Research Objectives
Largely focused on amplifying and understanding teacher voice and the teaching experience, I take an interdisciplinary approach that is inspired by Sociology of Education, Critical Pedagogy, Black Feminism, and Critical Race Theory in an effort to shift common understanding of the purpose of education from focus on content and assessment to that of identity development and exploration.
My research seeks to establish schools as sources of empowerment and sites of positive identity development for youth. Towards this mission, I am interested in teacher-initiated opportunities for youth identity development and processes through which we can humanize education. I explore teachers’ understandings of their own professional purpose through their inclusion of emotion, intimacy, and productive discomfort in the classroom. I am extremely conscious of the fact that while I produce work for and about teachers, I have not been a K-12 educator. My role and purpose is to facilitate the development of reflective educators. Based on my research I believe that teacher education programs and professional development need to do more than teach teachers how to teach content. I aim to be part of that extension.
Through my work I ask: How, if at all, do teachers engage their students in discussions around race, racism, and systemic inequality? What does it take for teachers to feel prepared and capable of safely and effectively facilitating such conversations? These questions are utmost importance as tensions around what students should and should not learn in school rise in districts around the country.
dissertation Project
Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research that seeks to understand, rather than criticize, experienced teachers and their particular professional experiences. However, in order to overhaul schooling and education in the service of empowering youth, it is integral that we understand and support those with the greatest contact with students. As contribution to this literature, my dissertation project, DISRUPTION: The impact of the dual pandemic on the teaching profession, provides a unique glimpse into how educators conceptualize their own professional purpose. The study utilizes the disruption to institutional cohesion and stability to isolate and identify variety in educators’ professional priorities. Using data gathered from over 800 teachers in July 2020, the project explores: 1) How teachers relationships with their students shifted as a result of the initial months of remote learning; 2) How the need for teachers to be creative in response to how the pandemic disrupted schooling provided an opportunity to surface the ways that variations in educators’ professional priorities mediated between school policies and practice; and 3) Whether, why, and how teachers incorporated lessons on inequality, racial injustice, and civil unrest in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. Additionally, DISRUPTION notably contributes to institutional studies by exploring the reactions and responses of institutional agents during institutional instability.
PRONouns: they/them or she/her
KEYWORDS
Sociology of Education
Social Foundations of Education
Critical Race Studies
Sociocultural Education
Teacher Voice & Experience
Critical Pedagogy
RESEARCHGATE
Education
University of CHicago [Chicago, IL]
PhD. COMPARATIVE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Dissertation: DISRUPTION: Finding humanizing opportunities in the COVID-19-impacted classroom
August 2022
BROWN UNIVERSITY [PROVIDENCE, RI]
B.S. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
AFRICANA STUDIES
Graduated May 2013