Drawing upon his eclectic educational background in biology, medical research science, technology and sociology, Dr. John Anchan takes a cross-disciplinarian approach to his work. His research is focussed in four broad areas: international and intercultural education, cyberculture, the sociology of education, and immigration and settlement. He is one of 40 researchers from ten universities, in six cities, conducting a massive national longitudinal study of 4000 new-Canadian children and their families, tracking them as they progress through school and comparing their experience with Canadian-born youngsters. The exhaustive study looks at areas of education, race, identity, culture, gender, physical and mental health, addiction, intergenerational conflict, posttraumatic stress syndrome, and other psychosomatic disorders. The results will be of value to policy makers, educators, service providers, and those working in health, immigration and justice.

The subject that really sparks Dr. Anchan's enthusiasm is technology. He is currently exploring how technology affects culture, creating a culture of its own, presents limitations and liabilities, as well as possibilities and promises. According to Anchan, “We are inundated with technology but receive little or no training in its proper use. Technology has changed our world and spawned a divide of language between younger and older generations - highlighting the scramble to communicate with our children.”

Dr. Anchan is particularly interested in mobile technologies such as PDAs, Smartphones and portable multimedia devices. These hand-held computers raise many issues aside from communication. Just as with the Web, these devices offer a glut of information, frequently unverifiable, and may discourage true research, replacing it with what he calls the “wiggle” knowledge: information gleaned from Wikipedia and Google. When any of the technology devices fail, we feel helpless. Technologies have propagated a variety of social, psychological, health, and addiction problems and culturally it has become a matter of what computers do to us rather then what they do for us.

Dr. Anchan asserts that proper training along with a strong foundation in learning outcomes, philosophies, and theoretical constructs will enable us toward capacity building and support the accrual of cultural and social capital required to survive and succeed in contemporary society.