BIO & EXPERTISE
A former classroom teacher and university professor with two decades of experience in education, Katy Swalwell started her career teaching social studies at a public high school in the rural Midwest and a New England boarding school summer program. 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" diverse democracy. What do young people need to know and be able to do in order to help build a more just, sustainable, and equitable world? What tools and resources help educational leaders and teachers work with students ethically and professionally in a climate of increased partisanship? She is best known for her work focusing on schools serving predominantly white, affluent students and K-12 social studies education.
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.
As a full-time consultant, Katy is available to run virtual or face-to-face workshops for practicing teachers, develop curriculum, facilitate professional development for school and community leaders, and conduct school equity audits.
What Katy is most curious and passionate about is what helps people develop the knowledge and skills necessary for a healthy, "thick" diverse democracy. What do young people need to know and be able to do in order to help build a more just, sustainable, and equitable world? What tools and resources help educational leaders and teachers work with students ethically and professionally in a climate of increased partisanship? She is best known for her work focusing on schools serving predominantly white, affluent students and K-12 social studies education.
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.
As a full-time consultant, Katy is available to run virtual or face-to-face workshops for practicing teachers, develop curriculum, facilitate professional development for school and community leaders, and conduct school equity audits.
