NEPC Topic Experts on Critical Theory and Pedagogy

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He also holds Distinguished Professor appointments at the University of Manchester and Northeast Normal University in China.  A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, unions, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice.

Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform, on the relationship between culture and power, and on education for social justice.  Among his recent books are: The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education; The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education; Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education; and most recently Knowledge, Power, and Education; and Can Education Change Society?  His books and articles have won numerous awards and have been translated into many languages.

Professor Apple has been selected as one of the fifty most important educational scholars in the 20th Century.  His books Ideology and Curriculum and Official Knowledge were also selected as two of the most significant books on education in the 20th Century.

He has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Educational Research Association, the UCLA Medal for "Outstanding Academic Achievement," and a number of honorary doctorates by universities throughout the world.

Email Michael W. Apple at: apple@education.wisc.edu

Elena Aydarova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Aydarova was a faculty member at Auburn University for six years prior to joining UW. Her interdisciplinary scholarship lies at the intersections of comparative and international education, educational policy, and anthropology. She examines educational policies and their implications for equity, diversity, and social justice through the lens of theater. Rooted in critical theories, her research focuses on intermediary organizations’ advocacy and the ensuing technocratic reforms. She also explores educators’ policy advocacy as they work towards more equitable and just education for all. She is a recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship, American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, the Concha Delgado Gaitan Presidential Fellowship from the Council of Anthropology and Education, a Global Teacher Education Fellowship from the Longview Foundation, as well as a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship. She has authored over 30 publications, including the award-winning book Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater: Russian Policy Dramas (2019, with SUNY Press).

Email Elena Aydarova at: aydarova@wisc.edu

William Ayers is a retired Distinguished Professor of Education, and a Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research focuses on the importance of creating progressive educational opportunities in urban public schools. One of his books, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (Teachers College Press, 1993), was named Book of the Year in 1993 by Kappa Delta Pi and won the Witten Award for Distinguished Work in Biography and Autobiography in 1995. He is a graduate of the Bank Street College of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University.

Email William Ayers at: billayers123@gmail.com                  

William Ayers' blog

Kristen Buras spent two decades as an education professor at Emory University then Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her work continues as an antiracist scholar-activist in the Deep South. She is cofounder and director of the New Orleans-based Urban South Grassroots Research Collective, a coalition with Black educational and cultural groups that melds community-based research and organizing for racial justice. Buras has written multiple books on urban educational policy, including Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance and What We Stand to Lose: Black Teachers, the Culture They Created, and the Closure of a New Orleans High School. She is coauthor of Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance and coeditor of The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles with Michael Apple. She is regularly contacted by school board members, teachers, parent groups, education activists, and journalists across the nation for her expertise on school district takeovers, privatization, and the effects on local communities. She has published in Harvard Educational Review, Peabody Journal of Education, Race Ethnicity and Education, and elsewhere, spoken by invitation at universities such as Columbia, Dillard, Fordham, Loyola, Harvard, and Tulane, and participated in community forums in cities affected by neoliberal reforms. Buras was granted the Distinguished Scholar-Activist Award by Critical Educators for Social Justice of the American Educational Research Association.

Website: www.kristenburas.com

Email Kristen Buras at: kburas@gsu.edu or kb.usgrc@gmail.com

photo: © Alexandra Zak Photography 

E-mail Antonia Darder at antonia.darder@lmu.edu

Jaime L. Del Razo is an Assistant Professor of Education at Vassar College. He is interested in researching and writing about issues that confront the continual and accepted forms of oppression that marginalized communities endure in overt and subtle forms in the United States with the goal of changing these conditions forever. Though this research agenda intersects a variety of topics, his current lines of inquiry include (1) Access & Equity for Undocumented Students; (2) Race & Racism; (3) Class & Classism; and (4) Militarization of Schools & Veteran Students. Jaime holds a PhD in Education from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.

Email Jaime Del Razo at: jdelrazo@vassar.edu

Elizabeth Dutro is professor and chair of Literacy Studies in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in the area of literacy studies. Her research investigates the intersections of literacy, identity, and children and youth’s opportunities for positive, sustained, relationships with schooling. A primary strand of her work analyzes the presence and consequences of out-of-school life experiences and discourses of race, class, gender in students’ encounters with literacy curriculum, instruction, and high-stakes accountability policy. Elizabeth was a recipient of the Promising Researcher Award and Alan C. Purves Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Email Elizabeth Dutro at: Elizabeth.Dutro@colorado.edu

Gustavo E. Fischman is professor in educational policy and director of edXchangethe knowledge mobilization initiative at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. His areas of specialization are comparative education and critical policy and gender studies in education. He is currently leading two research projects. The first analyzes knowledge mobilization strategies of graduate schools of education. Specifically, this project explores the processes of knowledge-exchanges between academic centers and relevant stakeholders such as other scholars, educators, administrators, policymakers, and the general public. The second project focuses on understanding and strengthening the quality, impact and reach of open access publishing in scholarly communication in Latin America.

