Sarah Bennison is an educator, scholar, activist, and social entrepreneur. She is 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, NYC, and has taught at K-12 and higher education institutions for thirty years. The focus of her teaching and activism is on the intersection of curriculum, educational institutions, and social impact. She created the Trinity School (NYC) Office of Public Service, a thought-leading service learning initiative, and she is the founder of children's sleepwear company for social good BennisonGives which supports maternal and infant health locally and globally. As the co-founder and CEO of the Mattering Movement, an education and social impact non-for-profit, Sarah’s recent scholarship and work explores the intellectual history of American education, achievement culture, and the science of mattering. She has developed a new course at NYU entitled Education, Mattering and the American Dream: Understanding Achievement Culture.
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.