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Lauren Lefty History of Ed PhD Student

Lauren Lefty

History of Education PhD Student

Email: lauren.lefty@nyu.edu

 

Program: History of Education

 

Research Interests: History of Education in the U.S. and Latin America, Transnational and Global History, Urban History, U.S. Empire, Teacher Education, Public History

 

Principal Advisor(s): Jonathan Zimmerman, James Fraser, Andrew Needham, Ruben Flores

 

Dissertation Title: “Seize the Schools, Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre: Cold War Education Politics in New York and San Juan, 1948-1975”

 

Research Description:

Lauren Lefty is a doctoral candidate in History of Education and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York. Broadly, she focuses on education policy and activism across the Americas; Latinx, urban, and global history; and public history. 

Her dissertation, Seize the Schools, Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre: Cold War Education Politics in New York and San Juan, brings a transnational and hemispheric lens to histories of postwar American education. Through a focus on both policy formation and grassroots activism, Seize the Schools uncovers the often-overlooked relationship between U.S. empire, foreign policy, and Latinx migration on the development of the domestic educational landscape. In particular, it reveals how policies such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), community control, and bilingual-bicultural education resulted from global and imperial dynamics—including the circulation of policymakers from Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap and the Latin American Alliance for Progress to the domestic War on Poverty, and the influence of island-based anti-imperialism on grassroots organizing in the Nuyorican diaspora. Lauren has also co-authored one book and co-edited another with Professor James W. Fraser on the recent history of teacher education: Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018) and Teaching the World’s Teachers: A History, 1970-2020 (Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 2020). 

Before beginning graduate studies, Lauren worked as a middle school teacher on the Texas-Mexico border, a high school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, and as a policy planner for the NYC Department of Education. Lauren is the recipient of the 2016-2017 National Education Association/Spencer Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, the 2019 Outstanding Doctoral Teaching Award, and the AERA Best Graduate Student Paper Award for Division F-History (2019). Her work has appeared in such public-facing venues as the Have You Heard? podcast, Jacobin, the Gotham Center Blog, and the Teachers College Educating Harlem project. She holds a B.A. in History from NYU.

 

Selected Awards, Publications, and Presentations:

 

Awards

  • Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in History Education, Museum of the City of New York (2019-2020)

  • Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education Dissertation Fellow (2016-2017)

  • Outstanding Doctoral Teaching Award, NYU Steinhardt (2019)

  • Outstanding Dissertation Award Nominee, NYU Steinhardt (2019)

  • Best Graduate Student Paper Award, Division F-History, AERA Conference (2019)

  • NYU Global Research Initiative Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Paris (2018)


 

Publications

  • Teaching the World’s Teachers: A History, 1970-2020 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Forthcoming 2020). Co-edited volume with James W. Fraser.

  • Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). Co-authored book with James W. Fraser.

  • “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). 

  • “Teacher Education and Teachers Colleges,” in International Handbook of Historical Studies in Education: Debates, Tensions and Directions, Tanya Fitzgerald and Kate Rousmaniere, eds. (New York: Springer, forthcoming 2019).

  • Contributor to the “New Histories of Education in New York City” Roundtable on the Gotham Center Blog, Summer 2016


 

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). 

  • “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)

  •  “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)

  •  “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)

  •  “The Not So Local Dimensions of Local Control:
Transnational Education Networks in New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1961-1975,” History of Education Society Conference (November 2016, Providence, RI)

  • “Decentralization, Decolonization, and the Fight for Sovereignty in New York and San Juan, 1948-1975,” Urban History Association Annual Conference (Fall 2016, Chicago, IL)

Personal Website: laurenlefty.com