Our Team

Education Complex, Office 221

Dana E. Wright

Professor of Education
Abbie Valley Professorship in Education

Professional Interests

Critical youth participatory action research (Critical PAR), critical youth studies, learning and schooling in urban contexts, curriculum theory, critical arts pedagogies, youth organizing, educational leadership, critical epistemologies, organizational transformation, and policy.

Bio

Dana Wright conducts multi-method, participatory, community-engaged, and qualitative research on pedagogy, curriculum, participatory action research, and creative arts approaches to learning. Central to her work is the recognition of young people as active agents in learning, addressing social inequities, and knowledge production.

A former public middle school teacher in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Wright has over 15 years of experience in curriculum development, PAR, youth organizing, and organizational development. She partners with teachers, youth, parents, and community organizers to promote educational justice.

Wright is the author of Active Learning: Social Justice Education and Participatory Action Research and co-editor of Engaging Youth in Critical Arts Pedagogies and Creative Research for Social Justice. Her scholarship is published in journals such as the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and Journal of Research on Adolescence, with research support from the National Institutes of Health and William T. Grant Foundation.