Research Overview
EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE. DEMOCRATIC PEDAGOGY. HUMANIZING SCHOOLS.
How can educators, students, and communities work together to make a humanizing and democratic education a reality for all students?
- How do teachers enact justice-oriented pedagogies, and how do youth experience them?
- How do we most effectively prepare teachers to enact democratic, humanizing, and justice-oriented pedagogies?
- How does the social context of schools contribute to or detract from this work?
Answering these questions is of urgent and material concern to schools -- especially urban schools, where policy and practice is too often built on dehumanizing and paternalizing practices aimed at controlling vulnerable students. In Milwaukee specifically, which is where I am based, working for a just and humanizing education is a life-or-death matter for too many of Milwaukee's students. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has repeatedly found Wisconsin to be the worst state in which to raise Black children, and Wisconsin/Milwaukee are near the top of many lists of the 'worst' in the United States: incarceration rates for Black men, racial achievement gaps, high school drop-out rates, poverty rates, racial and economic segregation, and gun violence and homicides. Given this context, I aim for my research to illustrate how educators, communities, and students can work together to make a more humanizing education a reality, with such an education ultimately becoming a catalyst for broader social change.
More recently, my research has increasingly become focused on how whiteness infiltrates and prevents work for educational justice. The US teaching force is roughly 80% white, with a student population that is far more racially diverse. But whiteness is not simply a demographic characteristic: it is a deeply ingrained way of being in the world that is often at odds with students' expression of their full humanity. As a white, female educator, I believe that my ethical responsibility as a researcher is not only to help educators more broadly reimagine justice in schools but also to help white teachers like me understand how to move beyond their good intentions to transformative pedagogical action.
More recently, my research has increasingly become focused on how whiteness infiltrates and prevents work for educational justice. The US teaching force is roughly 80% white, with a student population that is far more racially diverse. But whiteness is not simply a demographic characteristic: it is a deeply ingrained way of being in the world that is often at odds with students' expression of their full humanity. As a white, female educator, I believe that my ethical responsibility as a researcher is not only to help educators more broadly reimagine justice in schools but also to help white teachers like me understand how to move beyond their good intentions to transformative pedagogical action.
Journal Articles
From deliberation to counternarration: Toward a critical pedagogy for democratic education | 2020
Theory & Research in Social Education, 48(3), 431-454.
Scaffolding critical questions: Learning to read the world in a middle school civics class in Mexico | 2018
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(1), 25-34.
De los derechos humanos: Reimagining civics in bilingual & bicultural settings | 2017
The Social Studies, 108(1), 10-21.
'The Path of Social Justice': A Human Rights History of Social Justice Education | 2013
with Carl Grant. Equity & Excellence in Education, 46(1), 86-99.
Toward a 'paideia of the soul': Education to Enrich America's Multicultural Democracy | 2012
with Carl Grant. Intercultural Education, 23(4), 313-324.
Are We 'Reading the World'? A Review of Multicultural Literature on Globalization | 2010
Multicultural Perspectives, 12(3), 129-137.
Theory & Research in Social Education, 48(3), 431-454.
Scaffolding critical questions: Learning to read the world in a middle school civics class in Mexico | 2018
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(1), 25-34.
De los derechos humanos: Reimagining civics in bilingual & bicultural settings | 2017
The Social Studies, 108(1), 10-21.
'The Path of Social Justice': A Human Rights History of Social Justice Education | 2013
with Carl Grant. Equity & Excellence in Education, 46(1), 86-99.
Toward a 'paideia of the soul': Education to Enrich America's Multicultural Democracy | 2012
with Carl Grant. Intercultural Education, 23(4), 313-324.
Are We 'Reading the World'? A Review of Multicultural Literature on Globalization | 2010
Multicultural Perspectives, 12(3), 129-137.
Book Chapters
Are these still revolutionary times? Human rights, social justice, & popular protest | 2020
with Carl Grant & Verónica Mancheno. In The practice of freedom: Social justice pedagogy—10th anniversary edition (Thandeka Chapman & Nikkola Hobbel, eds.). NY: Routledge. [forthcoming]
The silences we speak: Deliberative pedagogies & the whiteness of civic education | 2020
In Marking the Invisible: Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies (Andrea Hawkman & Sarah Shear, eds.), pp. 75-106. Chapel Hill: Information Age Publishing.
