Anika Ganness
Biography
Dr. Anika Ganness (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University and the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Dr. Ganness received her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she was the Global Child Protection Officer for one of the world’s leading child rights organizations, and she integrates that rich public policy expertise in her scholarship.
Peer Reviewed Articles:
Examining Child Maltreatment-Related Investigations of Children from Newcomer and non-Newcomer Households in Ontario, Canada (external link) , (with Emmaline Houston, Tara Black and Barbara Fallon). International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience, 8:1 (2021): 110-123. https://doi.org/10.7202/1082070ar (external link)
Book Chapters:
"Child Protective Services (external link) .” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Policy in Canada, eds. Daniel Béland, Rianne Mahon and Alison Smith. New York: Oxford University Press. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197766859.013.0024 (external link)
“Child Care Policy in North America” (with Linda A. White and Susan Prentice). In, The Research Handbook of Social Care Policy (external link) , eds. Costanzo Ranci and Tine Rostgaard. Edgar Elgar Publishing. (forthcoming) November 2025.
“Children’s Social Development within the Context of Early Childhood Education and Care Experiences (external link) ” (with Linda A. White and Michal Perlman). In The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development 3rd edition. eds. Peter K. Smith and Craig H. Hart., 349–365. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119679028.ch19 (external link)
Public Engagement:
Ontario’s focus on child welfare finances won’t keep kids safe (external link) . Policy Options. July 3, 2025.
The Past, Present and Future of Child Welfare in Canada (external link) . Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) event. Montreal, Quebec. May 14, 2024.
Dr. Ganness's research areas include Public Policy, Canadian Politics, and Comparative Politics. As a historical institutionalist scholar, her research focuses on how states and other political actors exercise their governing power to affect equity outcomes, particularly for marginalized people. Her current project is a timely intervention that examines the puzzling phenomenon of racial and immigrant disproportionality within Canada’s child welfare sector, an under-researched area in political science.
Dr. Ganness teaches public policy and Canadian politics courses for both the Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) graduate program and the Politics and Governance (BA) undergraduate program.