Miramontes Baca Education Building, Room 503
University of Colorado Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Terrenda White is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Her current research focuses on market-based education reforms in urban communities, and its cultural and pedagogical impact on teacher dispositions, teacher professional autonomy and identity, and the development of inclusive classroom practices. Particularly, White explores charter school reform and the organizational distinctions across community-based charter schools and privately managed charter schools. Her work has implications for how to tease out important ideological differences unfolding across the charter sector, as it relates to privatization, equity, and issues of power and control of teaching and learning in largely segregated and underserved Black/African American and Latino/a communities. White also emphasizes the varied responses of teachers to market-based education restructuring, highlighting dilemmas that current policies pose for teacher autonomy and the development of critical and culturally responsive practices with historically marginalized and under-served students.
Dr. White's dissertation research, “Culture, Power, and Pedagogy in Market-Driven Times: Embedded Case-Studies of Teaching in Four Urban Charter Schools,” earned the National Academy of Education/Spencer dissertation fellowship, as well as the American Education Research Association minority dissertation fellowship.
Her most recent work involves teacher identity and dispositions within alternative teacher preparation programs. In this work, White explores teachers’ socialization and ideologies of equity within alternative programs. This work has been highlighted in news journals such as the American Prospect and the LA Times.
Dr. White is a former elementary school teacher, and a former coordinator for the Prison Education Initiative in NYC.
Education
PhD Sociology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2014
MS Elementary Education, Loyola Marymount
BS Human Development and Psychological Services, Northwestern University