Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz, PhD

Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz, Ph.D., a historian of education and social policy, is an assistant professor in the Educational Foundations and Research Program at the University of North Dakota supported by the Elnora Danley Professorship. Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz’s research explores school policy as social policy and centers on fundamental questions around equity, race, power, and the role of institutions in creating or disrupting inequality. Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz strives to construct her historical scholarship upon an interdisciplinary foundation that draws upon sociology, economics, gender studies, and critical race theory. Through her scholarship and teaching, Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz envisions herself as a bridge builder connecting (1) history to disciplines across the university, (2) the past to the present, and (3) the university to the public. Specifically, Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz’s research explores the history of the public school workforce and the creation and maintenance of racialized ideas, policies, and practices. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, History of Education Quarterly, Harvard Educational Review, Labor: Studies in Working Class History, American Educational Research Journal, and several other outlets.

Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz’s first book, Blaming Teachers: Professionalization Policies and the Failure of Reform in American History, will be out in August of 2020. She is also editing a volume entitled Walkout: Teacher Militancy, Activism, and School Reform to be published by IAP and conducting research for her third book, tentatively titled Pathologizing Blackness: The National Teacher Corps, Federal Education Policy, and the Politics of Race and Achievement.

Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz earned her Ph.D. from New York University where she was a Spencer Dissertation Fellow and received the Politics of Education Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award. After earning her degree, she spent a post-doctoral year as a visiting assistant professor at Brown University. Before arriving at UND, Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz was assistant professor at George Mason University where she served as Professor-in-Charge of the Education Policy Doctoral Specialization and was named a University Teacher of Distinction.