Program Faculty
Dionne Danns, Ph.D. Heading link
Dr. Dionne Danns is a Professor in the Educational Policy Studies Department.
Mark Giles, Ph.D. Heading link
Dr. Mark Giles is the Chair of the Educational Policy Studies Department.
Pauline Lipman, PhD Heading link
Pauline Lipman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Director of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education. Her teaching and research are rooted in her commitment to social justice and liberation. Drawing on radical political economy, critical geography, critical studies of race, and urban sociology, her interdisciplinary research focuses on race, class, and political economy of urban education. Specifically she focuses on the inter-relationship of education policy, white supremacy, racial capitalism, the coercive state, and neoliberal urban restructuring and possibilities for a new, radically democratic economic and political social order. She is the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, policy reports and several books on these topics. She also does collaborative research with community organizations for campaigns against school closings, privatization, and other neoliberal policies and for more just education policies. Pauline teaches classes on race and capitalism, globalization and education, political economy of urban education, and politics of urban education.
Selected Awards & Honors
- Top 200 Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings 2018 and 2019
- Henry T. Trueba Award for Research Leading to the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education. Division G. American Educational Research Association. 2019.
- Hallsworth Visiting Professorship in the School of Environment, Education and Development, Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester, Manchester England. 2015.
- Vicki Chou Community Research Award. College of Education, UIC College of Education. 2014.
- Visiting Scholar. Havens Center for the Study of Social Structure and Social Change, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2013.
- Elected International Member, Polish Academy of Sciences.
- Lifetime Achievement Award, American Educational Research Association, for Distinguished Contribution to Social Contexts in Education Research, 2011.
- American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Book Award for High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform. 2004.
- Senior Fellow in Urban Education, Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University (1998-2000).
- American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Book Award for Race, Class, and Power in School Restructuring (1998).
Books by Pauline Lipman Heading link
Nicole Nguyen, PhD Heading link
Nicole Nguyen is associate professor of social foundations of education and co-coordinator of the PhD program. Immersed in political geography, critical education studies, and critical sociology, Nicole’s research ethnographically investigates the intersections of national security, war, and US public schooling. Nicole teaches classes on the criminalization of youth in urban schools, school militarization, and the sociology of education. She also leads the College’s Creating Cultural Competencies endowed initiative, which includes curricula and teacher workshops related to countering anti-Muslim racism in schools and classrooms.
Awards & Honors
- American Association of Geographers, Globe Book Award 2017 for A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security and US Public Schools
- Association of Humanist Sociology, 2020 Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award honorable mention for Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror.
Books by Nicole Nguyen Heading link
Kenneth Saltman, PhD Heading link
Kenneth J. Saltman works at the intersection of educational policy and critical pedagogy drawing on traditions of critical theory and cultural studies. He has been at the forefront of critical scholarship on a number of topics including the corporatization and militarization of schools, venture philanthropy in education, and schooling and disaster. More than any other topics his work has explored the privatization of public education and rising educational repression in relation to bother broader economic, political, and cultural forces and struggles and in relation to subjectivity and cultural practices. Often his work bridges traditional policy debates with analyses of popular and media culture to examine the values, assumptions and ideologies behind educational policy and practice and it aims to theorize emancipatory thought and action. Recent publications include The Wiley Handbook of Global Education Reform (Wiley 2018), The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, Second Edition (Routledge 2018), and The Swindle of Innovative Educational Finance (University of Minnesota Press 2018), and Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education (Routledge 2016).
Awards & Honors
- Fulbright Chair in Globalization and Culture
- American Association for Teaching and Curriculum, O.L. Davis, Jr. Award 2020 for Scripted Bodies
- Society of Professors of Education, Outstanding Book Award 2017 for Toward a New Common School Movement
- American Education Studies Association, Critic’s Choice Book Award 2011 for The Gift of Education
- Journal of Advanced Composition, Best Article of the Decade for “Capitalizing on Disaster” 2010
- American Education Studies Association, Critic’s Choice Book Award 2008 for Capitalizing on Disaster
Books by Kenneth Saltman Heading link
Manali Sheth, PhD Heading link
Manali Sheth is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Policy Studies Department.