BIO & EXPERTISE
A former classroom teacher and university professor with two decades of experience, Katy Swalwell is currently Lead Equity Specialist at the Equity Literacy Institute. An alumna of the University of Northern Iowa, she started her career teaching social studies at a public high school in rural Minnesota and a New England boarding school summer program for middle schoolers. In 2011, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction and has held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin—LaCrosse, George Mason University, the University of Maryland, College Park, and Iowa State University where she was a tenured professor.
What Katy is most curious and passionate about is what helps people develop the knowledge and skills necessary for a healthy, "thick" democracy—in other words, a "critical consciousness." What do people need to know and be able to do in order to help build a more just and equitable world? What about young people growing up in affluent, majority white communities? In what ways can learning anti-oppressive histories help this process? And what kinds of resources help teachers do this well?
Katy's scholarship has appeared in practitioner publications like Educational Leadership, Rethinking Schools, and Teaching Tolerance as well as peer-reviewed journals like Curriculum Inquiry, Democratic Education, Education Policy, Theory & Research in Social Education, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, and several edited volumes. She is the author of several books, including the award-winning Educating Activist Allies: Social Justice Pedagogy with the Urban and Suburban Elite (Routledge, 2013), Social Studies for A Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Guide for Elementary Educators (Norton, 2021) co-authored with Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, the co-edited volume Anti-Oppressive Education in 'Elite' Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales from the Field (Teachers College Press, 2021) with Daniel Spikes, and the "Amazing Iowa" series of children's books. She is one of the co-founders of The Critical Social Educator, an open-access journal dedicated to publishing work from practitioners and scholars alike, and the Critical Resources for Elementary Social Studies Teachers Facebook group with 1000+ members. She also co-hosts the irreverent anti-racist history podcast Our Dirty Laundry with Mandy Griffin, a deep dive into white women's complicity with white supremacy.
As a consultant, Swalwell and her colleagues are available to run workshops for practicing teachers, facilitate professional development for school and community leaders, and conduct school equity audits among other supports.
What Katy is most curious and passionate about is what helps people develop the knowledge and skills necessary for a healthy, "thick" democracy—in other words, a "critical consciousness." What do people need to know and be able to do in order to help build a more just and equitable world? What about young people growing up in affluent, majority white communities? In what ways can learning anti-oppressive histories help this process? And what kinds of resources help teachers do this well?
Katy's scholarship has appeared in practitioner publications like Educational Leadership, Rethinking Schools, and Teaching Tolerance as well as peer-reviewed journals like Curriculum Inquiry, Democratic Education, Education Policy, Theory & Research in Social Education, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, and several edited volumes. She is the author of several books, including the award-winning Educating Activist Allies: Social Justice Pedagogy with the Urban and Suburban Elite (Routledge, 2013), Social Studies for A Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Guide for Elementary Educators (Norton, 2021) co-authored with Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, the co-edited volume Anti-Oppressive Education in 'Elite' Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales from the Field (Teachers College Press, 2021) with Daniel Spikes, and the "Amazing Iowa" series of children's books. She is one of the co-founders of The Critical Social Educator, an open-access journal dedicated to publishing work from practitioners and scholars alike, and the Critical Resources for Elementary Social Studies Teachers Facebook group with 1000+ members. She also co-hosts the irreverent anti-racist history podcast Our Dirty Laundry with Mandy Griffin, a deep dive into white women's complicity with white supremacy.
As a consultant, Swalwell and her colleagues are available to run workshops for practicing teachers, facilitate professional development for school and community leaders, and conduct school equity audits among other supports.
