About

Lauren Lefty, Ph.D. is a historian of education interested in applying the critical study of the past to contemporary questions of educational equity. In particular, her work centers on urban education, the relationship between empire and schooling, teacher education, and questions of social justice and decoloniality in the Americas. Her current book project, Seize the Schools: Empire, Education, and Resistance in Postwar New York and Puerto Rico (University of Pennsylvania Press), tells an entangled history of K–12 education politics in New York City and the colonial commonwealth of Puerto Rico during the age of decolonization and civil rights. She is also the co-author with James W. Fraser of Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates (JHU Press, 2018) and Teaching the World’s Teachers (JHU Press, 2020), both of which analyze the rise of alternative teacher preparation models in the U.S. and around the world from a historical perspective.

Dr. Lefty is also active in the field of public humanities, committed to bringing the insights of historical and educational scholarship in conversation with audiences outside the academy. In this vein, she has worked with the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools program, the Museum of the City of New York, two NEH-funded Teacher Institutes, “Centering Youth Agency in the Civil Rights Movement” and “Indigenous Histories of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands,” and various teacher professional development and public history projects.

Before coming to Penn GSE, Dr. Lefty served as director of the Secondary History & Social Studies Education program in the History Department at Northern Arizona University. She completed a PhD in the History of Education from New York University in 2020, served as a Mellon/ACLS Leading Edge Postdoctoral Fellow with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program, and a Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in History Education with the Museum of the City of New York. She is also a former classroom teacher (in Texas and New York) and worked in policy for the New York City Department of Education.

Research Interests

  • History of Education in the U.S. and Latin America
  • Transnational and Global History
  • Education and Empire
  • Urban History and Education
  • Latinx History and Education
  • Teacher Education
  • Culturally Relevant, Sustaining, and Decolonial Pedagogies
  • Public History and Humanities

Fellowships and Awards

  • ACLS Leading Edge Fellowship, Appointed to the Children’s Defense Fund for the project “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and the Development of a Teacher Training Institute” (2021-2022)
  • Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship in History Education, Museum of the City of New York (2019-2020)
  • NYU University-wide Outstanding Dissertation Nominee (2020)
  • Steinhardt Outstanding Doctoral Student Teaching Award (2019)
  • AERA Best Graduate Student Paper Award, Division F-History (2019)
  • Steinhard Outstanding Dissertation Award Nominee (2019)
  • National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship (2016-2017)
  • NYU Graduate Research Institute Doctoral Dissertation Workshop Fellow, Paris (2018)
  • Jergen Herbst Travel Award, History of Education Society (2018)
  • Andrew M. Mellon Pre-Doctoral History Education Fellowship (2016-2017 awarded, declined)
  • New York Council for the Humanities Public Humanities Fellowship (2016-2017 awarded, declined)
  • Provost’s Course Development Grant for “History of Education in the Americas,” Teachers College Columbia University, Committee Member (Spring 2016)
  • Steinhardt Doctoral Fellowship Award (2013-Present)
  • Leadership for Educational Equity Policy and Advocacy Fellow (Summer 2012)

College-Level Teaching Experience

  • American Education Reform: History, Policy, Practice
  • Decolonizing Education
  • Education and the American Dream: Historical Perspectives
  • The American School: History of Education in the United States
  • History of Education in Latin America: Nation-building and Citizenship
  • History of Education in New York City
  • Historical Inquiry
  • Teaching and Learning: History and Geography
  • Introduction to American Education
  • Global Culture Wars
  • Culture Wars in the United States
  • Religion and Public Education in an International Context