Books, Chapters and Articles
“Puerto Rico Can Teach So Much: The Hemispheric and Imperial Origins of the Educational War on Poverty,” History of Education Quarterly 61:4 (Nov 2021): 423 – 448.
“The Question of Independence is Hot Among the Youth Right Now: Puerto Rican Youth Organizing in Postwar New York” in Youth in the Movement: High School Student Activism in Postwar America Since 1945, Dara Walker, Jon Hale, and Alex Hyres, eds. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, forthcoming).
“Bilingual in the Big Apple: Bilingual Education Politics and the Making of New York’s Neoliberal Multiculturalism,” in New York City Since the 1960s (working title), Kim Phillips-Fein, Johanna Fernandez, and Mason Williams, eds., (in progress).
“Teacher Training and Teachers Colleges.” Book chapter in International Handbook of Historical Studies in Education: Debates, Tensions and Directions. Tanya Fitzgerald, ed. Springer, 2019.
“Review: Heather Vrana, This City Belongs to You: A History of Student Activism in Guatemala, 1944-1996,” History of Education Quarterly 58:4 (November 2018).
“Pa’lante in Pennsylvania: Puerto Rican Educational and Cultural Organizing Through Aspira, Inc.,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (October 2017).
Public Humanities
“Centering Youth Agency in the Civil Rights Movement,” NEH K-12 Teacher Institute
CUNY Gotham Ed Course: “NYC Schools: Segregation Then, Segregation Now, Segregation Forever?” (November 2021).
Ask A Historian Podcast: “The Silencing of Anti-Racist Teachers in New York City in the Mid-20th Century” (October 2021).
NYC Civil Rights History Project, Digital History Collaborative Team Member, Columbia Teachers College (2020-present)
“The Fight for Education Equity in New York City,” Educator Workshop, Museum of the City of New York (June 2020).
“Bilingual in the Big Apple: Puerto Rican Education Activism and the Fight for Bilingual-Bicultural Education,” Mellon Fellow Lecture, Museum of the City of New York (April 2020).
Instructor/Course Developer, “Puerto Rico in Nueva York: A Boricua History of New York,” Museum of the City of New York Saturday Academy (Spring 2019).
“The Zombie: Undying Attacks on Ed Schools,” Podcast Interview, Have You Heard, Episode 53 (October 31, 2018).
“Disaster Capitalism and Vulture Charters,” Jacobin [online edition], March 26, 2018.
“Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre,” Podcast Interview, Left POCket Project, (December 2017).
“Evelina’s Harlem,” Online Exhibit, Educating Harlem Digital Archive, Columbia Teachers College.
“Decentralization, Decolonization, and the Not So Local Dimensions of Local Control,”The Gotham Center for New York City History Blog (Fall 2016).
Conference Presentations
“Visions of Citizenship on the ‘Frontier of the Americas’: Bilingual-Bicultural Education in Puerto Rico and New York City, 1948-1975,” American Education Research Association (AERA) Conference (April 2019, Toronto, Ontario). Best Graduate Research Paper Award Winner.
“Schooling at the Margins of Empire: Puerto Ricans and the Struggle for Sovereignty in New York and Puerto Rico,” Organization of American Historians Conference (April 2019, Philadelphia, PA)
“Book Talk: Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates,” Columbia University Teachers College History of Education Colloquium (March 26, 2019)
“Puerto Rico en Mi Corazón…y en mi Lengua: Bilingual-Bicultural Activism and Cold War Citizenship, 1948-1975,” History of Education Society Conference (November 2018, Albuquerque, NM)
“Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates,” Invited Book Talk, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (November, 2018, Philadelphia, PA)
“Education and the Nature of Postwar Modernity: The U.S., Puerto Rico, and Cold War Education,” International Standing Conference on the History of Education (August 2018, Berlin, Germany)
“Seize the Schools, Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre: Transnational Education Politics in New York and San Juan,” Connected Histories of Freedom in the Long 20th Century, Yale University (March 2018, New Haven, CT)
“The Only Valid Passport from Poverty: Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap and Education Reform in Hemispheric Perspective,” History of Education Society Conference (November 2017, Little Rock, AK)
“Winds of Change in University Based Teacher Education: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of Teacher Preparation at the University of Chicago,” History of Education Society Conference (November 2017, Little Rock, AK)
“Freedom Takes Many Forms: Sovereignty and Schooling in New York and San Juan, Puerto Rico,”International Standing Conference on the History of Education (July 2017, Buenos Aires)
“The Not So Local Dimensions of Local Control: Transnational Education Networksin New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1961-1975,” History of Education Society Conference (November 2016, Providence, RI)
“Community Control of Education and the Fight for Sovereignty in New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1948-1975,” Urban History Association (October 2016, Chicago, IL)
“Teacher Preparation in International Perspective,” Panel Commentator for Steinhardt 125th Anniversary Event (Spring 2016, New York, NY)
Lauren Lefty, PhD 