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Faculty Name
Fatima Brunson, Ph.D.
Title
Assistant Professor
Department
Education
Phone
404-270-3558
Office Location
Giles Hall, Room G03
Education
Ph.D. in Urban Education Policy Studies, with a focus on Educational Organizations and Leadership, from the University of Illinois-Chicago
A.M. in Social Service Administration, with a focus on Social Administration and Policy, from the University of Chicago.
B.A. in Psychology, with a minor in Afro-American and African Studies, from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Biography
Dr. Brunson's teaching and research focus on equity and justice in PK-12, higher education, and community contexts. She designs and conducts equity-oriented professional development programs to support how leaders and staff respond to institutional barriers when promoting antiracist, culturally sustaining pedagogies.Additionally, her personal and professional interests have started to broaden her focus to understand the impact of cultural immersion programs and holistic education frameworks that can be used to advance a collective vision of racial and educational justice.
Courses Taught
SEDU: Educational PsychologySEDU 407: Advocacy in Schools
SEDU 439: History and Philosophy of African American Schooling
Research Interests
Dr. Fatima Brunson's research is used to connect literature on workplace conditions, teachers' collaborative practice and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies. Currently, she works with schools and districts to better understand how school leaders and teachers work together to enact responsive pedagogies in racially isolated schools and culturally mixed middle schools, high schools, and higher educational institutions.
Her work with teaching teams specifically focuses on disseminating strategies for enhancing student engagement in science and math classrooms, through supporting teachers’ adoption of culturally sustaining innovations. As well, she provides consultation services to various types of organizations to provide in-person and online trainings surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion and justice.
Dr. Brunson's dissertation entitled, “Organizational Conditions Impacting Teachers’ Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: A Look at African American Schools,” is deeply informed by her experiences as a practitioner and education researcher within urban communities across the midwestern region of the country. It is an interdisciplinary research project that illuminates essential organizational elements that are inextricably linked to educators' pedagogical style and praxis, that make up the various enactments of culturally responsiveness received by Black and Brown youth.
Her work goes beyond individual pedagogical practice to look at the systems and supports that highlight both the challenges posed to schools experiencing the demographic divide and the potential for schools to function as space where transformative pedagogies are birthed and sustained.