Crystal Thomas, Lecturer in Education, explains her pathway into education and the importance of teachers, researchers, and policymakers sharing a classroom together. 

This semester, you’re teaching EDUC 2385 “Education Inequality and Community Assets: Contexts and Change” to Master of Arts in Teaching and Urban Education Policy graduate students. Can you elaborate on what students learn in this class?

Educational Inequality and Community Assets is a new course within the UEP and MAT curriculums designed to contextualize urban education experiences. We focus on the ways in which various social identities operate in the classroom with attention to nuances both within and across different groups of students. Paired with this analysis, students also learn qualitative research methods designed to center the voices of students, parents, and educational practitioners within academic research and policy discourse. Finally, we collectively brainstorm innovative methods to engage community constituents and leverage pre-existing resources to improve educational outcomes for students in urban environments.

Your class is the only one that MAT and UEP students take together during their year-long programs. Why is it important to have both cohorts collaborate together? 

It’s immensely important that both pre-service teachers and aspiring education researchers/policymakers contextualize and examine the ways in which students engage in their educational environments. These discussions should inform educational practice at the micro level with regard to the ways in which teachers interact with their students on a daily basis. And they should also inform the ways in which education research and policy is shaped at the macro level. It’s also really useful to “bridge the gap” between practitioners and policymakers and increase thoughtful discourse between the two.

You also teach EDUC 1060 “Politics and Public Education” for undergraduate students, which focuses on the key institutions and actors shaping American K-12 education. This class is interdisciplinary in nature, examining more than just politics and education. What are some topics students can expect to address in this course?

This is my 3rd year in a row teaching Politics and Public Education and I have to say it’s one of my favorite courses to teach. We cover a range of important topics related to contemporary educational dilemmas including school segregation, the school-to-prison pipeline, undocumented students and their rights to public education, LGBTQ+ students and their rights to safety within public education institutions, among others. It’s really inspiring to witness student enthusiasm surrounding the various topics and to help students discover their passion for education politics. 

Much of your own education and research is on social welfare. When did you realize that’s what you wanted to study? What led you to pursue a career in education?

My path within social welfare research began many years ago during my first job out of college. I was employed in New York City’s Mayor Office of Health and Human Services, which had oversight of a number of different social service agencies. However, I was most drawn to the Center for Economic Opportunity -- a unit designed to create, implement, and evaluate evidence-informed social policy to assist low-income families throughout the city. During my time in the Mayor’s Office and the early days of my doctoral program, it became increasingly clear to me that you cannot improve outcomes for children without improving their educational access and opportunities. I continue to ground the social work perspective in my approach to educational research and hope to create work that ultimately improves the lived experiences of vulnerable students.