NEPC Topic Experts on Gender Issues

Adrienne Dixson is Associate Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois College of Education. Her primary research interest focuses on educational equity in urban schooling contexts, applying a Critical Race Theory framework. She is interested in how educational equity is mediated by school reform policies in the urban south and is examining school reform in post-Katrina New Orleans, how local actors make sense of and experience those reform policies and how those policies become or are "racialized".

Email Adrienne Dixson at: addixson@illinois.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

Margaret Eisenhart is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds the Bob and Judy Charles Endowed Chair of Education. Her research focuses on the application of anthropological concepts and methods to educational settings. In particular, Dr. Eisenhart has studied culture, gender relations, and women’s experiences in education, as well as women in science and technology. During the past five years, she has been directing outreach programs and research studies related to opportunities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among high school students. She is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the American Educational Research Association. In 2004 she was elected to the National Academy of Education and currently serves on the Academy’s Board of Directors.

Email Margaret Eisenhart at: margaret.eisenhart@colorado.edu

Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr. heads a management, education, and litigation consultant group.  He earned a B.A. degree from North Carolina Central University, a Masters and Ph.D from Michigan State University, and a post-doctoral Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He most recently served as Professor of Community Management & Policy Practice in the School of Social Work, Associate Director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Kenan Institute in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, and as a Fellow in the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He was previously Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Policy & Community Studies in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an adjunct professor in the Departments of Curriculum & Instruction, Urban Studies, and Allied Health.

Dr. Farrell has served as a consultant to NEA, AFT, and their state and local affiliates.

Dr. Farrell has published numerous essays and articles on K-12 education, the agenda to privatize public schools, diversity, social and immigration issues, and death penalty mitigation.  He has appeared on National Public Radio (NPR)—The Connection and the Today Show (with Matt Lauer) to discuss public education (vouchers, charters, and school privatization).  He currently writes a weekly column, “Defending Public Education,” for Black Commentator, an online Journal. 

Email Walter C. Farrell, Jr. at: wcfpr@bellsouth.net

Dr. Shaun R. Harper is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education and Marshall School of Business, the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center. He is author of over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and other academic publications. Review of Research in Education, Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, and Journal of College Student Development are some journals that have published his research. Professor Harper’s research has been cited in more than 8,000 published studies. His books include Advancing Black Male Student Success from Preschool through Ph.D. and Scandals in College Sports. Johns Hopkins University Press is publishing his 13th book, Race Matters in College.

Email Shaun Harper at: sharper@usc.edu

Elizabeth J. Meyer is the Associate Dean of Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the author of Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to end sexism and homophobia in Schools (Teachers College Press, 2009) and Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools (Springer, 2010). She is also co-editor of a the Gender and Sexuality in Education series for Peter Lang Publishing. She is a former high school teacher and Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program Grantee (France). She completed her M.A. at the University of Colorado Boulder (1997) and Ph.D at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her research has been published in academic journals such as: Gender and Education; Journal of Educational Psychology; McGill Journal of Education; The Clearinghouse; Computers and Education; Technology, Pedagogy and Education; and The Journal of LGBT Youth.

She blogs for Psychology Today and is also on Twitter: @lizjmeyer.

Email Elizabeth Meyer at: Elizabeth.J.Meyer@colorado.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) andLiving 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

Katherine Schultz is Dean and Professor of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder School of Education. Prior to this appointment, she was Dean of the School of Education at Mills College. She served as professor and director of the teacher education program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997-2010 where she founded and directed the Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education. From 2008-2010, she was a member of a three-person empowerment (school) board of the Chester Upland School District, a high poverty school district outside of Philadelphia. During this time, she was also the faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project. Her three-year term as Vice President of Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education of the American Education Research Association began in April 2016. She served as President of the Council on Anthropology and Education from 2010-2011. Her goal as scholar, researcher, and practitioner has been to understand how to prepare and support teachers to enter and remain in challenging urban contexts. In particular, her work has focused on the research, development, and dissemination of pedagogical practices that support new and veteran teachers working with marginalized populations in high poverty areas. Her two recent books address these issues. In Listening: A framework for teaching across differences, she elaborated a framework for conceptualizing teaching as fundamentally based on listening to students. Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices adds to this work through an exploration of the meanings and uses of silence in teaching and learning. Her current research projects analyze new teachers’ perspectives on learning to teach across multiple pathways. Related to this work is an interest in professional development that supports and sustains teachers in urban settings in the U.S. and across the world. She is currently working on a book on the role of distrust in educational reform drawing on her work in Oakland and as a school board member and leader of professional development in international settings. As Dean of Mills College School of Education, she was actively engaged in the Oakland community, establishing the Center for Urban Schools and Partnerships, co-chairing the Oakland Education Cabinet with the mayor and superintendent, and serving on several advisory committees including the leadership team for full service community schools. A co-founder of the Urban Teacher Educators Consortium and Deans for Justice and Equity, she is committed to the preparation and ongoing support of teacher educators through thoughtful research and practice.

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

Paul Thomas, Professor of Education, taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. Recent books include Parental Choice?: A Critical Reconsideration of Choice and the Debate about Choice (Information Age Publishing, 2010) and 21st Century Literacy: If We Are Scripted, Are We Literate? (Springer, 2009) co-authored with Renita Schmidt. He maintains a blog addressing the role of poverty in education: http://livinglearninginpoverty.blogspot.com/. His teaching and scholarship focus on literacy and the impact of poverty on education, as well as confronting the political dynamics influencing public education in the U.S. His work can be followed at http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com.

Email Paul Thomas at: paul.thomas@furman.edu