Erica O. Turner

Download CV  

Erica O. Turner is the Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education and a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research centers on racism and inequality—and efforts to challenge those—in urban and racially diverse school systems. Using qualitative methods and a variety of sociocultural, political-economic, and critical race theories Turner examines how policy actors—policymakers, educators, families, and youth—make sense of and act on educational inequality; the processes by which policy is negotiated in school districts; and the consequences of these for students, families, communities, schools, and multiracial democracy.

Current research projects include a research practice partnership to explore how deliberative dialogues can be used to address school closures and enrollment challenges in four New York City school districts; a longitudinal study of the multiracial politics of education in one urban school district; and a mixed methods study of school engagement practitioners. She recently completed projects examining how intersecting inequalities shaped families’ educational experiences and perspectives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Turner’s award-winning book Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality (University of Chicago Press) chronicles how two mid-sized urban school districts respond to rising diversity, inequality, and policy pressures, with business-like practices. 

Turner has published in leading education journals, including AERA Open, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Education Policy, Race, Ethnicity and Education, and Urban Education. She has won numerous awards for her research. Her book has been awarded the American Educational Studies Association’s Critics’ Choice Book Award, the Erickson and Hornberger Outstanding Ethnography in Education Book Award from the Center for Urban Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania, and an honorable mention from the Sociology of Education Association’s Pierre Bourdieu Award. She has also received a University of Wisconsin–Madison Vilas Midcareer Investigator Award, a NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a Community Engaged Scholarship Award from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education. 

She currently serves on the editorial boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and the Journal of Education Policy and was previously an associate editor at Educational Researcher and a guest editor of a special issue on critical policy analysis at Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 

Turner began her career as a middle school teacher in Philadelphia and an English language teacher in Ningbo, China and continues to enjoy working with students and emerging scholars as a teacher, advisor and mentor.

Education

• PhD Education, University of California, Berkeley, 2011
• MA Education, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
• BA Political Science, Swarthmore College, 1999

Select Publications

• Turner, E. (2020). Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality. University of Chicago Press Online Publication/Abstract.
• Turner, E., & Mangual Figueroa, A. (2019). Immigration Policy and Education in Lived Reality: A Framework for Researchers and Educators. Educational Researcher
• Turner, E., & Beneke, A. J. (2019). “Softening” School Resource Officers: The Extension of Police Presence in Schools in an Era of Black Lives Matter, School Shootings, and Rising Inequality. Race, Ethnicity, and Education
• Turner, E. (2018). Marketing diversity: Selling school districts in a racialized marketplace. Journal of Education Policy, 33(6), 793-817.
• Turner, E., & Spain, A. K. (2016). The multiple meanings of (in)equity: Remaking school district tracking policy in an era of budget cuts and accountability. Urban Education
• Turner, E. (2015). Districts’ responses to demographic change: Making sense of race, class and immigration in organizational and political context. American Educational Research Journal, 52(1), 4-39. Online Publication/Abstract.
• Coburn, C. E., & Turner, E. (2012). The practice of data use: An introduction. American Journal of Education, 118(2), 99-111.
• Turner, E., & Coburn, C. E. (2012). Interventions to promote data use: An introduction. Teachers College Press, 114(11), 1-13.
• Coburn, C. E., & Turner, E. (2011). Research on data use: A framework and analysis. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 9(4), 173-206.
• Coburn, C. E., Bae, S., & Turner, E. (2008). Authority, Status, and the Dynamics of Insider- Outsider Partnerships at the District Level. Peabody Journal of Education, 83(3), 364-399.

Select Presentations

• Turner, E. (2020, April). Race Ethnicity Workshop. Workshop presented at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, Chicago, IL.
• Turner, E. (2019, November). How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality. Featured Speaker presented at the Politics of Education Association Breakfast at the University Council of Educational Administrators Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA.
• Turner, E., & Mangual Figeroa, A. (2019, April). Toward a Theoretical Understanding of Immigration and Education Policy. Symposium presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Toronto, Canada.
• Turner, E. (2019, February). Political Context of Anti-Racist Educational Leadership. Panelist presented at the Conference on Strengthening Anti-Racist Leaders to Advocate for Racial Equity Amongst Political Uncertainty, Chicago, IL.
• Turner, E. (2018, November). Managerial Multiculturalism and Efforts to Address Racial Inequity. Paper presented at the National Academy of Education Annual Meeting and Fall Fellows Retreat, Washington, DC.
• Turner, E. (2018, April). Equity for Whom?: Diverse Voices Debate (In)equity in Bilingual Education. Poster presented at the Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work Poster Session, New York.
• Turner, E. (2018, March). When Language Education Meets the Market: Interest Convergence and the Expansion of Two-Way Bilingual Education. Lecture presented at the Race, Transformation, and the Politics of Inequality in Education Policy Lecture Series, Washington, DC.
• Turner, E. (2017, April). The contradictory logics of school district leaders’ efforts at engaging community. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas.
• Turner, E. (2017, April). Unpacking “the public schools”: The racial state, test cheating, and the perspectives of working-class blacks. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas.
• Turner, E. (2015, April). Marketing “diversity”: School district policy in the shifting context of public education. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago, IL.

Select Awards and Honors

• National Academy of Education/Spencer Post-doctoral Fellowship, National Academy of Education, (2017, 2018)
• ELL Policy Fellow, Working Group on ELL Policy, 2017
• Madison Teaching and Learning Excellence Fellow, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2013
• Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Madison, (2011, 2012)
• Dissertation Writing Award, State Farm Companies Foundation, Bloomington, Illinois, 2010
• University Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
• Spencer Research Training Grant Fellow, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, 2007
• Naomi Kies Award for community service, Swarthmore College, 1999
• Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 1997