Historicizing critical educational praxis: A human rights framework for justice-oriented teaching | 2017
with Carl Grant. In Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, Praxis (Monisha Bajaj, ed.), pp. 225-250. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Diversity & Teacher Education: A Historical Perspective on Research & Policy | 2011
with Carl Grant. In Studying Diversity in Teacher Education (Arnetha Ball and Cynthia Tyson, eds.), pp. 19-61. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum & Associates.
'Working in the Small Places': A Human Rights History of Multicultural Democratic Education | 2010
with Carl Grant. In Democracy and Multicultural Education (R. Hoosain & F. Salili, eds.), pp. 43-75. Charlotte NC: Information Age Publishing.
These are Revolutionary Times: Human Rights, Social Justice, & Popular Protest | 2010
with Carl Grant. In The Practice of Freedom: Social Justice Pedagogy (T. Chapman & N. Hobbel, eds.), pp. 9-35. NY: Routledge.
A Multicultural Approach to ATE’s Standards for Teacher Educators | 2009
with Carl Grant. In Visions for Teacher Educators: Perspectives on the Association of Teacher Educators’ Standards (R. Houston & Commission on Teacher Educator Standards, eds.), pp. 123-140. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
with Carl Grant & Verónica Mancheno. In The practice of freedom: Social justice pedagogy—10th anniversary edition (Thandeka Chapman & Nikkola Hobbel, eds.). NY: Routledge. [forthcoming]
The silences we speak: Deliberative pedagogies & the whiteness of civic education | 2020
In Marking the Invisible: Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies (Andrea Hawkman & Sarah Shear, eds.), pp. 75-106. Chapel Hill: Information Age Publishing.
Historicizing critical educational praxis: A human rights framework for justice-oriented teaching | 2017
with Carl Grant. In Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, Praxis (Monisha Bajaj, ed.), pp. 225-250. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Diversity & Teacher Education: A Historical Perspective on Research & Policy | 2011
with Carl Grant. In Studying Diversity in Teacher Education (Arnetha Ball and Cynthia Tyson, eds.), pp. 19-61. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum & Associates.
'Working in the Small Places': A Human Rights History of Multicultural Democratic Education | 2010
with Carl Grant. In Democracy and Multicultural Education (R. Hoosain & F. Salili, eds.), pp. 43-75. Charlotte NC: Information Age Publishing.
These are Revolutionary Times: Human Rights, Social Justice, & Popular Protest | 2010
with Carl Grant. In The Practice of Freedom: Social Justice Pedagogy (T. Chapman & N. Hobbel, eds.), pp. 9-35. NY: Routledge.
A Multicultural Approach to ATE’s Standards for Teacher Educators | 2009
with Carl Grant. In Visions for Teacher Educators: Perspectives on the Association of Teacher Educators’ Standards (R. Houston & Commission on Teacher Educator Standards, eds.), pp. 123-140. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Other publications
On Decency| 2017
Proximity Magazine [on-line]
Review of Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world | 2017
Teachers College Record [on-line].
Beyond Chapter One | 2016
In Social Studies for Social Justice in the Common Core Era (Agarwal-Ragnath, R., Dover, A., & Henning, N. , eds.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Review of Public housing & school choice in a gentrified city: Youth experiences of uneven opportunity | 2015
Teachers College Record [on-line].
Proximity Magazine [on-line]
Review of Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world | 2017
Teachers College Record [on-line].
Beyond Chapter One | 2016
In Social Studies for Social Justice in the Common Core Era (Agarwal-Ragnath, R., Dover, A., & Henning, N. , eds.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Review of Public housing & school choice in a gentrified city: Youth experiences of uneven opportunity | 2015
Teachers College Record [on-line].
Pedagogy blogs
shared projects with students
This Is Social Studies - Medium
Learning to teach social studies in Milwaukee. Place-based, justice-oriented, theory-informed, and multimodal. Tools, reflections, ideas. An occasional digital publication written by teacher education students at Marquette University.
Marquette Meets Peru - Medium
Reflections on our month studying diverse educational settings in Peru, written by teacher education students from Marquette University.