Dr. Fischman has published extensively and presented in numerous national and international conferences, and has been a visiting scholar in numerous graduate programs in Europe and Latin America. In 2013 has been elected fellow of the International Academy of Education. He serves in numerous editorial boards, and is also the lead editor of Education Policy Analysis Archives and co-editor of Education Review/Reseñas Educativas,

Email Gustavo Fischman at: Fischman@asu.edu

References to selected publications:

Fischman, G. E. & Diaz, V. D. (2013) Education without Redemption: Ten Reflections about the Relevance of the Freirean Legacy, Interamerican Journal of Education for Democracy 4 (2) pp. 70-87.

Fischman, G. E. (2013) ‘Hacerlo bien’: Acceso, visibilidad e impacto de la investigación latinoamericana. Cuadernos del Pensamiento Crítico Latinoamericano, CLACSO, no. 6, oct 2013

Fischman, G. E. & Haas, E. (2012) Beyond “idealized” citizenship education: Embodied cognition, metaphors and democracy. Review of Research in Education (RRE), Volume 36: Education, Democracy and the Public Good,pp 190-217.

Alperin, J., Fischman, G. E., & Willinsky, J. (2012). Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America’s Research-Intensive Universities. IESALC-Educación Superior y Sociedavol 16(2). http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/index.php/ess/article/view/409

Pat Hinchey is Professor Emerita of Education at Penn State. She is experienced in a wide variety of teaching situations and in conducting professional development for both in-service teachers and her faculty colleagues. Her research interests center on issues of equity and the undermining of education for democracy. Having written extensively on the translation of critical theory to classroom practice, more recently she has turned her attention to teacher assessment and proposals for restructuring the teaching profession.  Pat's most recent book, Getting to Where We Meant to Be: Working Toward the Educational World We Imagine/d, analyzes the common assumptions related to the various futures imagined for K-12 education. 

Email Patricia H. Hinchey at: pxh12@psu.edu

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro (https://www.kevinkumashiro.com) is the founding chair of the national network, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE).  He is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate.  Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the Schools of Education at the University of San Francisco and Hofstra University, and is the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice, and most recently, Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. His recent awards include the 2016 Social Justice in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Gloria Ladson-Billings (PhD Stanford ’84) is the president of the National Academy of Education. She is Professor Emerita and the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association. Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She also investigates Critical Race Theory applications to education.

Ladson-Billings is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, Crossing over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and Beyond the Big House: African American Educators on Teacher Education. She is editor of five other books and author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters. She is the former editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a member of several editorial boards. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards, including the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, Spencer Post-doctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson outstanding research award. In spring 2005 she was elected to the National Academy of Education and the National Society for the Study of Education. In 2007 she was awarded the Hilldale Award, the highest faculty honor given to a professor at the University of Wisconsin for outstanding research, teaching, and service. She is the recipient of the 2008 Distinguished Service Award from Teachers College, Columbia University. Ladson-Billings holds honorary degrees from Umeå University (Umeå Sweden), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain), the Erickson Institute (Chicago), and Morgan State University (Baltimore).  She is a 2018 recipient of the AERA Distinguished Research Award, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018.

Email Gloria Ladson-Billings at: gjladson@gmail.com

Bethy Leonardi, PhD is codirector of A Queer Endeavor (aqueerendeavor.org) and an associate professor of Educational Foundations, Policy, & Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. In her research she focuses on the complex relationship between policy and practice, and specifically, policies that rub up against the status quo. 

Email Bethy Leonardi at: Bethy.Leonardi@colorado.edu

Elizabeth J. Meyer is a Professor in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the author of three books: Queer Justice at School: A Guide for Youth Activists, Allies, and their Teachers (2025, Teachers College Press), Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools (2009, Teachers College Press), and Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools (Springer). Dr. Meyer completed her M.A. at CU Boulder, and Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her recent research has focused on the First Amendment, Title IX implementation, and supports for trans and nonbinary youth. She has discussed her research on FOXNews, National Public Radio, CTV National News (Canada), and other regional media outlets. Professor Meyer received the American Educational Research Association's 2021 award for Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research. She maintains the Gender and Education blog for Psychology Today.

Email Elizabeth Meyer at: Elizabeth.J.Meyer@colorado.edu

H. Richard Milner IV (also known as Rich) is Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. His research, teaching, and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education. Professor Milner’s research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools. Professor Milner is President of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published seven books. His most recent are: Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2010 and 2020, Second Edition), Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools and classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and These kids are out of control: Why we must reimagine classroom management for equity (Corwin Press, 2018).   

Email Rich Milner at: rich.milner@vanderbilt.edu

Beth C. Rubin, Ph.D. is professor of education at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. In her work, she uses a critical, sociocultural approach to investigate how young people develop, both as learners and as citizens, amid the interwoven contexts of classroom, school, and community, with particular attention to the ways that these settings are shaped by historical and structural inequalities. Her work appears in a variety of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, the Harvard Educational Review, Curriculum Inquiry, Equity and Excellence in Education, the Urban Review, and others. Her most recent book is Making Citizens: Transforming Civic Learning for Diverse Social Studies Classrooms (Routledge, 2012).

