Saccucci, Brent

Instructor

Phone: (403) 329-2185
Email: brent.saccucci@uleth.ca

Office Hours

By appointment (virtual or in-person)

About Me

I am first and foremost a teacher, in all of the complexities and joys that role brings. I believe whole-heartedly in the transformative power of education for a better social world, and crucial to that is developing classrooms that centre on belonging, care, and relationality. I’ve taught students from elementary to graduate school, and am now a faculty member in the Faculty of Education here at the University of Lethbridge where I get to teach our awesome education students in the social contexts of education, literacy, and leading change in schools. I have created new courses at UofL primarily in pop culture and media literacy, as well as in gender and sexuality in education, the latter which I am making an open-access multi-modal textbook with several undergraduate students. Beginning in 2025, I will lead the Leading Social Change in Schools Cohort, the first of it's kind at the UofL to prepare new teachers with leadership skills to enact change in their schools and communities across southern Alberta.

My passion is teaching and the community of curious learners a classroom brings: Time spent learning with me interactive, reflective, and has a good amount of tough (but meaningful) questions. We tend to laugh a lot too, and make some pretty special relationships along the way.

I’ve always got time to connect with students, staff, and faculty across our amazing university to see how together, we can belonging back to the centre of everything that we do. My classroom door is always open -- I have had dozens of faculty, staff, and students across the university (and from local K-12 schools) join my classes at UofL to observe and contribute to our class!

Biography

Before coming to UofL, I worked as an Adjunct Professor of Social Justice Leadership at the University of British Columbia, and taught literacy education to student-teachers at the University of Alberta. In K-12, I have worked in all three grade divisions -- elementary, middle, and high school -- and have worked as a school guidance counsellor and district-wide equity consultant. One of my career highlights was working as an English teacher and equity and belonging consultant with Lethbridge School Division.

Publications

Select Publications (*peer-reviewed)

*Saccucci, B. F. (In review). Crazy teacher sketchbook: Psychoanalysis and difficult teacher knowledge-making. International Mad Studies Journal.

Saccucci, B. F. (2025). From A to Z(ine): Taking risks to develop community partnerships and multimodal maker pedagogy. Literacy: National Council of Teacher's of English (NCTE) Professional Blog & Newsletter.

*Saccucci, B. F. (2024). ‘What knowledge is of most worth?’: A sociopolitical analysis of creative literacies & research-creation in education. English Language Arts Journal.

*Saccucci, B. F. (2023). The teacher’s tomatoes: The mess of queer pedagogy in the classroom. English Language Arts Journal.

*Saccucci, B. F., & de Oliviera Jayme, B. (2020). High heels, empty bottles and other interesting pedagogical artefacts mediating social movement learning. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.

*de Oliviera Jayme, B., Germanos, E., & Saccucci, B. F. (2020). Recycling stories: Community art and deliberative democracy opening spaces for civic engagement. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.

Scalzo, M., Fillion, J., Kerr, D., Rude, D., Skinner, D., Saccucci, B. F., … & Wickstrom, M. (2016). The PRISM Toolkit for safe & caring discussions about sexual and gender minorities. Alberta Teachers’ Association.

*Saccucci, B. F., & Ayache, M. (2013). On being (un)popular, pedagogical, and in the Prairies: The educative capacity of participatory social justice theatre in Canada. alt.theatre: cultural diversity and the stage.

Select Presentations (*peer-reviewed)

Saccucci, B. F. (2025, April 29–30). Ungrading: Is it really possible? An equity approach to resisting the ranking, rating, and sorting of students. Annual SPARK Teaching Symposium, University of Lethbridge.

Saccucci, B. F. (2025, April 12). From political division to personal dignity: How schools can prioritize Two-Spirit, Queer, & Trans thriving. Mental Health in Schools Summit, Headwater Learning Foundation, Banff, AB.

*Saccucci, B. F. (2025, March 28). Pedagogy of the Oppressor: Trans pedagogies in Alberta’s Bible Belt. Moving Trans History Forward Conference, University of Victoria.

Saccucci, B. F. (2025). De/grading: Rejecting the tyranny and oppression of ranking, rating, and failing our students. South Western Alberta Teachers’ Convention Association (SWATCA).

*Saccucci, F., & Saccucci, B. F. (2025). Educational short (nano) videos’ preferred length, content, pace, platforms & voiceovers for micro-learning. Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE), Congress 2025.

