Faculty

Bree Picower

Assistant Professor/ Postdoctoral Fellow

Phone: 212-992-9472
Email:

Bree Picower is an Assistant Professor/ Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Teaching & Learning. She was a recipient of a Departmental Fellowship from Steinhardt where she received her Ph.D. Her study on "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching," explored the role that race plays in how student teachers conceptualize urban education and was awarded the Steinhardt Outstanding Dissertation Award of 2007.   Her current research focuses on the role of Critical Inquiry Groups as a strategy to support urban educators to teach for equity and social justice.  She has taught in public elementary schools in Oakland, California and New York City and worked as a school coach for the Bay Area Coalition of Essential Schools, where she now serves on the adviosry board. She is currently a core member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE).  With NYCoRE, Bree coordinates a teacher led study series called iTAG's (Inquiry to Action Groups) in which groups of teachers gather to explore and take action on social justice issues.  This years itags had over 50 participants from NYC schools.  She also has served the role of editor in several NYCoRE resource guides that provide support to teachers addressing topics of social justice in the classroom.  Such guides include topics such as Hurricane Katrina, immigration rights and The Jena 6.  Additionally she is working to forge a national network of Teacher Activist Groups (TAG) across the country.


Degrees Held

  • Ph.D New York University 2007
    Teaching and Learning

Research Interests

  • Social Justice Education
  • Race and Racism in Education
  • Teacher Activism
  • Teacher Education
  • New Teacher Support
  • Antiracist, Multicultural Education
  • Critical Race Theory
  • Whiteness Theory
  • Youth and Community Organizing

Courses

Multicultural Perspectives of Social Studying 

Integrated Social Studies and Math: Teaching in a Time of War

Integrated Children's Literature, Technology and the Arts

Integrated Seminar

On-Site Student Teaching Seminar at Public School 34

Foundations of Curriculum

Awards

  • 2007 : Outstanding Dissertation Award, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
  • 2007 : Class Representative, Doctoral Studies, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
  • 2007 : New York University Curriculum Development Challenge Grant, 2007-2008 $2500
  • 2007 : AJ Muste Foundation, Counter Recruitment Grant Award
  • 2002 : Doctoral Fellowship, Department of Teaching and Learning, Steinhardt School of Education

Publications

  • Picower, B. (2009). Resisting Compliance: Learning to teach for social justice in a neoliberal context. (In Press with Teachers College Record).
  • Picower, B. (2009) The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: How White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies. Race and Ethnicity in Education, Vol. 12(2).
  • Picower, B. (2009). Beat it! Defeat it! Promoting Activism in Teacher Education (In press with Rethinking Schools, Vol. 23 (4). Summer 2009.
  • Mack, T & Picower, B. (2008) Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Educators. New York, NY (link)
  • Mayorga, E., Picower, B & Rader, S (Eds.). (2008). Camouflaged: Investigating how the U.S. Military affects you and your community. New York: LULU/NYCoRE. (link)
  • Picower, B. (2007) Supporting New Educators to Teach for Social Justice: The Critical Inquiry Model. Penn Perspectives on Urban Education. Vol 5(1). (link)
  • Picower, B. (2007). Teaching Outside One's Race Can Be a Positive Experience. in George, C. (Ed.) Racism, (45) Farmington Hills, MI, Gale Group. (link)
  • Mangual (A). & Picower, B. (2007) Editors, Revealing Racist Roots: The 3R's for Teaching about the Jena 6. Teacher Activist Groups. (link)
  • Picower, Bree (2007) The unexamined whiteness of teaching: Will the cycle be unbroken? Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, United States -- New York.
  • Picower B. (2004) Teaching Outside One's Race: The Story of an Oakland Teacher. Radical Teacher. Spring 2004. (view)

Presentations

  • What does Social Justice look like in the classroom?
    Peace Corps Fellows Program. Teachers College, Columbia University, 6/17/08
  • Critical Inquiry Groups as a Strategy for New Teacher Retention
    Anti-Oppressive Education Conference, UIC 5/23/08
  • White teachers and dominant ideologies: How seemingly innocent understandings maintain racism
    Small Schools Conference, Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools, 4/22/08 Intersections of Social Justice Conference, The New School 4/19/08 City College Multicultural Education Class, 3/25/08
  • Teachers Reclaiming Civic Responsibility: teacher activist groups in NYC, Chicago and San Francisco
    American Educational Research Association 4/08
  • Teacher Education Does Not End at Graduation: The Role of Critical Inquiry Groups
    Penn Urban Ethnography Conference 3/6/08
  • Courageous Conversations: Multicultural Perspectives on Race in America
    The Galletin School of Individualized Study: Black History Month Celebration 2/21/08
  • How White Teachers Maintain and Enact Racial Hierarchies
    The NYU Commission on Race, Gender and Social Justice 10/22/07
  • Developing Collective Action for Educational Justice
    Teachers for Social Justice 7th annual Conference, San Francisco 10/17/07 Urban Word’s Preemptive Education Conference, New York, 9/22/07
  • National Movements for Social Justice: Teachers United in Struggle
    Free Minds, Free People Conference, Chicago, 6/22/07
  • Tools of Whiteness: How White Teachers Maintain Racial Hierarchies
    Penn Urban Ethnography Conference 2/24/07 Teachers College, 3/2/07 The Teacher Education for Social Justice Conference, UIC, 1/19/07 Penn Urban Ethnography Conference, 2/24/07
  • Of Justice and Takeout: The Role of Critical Inquiry Groups for Teachers
    The New Educator Conference, City College, 10/21/06
  • Will I Get Fired For This? Addressing Controversial Issues in the Classroom.
    Organized and presented at New York University, 9/25/06
  • Educators as Activists: Defining New Roles.
    City College, 7/24/06; Bank Street College, 6/13/06
  • Social Justice Education: Creating Vision Through Examples.
    New York University, Art Education Program, 10/6/06; Teachers College, Columbia University, 5/5/06
  • The Struggle for Justice Does Not End When The School Bell Rings.
    Teachers For Social Justice Conference. 10/14/06;
  • What Should K-12 Students be Discussing in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina?
    Presidential Invited Panel. American Educational Research Association, 4/11/06
  • Peeling the Layers: Emerging Scholarship on Race and Education.
    Emerging Scholarship Conference, CUNY, 12/11/04
  • The Truth behind High Stakes Testing.
    New York Social Forum, 10/29/04