Email Beth Rubin at: beth.rubin@gse.rutgers.edu

Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. His interests include the political economy and cultural politics of public school privatization. His work also explains how the privatization movement in education is part of the broader movement to undermine public democratic power and expand global corporate power.

He is the author and editor of numerous books on educational policy and politics including Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, The Edison Schools, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, The Failure of Corporate School Reform, The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, and Toward a New Common School Movement.  His most recent book (2016) is Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education.

Email Kenneth Saltman at: ksaltman@uic.edu 

Ron Scapp is the founding director of the Graduate Program of Urban and Multicultural Education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx where he is professor of humanities and teacher education. He is currently the director of program development at the College, and is President of the National Association for Ethnic Studies. He is also serving as a member of the International Committee for Kappa Delta Pi and a member of United Federation of Teachers policy board for the NYC Teachers Center.  He has written on a variety of topics—from popular culture to education, from social and political philosophy to art criticism. 

His recent books include, Managing to Be Different: Educational Leadership as Critical Practice (Routledge) and Living With Class: Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Material Culture, co-edited with Brian Seitz (Palgrave Macmillan). He has collaborated with others on different projects, most notably with cultural critic and author bell hooks [sic]. He is currently working on a book about education and the culture of reform and is co-editor with Kenneth J. Saltman of the Routledge series, Positions: Education, Politics and Culture. He is editor of the journal Ethnic Studies Review, and is a founding member of Group Thought, a philosophy collective based in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Email Ron Scapp at: ron.scapp@mountsaintvincent.edu

Kathy Schultz is Professor of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education and with the Renée Crown Wellness Institute. She was Dean of the School of Education from 2017-2023 following her appointment as Dean of the School of Education at Mills College in Oakland, California from 2010-2016. She served as professor and director of the teacher education program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997-2010. During that time, she was the faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project and served on the Empowerment Board (School Board) of the Chester Upland School District. 

Her scholarly work has focused on the research, development, and dissemination of practices that support new and veteran teachers working with marginalized populations in high poverty areas. Her two books, Listening: A framework for teaching across differences and Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices address these issues. Her most recent book, Distrust and educational change: Overcoming barriers to just and lasting reform, about the role of distrust in educational reform, draws on her work in Oakland, as a school board member in Chester, PA, and leader of professional development in international settings. One of her current projects addresses dignity, teachers, and teaching.

Email Katherine Schultz at: Katherine.Schultz@colorado.edu

Christine Sleeter is Professor Emerita in the College of Education at California State University Monterey Bay, where she was a founding faculty member. Her research focuses on anti-racist multicultural education, the impact of ethnic studies on students, and the preparation of teachers for racially and ethnically diverse schools.

Email Christine Sleeter at: csleeter@gmail.com

Jamy Stillman is an Associate Professor of Education in the division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research explores the factors that shape teachers’ capacities to deliver equity-oriented, responsive instruction in high-poverty schools serving minoritized youth, especially Spanish-English bilingual students. Using qualitative methods, Jamy focuses primarily on two factors—education policy (e.g. high-stakes accountability policies and standards-based reform) and features of university teacher education—to generate understandings about pre-service and practicing teachers’ learning and work across contexts, and the implications of this work and learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students’ opportunities to learn. Jamy is also becoming increasingly interested in questions surrounding the preparation of urban teacher educators.

Email Jamy Stillman at: Jamy.Stillman@colorado.edu

P. L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville SC), taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He is a former column editor for English Journal (National Council of Teachers of English), current series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres (Brill), and author of Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination: Essays Exploring What ‘Teaching Writing’ Means (IAP, 2019) and How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care (IAP, in press). NCTE named Thomas the 2013 George Orwell Award winner. He co-edited the award-winning (Divergent Book Award for Excellence in 21^st Century Literacies Research) volume Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America (Brill, 2018). Follow his work @plthomasEdD and the becoming radical (http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/).

Email P.L. Thomas at: paul.thomas@furman.edu

Adam York is a Research Associate with the Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation (CADRE) at CU Boulder. In this work he draws on experience in qualitative research methods to evaluate educational programs and support services for students. He also contributes to projects of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC). With the NEPC, Adam currently works on the Price of Opportunity project to organize and lead the qualitative data analysis procedures. Adam earned his PhD in educational psychology and learning sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder. He worked in the nonprofit sector as a program director, counselor, and grant writer. He has taught courses at CU Boulder and the University of Colorado Denver in educational foundations, education policy, and human development. Adam earned a master's in community counseling from Lewis and Clark College, and a bachelor's in psychology from Colorado College.

Email Adam York at: Adam.J.York@colorado.edu