Dr. Sarah Bennison is an educator, scholar, activist, social entrepreneur, and keynote speaker whose work sits at the intersection of the history of education, mattering, and social impact. A thought leader in Mattering-Centered Education, she speaks to schools and universities throughout the United States, bringing decades of research and practice to audiences of students, educators, administrators, and community leaders.
An Historian of Education focusing on nineteenth-century American women's history, religious history, and the history of the West, Sarah began her teaching career in New York City Public Schools in the South Bronx and has taught at K–12 and higher education institutions for thirty years. Her student-centered, purpose-driven approach to teaching was recognized by her students through a nomination for NYU's 2024–2025 Steinhardt Teaching Excellence Award. The focus of Sarah's teaching, scholarship, and activism is connecting intellectual work to genuine human need, bringing rigorous ideas into contact with the real challenges facing students, schools, and communities.
She created the Trinity School (NYC) Office of Public Service — a thought-leading K–12 service learning initiative — and is the founder of BennisonGives, a children's sleepwear company for social good that supports maternal and infant health locally and globally. As co-founder and CEO of The Mattering Movement, an education and social impact nonprofit, Sarah's recent scholarship explores the intellectual history of American education, achievement culture, and the science of mattering. She has developed a new course at NYU entitled Achievement Culture & the American Dream: Who Matters?
Dr. Bennison holds a Ph.D. from NYU; an M.A. from Columbia University; an M.A. from Columbia Teachers College; and a B.A. from Smith College.
Selected Publications
Bennison, S.; Prilleltensky, I..; Wallace, J. “Mattering in Schools” Handbook of Wellbeing in Education: Research Transforming Practice (Wiley, 2026)
Bennison, S. (2019). Trinity Per Saecula, “Music Happens Between the Notes.”
Bennison, S. (2010). “Americanizing the West: Protestant and Catholic Missionary Education on the Rosebud Reservation, 1870-1920,” Teachers College Record.
Bennison, S. (2010). “Suicides on the Rosebud Reservation: Historical Perspectives,” Teachers College Record.
Bennison, S. (2010). “Invisible Evidence: The Evidence is Scarce, but the Story is There,” The History Teacher.
Bennison, S. (2008). Book review: James Fraser, A History of Hope: When Americans Have Dared to Dream of a Better Future (New York: Palgrave, 2004). History of Education Quarterly, Spring 2008.
Bennison, S. (2004). Book review: Kirse Granat May, Golden State, Golden Youth: The California Image in Popular Culture, 1955-1966 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 2002). History of Education Quarterly.
Bennison, S. (2003). Book review: Alan R. Sadovnik and Susan F. Semel, Founding Mothers and Others: Women Educational Leaders During the Progressive Era (New York: Palgrave, 2002). History of Education Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 2.
Bennison, S. (2002). “The Poetry and Activism of Frances E.W. Harper” Journal X, vol. 6, no.2.