Saccucci, B. F. (2024, June). Catholic school equity? Hidden possibilities for queer and trans belonging [Video Q&A]. Concerned Lay Catholics of Canada.

Saccucci, B. F. (2024). Supporting literacy equity through the science of reading. Staff professional learning workshop, Lethbridge School Division.

Saccucci, B. F. (2019, November 16). Co-constructing mental health curriculum with trans students. Alberta Gay-Straight Alliance Annual Conference, Calgary Centre for Sexuality.

*Callaghan, T., Shabtay, A., Lee, I., & Saccucci, B. F. (2019, April 9). Fighting for Catholic School Gay-Straight Alliances: Youth influencing education policy in Ontario, Canada. AERA Annual Meeting, Division G, Toronto, ON.

Saccucci, B. F. (2018, November 23). Poetic interventions in queer youth mental health. Arts for Education Conference, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Shabtay, A., Chang, E., Brendel Horn, E., Nelson, B., McKenna, M., Rhoades, R., Ayache, M., & Saccucci, B. F. (2018, October 13). Theatre-based activism: Theories and methods in action [Panel presentation]. Art as an Agent of Social Change Conference, McGill University.

Saccucci, B. F. (2017, November 15). 1 in 10: Queer teachers in multi-religious and multicultural schools. Touchy Subject: Gender and Sexuality in Schools Conference, OISE, University of Toronto.

Saccucci, B. F. (2017, June 4). Queer educational activism in the province of the “Lake of Fire”. Youth, Theatre, & Resistance Conference, Young People’s Theatre, Toronto, ON.

Saccucci, B. F. (2017, April 8). The performative and discursive pedagogies of queer high school students online. OISE Graduate Student Research Conference, University of Toronto.

Degrees

BEd in Secondary English Education, University of Alberta

MEd in Secondary Education / Curriculum Studies, University of Alberta

MA in Curriculum & Pedagogy / Sexual Diversity Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto

funded by SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship

EdD in Equity, Diversity, & Social Justice Education, Western University (in progress)

Research Interests

Belonging as critical pedagogy; Two-Spirit, queer, & trans belonging (particularly in rural, religious, and 'conservative' spaces); teacher activism and praxis leadership; queer theory and trans studies; controversy and ethics in education; character education; student mental health and mad studies in education; pedagogies of discomfort and care; affect theory and the cultural study of emotion; critical pedagogy and critical theory; sociology of education and gender performativity in schools; curriculum studies and the sociology of knowledge; multi-literacies and research-creation; arts-based educational research; teacher autoethnography and currere.

Personal Website

https://www.learningwithbrent.com/

In The Media

Vandela, K. (2025, April 20). Pride’s grungy younger sister ft. Brent Saccucci (YQL). Queer in Alberta: A Telus StoryHive Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yT14XsWeTA

Alarcon, N. (2025, January 28). Anti-racist zine pages from Lethbridge. John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights Newsletter. https://www.jhcentre.org/news-and-events/2025/1/28/not-in-my-back-yard-zine-pages-from-lethbridgenbsp

Francine, B. (2022, April 13). Have you met… Brent? YouAlberta Community Blog. https://www.ualberta.ca/youalberta/2021/04/have-you-met-brent.html

Vardabasso, N. (2021, October 21). What is the literacy of our lives? EduCrush Podcast. https://teachbetter.com/educrush-podcast/brentsaccucci/

French, J. (2016, April 12). Alberta’s sexual health education doesn’t make the grade, critics say. Edmonton Journal. http://edmontonjournal.com/health/sexual-health/albertas-sexual-health-education-doesnt-make-the-grade-critics-say

Varela, I. (2015, May 8). Meet Mr. Saccucci. Illuminate – Faculty of Education Magazine. http://www.illuminate.ualberta.ca/content/meet-mr-saccucci

Expertise

Belonging & the Social Contexts of Education: Controversy and the ‘culture wars’ surrounding gender and sexuality; Two-Spirit, queer, and trans mental health in education; classroom power dynamics and critical pedagogy; ethics and character education

Pedagogy & Transformative Learning: Experiential learning and reflective praxis; relational learning and pedagogies of care; social-emotional learning through leadership education; participatory learning through democratic and Socratic dialogue