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Dr. Sharon M. Ravitch (Editor-in-Chief)

Sharon M. Ravitch, Ph.D., is a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Ravitch developed and is principal advisor to Semillas Digitales (Digital Seeds), a 10-year collaborative school-based initiative that integrates technology-rich instruction, social-emotional learning, immersive Freirean teacher education, and broader pedagogical innovation to improve the quality of education in coffee-producing communities in rural Nicaragua. Ravitch is a Fulbright Fellow, through the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Fulbright Specialist Roster, at Dr. BMN College in Mumbai as the College works on equity, pluralism, and the development of professional identity and agency for first-generation minoritized women during the 2021–22 academic year. Ravitch has the distinct honor of being designated as a GIAN Scholar of the Government of India. She co-founded Penn’s Inter-American Educational Leadership Network for leaders across Latin America and the Americas to exchange resources and groupthink challenges and possibilities.

Dr. Ravitch has published seven books: Flux Pedagogy and Rapid-cycle Leader Inquiry (with Chloe Kannan, Teachers College Press, 2021); Critical Leadership Praxis: Leading Educational and Social Change (with Katie Pak, Teachers College Press, 2020); Applied Research for Sustainable Change: A Guide for Education Leaders (with Nicole Carl, Harvard Education Press, 2019); Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological (with Nicole Carl, Sage, 2016/2020); Reason and Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research (with Matthew Riggan, Sage, 2012/2016); School Counseling Principles: Diversity and Multiculturalism (American School Counselor Association Press, 2006); and Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships with Youth (with Michael Nakkula, Jossey-Bass, 1998). Ravitch is currently completing two books, Flux Methodology (with Chloe Kannan) and Um Kulthumism: A Decolonial, Intersectional, Post-binary, Praxis Methodology (with Reima Shakeir) forthcoming in 2022.

Ravitch’s teaching, applied research, and consulting focus on racial literacy and navigating identity-related stress for leaders, educators, and communities, cultivating brave space pedagogy and communication in organizations, inquiry stance for leaders and practitioners, intersectional leadership development models, and anti-racist organizational norming and functioning. Ravitch’s work integrates the fields of qualitative research, education, international development, cultural anthropology, business, and human development, and have four main strands: (1) Flux Pedagogy and Flux Leadership; (2) Practitioner research to engender sustainable professional and institutional development, change, and innovation; (3) Leader education, professional development, and the development of applied research teams; (4) International development research using participatory, action, and applied ethnographic research approaches (projects currently in Nicaragua and India); and (5) Ethnographic and participatory research, evaluation, M&E, and assets-based assessment. Dr. Ravitch’s approach to sustainable, assets-based institutional and practice-based research is grounded in her decades-long experience collaborating with, and serving as an advisor to, educational leaders and practitioners as well as business, not-for-profit, and non-governmental organization leaders and policymakers working to foster and support equitable change and transformation at the individual, community, state, and national levels around the globe.

Ravitch earned two master’s degrees from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology and Education, mentored by Dr. Carol Gilligan, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in an interdisciplinary program that integrates across the fields of anthropology and education.