wright-Maley, C. & Davis, T. (Eds.), (2017). Teaching for Democracy in an Age of Economic Disparity. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2023). Taking American Partition Seriously: Using Historical and Futures Thinking to Address Growing Calls for Breaking up the Union. Canadian Social Studies.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2023). Teaching Black enslavement in Canada: A necessary step toward a maturing national identity. Focus Newsletter (ATA Social Studies Council).
- Wright-Maley, C., Hall, D., & Finley, S. Y. (2023). Evaporative Economics: A Truth-Telling Metaphor to Displace the Trickle-Down Lie that Just Won’t Die. Journal of Social Studies Education Research.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2022). Time, Temporality, and Entanglement in the Face of Parallel Realities. Journal of Folklore and Education, 9, 8-24.
- Levine, T., Wright-Maley, C., and Harvel, S. (2021) Preparing “guardians of democracy”: How elementary social studies methods courses can support participatory democracy. Education in a Democracy, 12(1), 109-133.
- Colwell, R. & Wright-Maley, C. (2020). Nothing to fear: Teaching to Transcend Transphobia in Catholic Contexts. In S. Woolley & L. Airton, (Eds.). Teaching About Gender Diversity: Teacher-tested Lesson Plans for K-12 Classrooms. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press.
- Wright-Maley, C., Lee, J., & Friedman, A.M. (2018). Digital simulations, games, and other emerging technologies in historical learning. S. A. Metzger & L.M. Harris (Eds.). International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning. Wiley-Blackwell.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2018). Soft Overcomes Hard: Simulation Leadership as Mediation of Choice Architectures, pp. 73-83. In A. Naweed, M. Wardaszko, E. Leigh, S. Meijer (Eds.). Intersections in Simulation and Gaming. ISAGA 2016, SimTecT 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10711. Springer: Cham, CH. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-78795-4_6
- Wright-Maley, C. & Green, J. D. (2018). Bitter Challenge; Swede Success: Simulating Language Learning Experiences in Social Studies Classrooms. In D. Oliveira & K. Obenchain, (Eds.). Teaching History and Social Studies to English Language Learners: Preparing Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers. Palgrave MacMillan.
- Levine, T. & Wright-Maley, C. (2017). Studying teacher preparation for linguistic diversity: Promoting triangulation while minimizing cost. SAGE Research Methods Cases. DOI: 10.4135/9781473979635
- Wright-Maley, C. & Joshi, P. (2017). All fall down: Simulating the spread of the black plague in the high school classroom. The History Teacher, 50(4), 517-534.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2017). Yes, children should know where meat comes from: Preparing teachers to navigate the delicate nature of interrogating the sacrosanct. In S. Shear, Tschida, Bellows, L.B. Buchanan, E.E. Saylor (Eds.). (Re)Imagining Elementary Social Studies: A Controversial Issues Reader. Raleigh, NC: Information Age Press.
- Wright-Maley, C. & Joshi, P. (2016). Why OPEC is still relevant—especially to the social studies. Social Education, 80(3), 168-173.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2016). “Their definition of rigor is different than ours”: The promise and challenge of enactivist pedagogies in the social studies. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/2331186X.2016.1140557
- Wright-Maley, C., Davis, C., Gonzales, E., Colwell, R. (2016). Considering perspectives on transgender inclusion in Canadian Catholic elementary schools: Perspectives, challenges, and opportunities. Journal of Social Studies Research, 40(3), 187-200. DOI: 10.1016/j.jssr.2015.12.001
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). What every social studies teacher should know about simulations. Canadian Social Studies, 48(1), 8-23. Accessible from
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). On “stepping back and letting go”: The role of control in the success or failure of social studies simulations. Theory and Research in Social Education, 43(2), 206-243 DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2015.1034394
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). Beyond the “Babel problem”: Defining simulations for the social studies. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39(2), 63-77 doi:10.1016/j.jssr.214.10.001
- Wright-Maley, C., & Green, J.D. (2015). Experiencing the needs and challenges of ELLs: Improving knowledge and efficacy of preservice teachers through the use of a language immersion simulation. Cogent Education, 2(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/2331186X.2015.1030176
- Wright-Maley, C., Levine, T., Gonzalez, E. (2014). Instruction in progress: In search of effective practices for emergent bilinguals. In Levine, T., Howard, L., Moss, D. (Eds.). Preparing Classroom Teachers to Succeed with Second Language Learners, pp. 154-173. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2014). In defense of simulating complex and tragic historical episodes: A measured response to the outcry over a New England slavery simulation. Canadian Social Studies, 47(1), 18-25.
- Wright-Maley, C., Grenier, R.S., Marcus, A.S. (2013). We need to talk: Improving museum visits through dialogue between social studies teachers and museum educators. The Social Studies, 104(5), 207-216. DOI: 10.1080/00377996.2012.720308
- Wright-Maley, C. (2013). Deficit Crisis Simulation: Using Monopoly to teach about the deficit debate. Social Studies Research and Practice, 8(1), 89-101
- Wright-Maley, C. (2011). Meet them at the plate: Reflections on the eating of animals and the role of education therein. Critical Education, 2(5), pp. 1-20.
- Dr. Wright-Maley’s passion for simulations research continues to be stoked by new questions that continue to emerge. He is particularly interested in several dimensions of simulation-based teaching that I am starting to explore: The first question he is asking is how do teachers learn to be effective facilitators of simulations in K-12 classrooms? This has implications for how we train teachers, how we come to understand their perspectives on using them, and what challenges emerge in the process of learning how to teach this way. The second set of questions have to do with chaos theory: How, if at all, does chaos theory apply to human simulations? Do we act in predictable, non-linear ways that aren’t readily obvious? If so, how might chaos theory help us to better understand human interactions across social domains? Finally, he is asking how simulations might contribute to the process of learning how to create a more just society. In particular, how might simulations help us to think about and develop an economic landscape that is more equitable?