Mercy Agyepong
Assistant Professor of Sociology of Education
Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities
Mercy Agyepong (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Applied Statistics, Social Science and Humanities. Her scholarship draws from critical social theory, sociology of education, sociology of race and ethnicity, sociology of immigration, urban education, postcolonial theory, African diaspora studies, and anti-Blackness studies. Born in Accra, GH and raised in the Bronx, NY, she is particularly interested in the racialization and treatment of Black students in U.S. public schools, with a specific focus on the k-12 school experiences and academic achievement of sub-Saharan Africans. Her research has been funded by the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Division G. She is the recipient of the 2021 NYU Steinhardt Racial Justice Award and the 2022 NYU Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award. She has contributed to books such as Critical Theory and Qualitative Data Analysis in Education (Routledge Press), Erasing Invisibility, Inequity, and Social Injustice of Africans in the Diaspora and the Continent (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), and Reprocessing race, language and ability: African-born educators and students in transnational America (Peter Lang Publishers).
Mercy Agyepong holds a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also holds an M.S.Ed. in Education, Culture & Society from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Sociology of Education from New York University, and a B.A. in Sociology from SUNY-Geneseo.
Selected Publications
Agyepong, M. (2024). “Slavery was a choice? Lessons from Kindred by Octavia Butler” in K. Hinton and K. Michele Chandler (Eds.), Teaching Black speculative fiction & beyond: Equity, Justice, and Antiracism (pp. 136-146).New York, NY: Routledge Press.
Agyepong, M. (2018). Discourse, representation, and “othering”: Postcolonial analysis of Donald Trump’s education reform. In R. Winkle-Wagner, J. Lee-Johnson, and A. Gaskew (Eds.), Critical theory and data analysis (pp. 177-192). New York, NY: Routledge Press.
Agyepong, M. (2017). The struggles of invisibility: Perception and treatment of African students in the United States. In O. N. Ukpokodu and P. O. Ojiambo (Eds.), Erasing invisibility, inequity and social injustice of Africans in the Diaspora and the Continent (pp. 56-75). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Agyepong, M. (2013). Seeking to be heard: An African-born, American-raised child's tale of struggle, invisibility, and invincibility. In I. Harushimana, C. Ikpeze and S. Mthethwa-Sommers (Eds.), Reprocessing race, language and ability: African-born educators and students in transnational America (pp. 155-168). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers.