Researchers

Dr. Joseph Derrick Nelson

Joseph Derrick Nelson, is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at Swarthmore College, where he is also Chair of the Black Studies Program, and Affiliated Faculty with the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. He is also Research Director of the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines how schools can be "(re)imaginative" and "liberatory" institutions for Black children and youth, particularly Black boys during childhood and early adolescence. To date, his scholarship has been situated within single-gender schools for Black and Afro-Latinx boys, and it has explored how race and gender stereotypes influence boys' identities and academic success in U.S. middle schools, specifically high-achieving Black boys from neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. His book project under contract with Harvard Education Press is entitled, (Re)Imagining Black Boyhood: Portraits of Academic Success during the Middle School Years.