Jenifer Crawford

The intellectual passions that govern Jenifer Crawford’s scholarly life are social justice education, democracy and access in schools, and bridging critical social science theory to teacher practice. Her research, writing, teaching, and service are all infused by these three passions. First of all, through social justice education she has been working towards creating a more equitable society that moves toward individual and social transformation and dynamically embraces difference. Secondly, she has taught, organized and researched with public schools and communities to act on their potential to be democratic sites for educational access. Thirdly, guided by a deep commitment to praxis—bridging theory and practice—she has always coupled my research with teaching. These passions have been shaped by her experiences growing up in a working class rural community, spending four months of every year in Mexico throughout her youth, and conducting educational research, which have all exposed her to the urgent need for social change and educational access for underserved populations in the Americas. Jenifer’s long-term research agenda pushes educational theory into practice and specifically conceptualizes the way individuals work against the status quo to achieve better conditions for America’s public school students.

Jenifer’s passions have been shaped by nine years of educational research. She has extensive experience: conducting qualitative analysis and fieldwork, including development and analysis of surveys, interviews and classroom observations and studying education policy implementation. She has gained a broader perspective about the possibilities to bridge theory to practice and policy from my quantitative and qualitative experience. Jenifer also has a wide range of international experience including studying, conducting research, and teaching in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Brazil. She has published and given scholarly lectures in both Spanish and Portuguese. Through a Fulbright Fellowship beginning in August 2010 she will collaborate with the School of Education at the Federal University of Bahia (FACED) and with the Cooperative Research Network of Research and Intervention in Information, Curriculum and Work (REDPECT), about the strategic action of educators in popular art education in order to increase educational access of marginalized young women in northeastern Brazil.

Teaching is extremely important to Jenifer and has given life to her education passions and grounded her research. She has taught in a range of situations: master classes at Antioch university, undergraduate classes at UCLA, a high school writing course, junior high school and elementary after school programs, elementary English Language Learner classes, and a high school outreach counselor. Currently, at USC, MAT Jenifer adores working collectively with pre-service teachers to push educational theory into practice and specifically conceptualize the way teachers work against the status quo to achieve better conditions for America’s public school students.