Carla D. O'Connor

Research is in the areas of African American achievement, cultural studies, urban education, and ethnographic methods. Work includes examinations of how Black identity is differentially constructed across multiple contexts and influences educational outcomes; how Black people’s perceptions of opportunity vary within and across social space and shape academic orientation; how Black educational resilience and vulnerability is structured by social, institutional, and historical forces; and how the organization and culture of schools influence students’ social and academic identities and outcomes. A current research project examines race and the co-construction of family-school relations in one demographically diverse elementary school.