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Lauren Stark

Assistant Professor of Education, University of Maine - Augusta
Chapter Member: Maine SSN
Areas of Expertise:

About Lauren

Stark's research focuses on the work of social justice-oriented educators inside and outside of the classroom. Overarching themes in her writings include teacher learning and knowledge production, critical pedagogy, social justice education, teachers’ work and teachers’ unions, and teacher and student engagement in social movements. Stark serves as a member of the Maine Teacher Residency Advisory Board and the Penobscot River Educational Partnership. Her current collaborative research projects explore critical professional development among pre-service and practicing teachers, social justice unionism, and educator learning and organizing in social movements.

In the News

Opinion: "To Recruit and Retain High-Quality Educators, Pay Them More," Lauren Stark, Bangor Daily News, April 13, 2023.
Opinion: "COVID-19 Should Force Seattle To Close Schools," Lauren Stark, Crosscut, March 11, 2020.

Publications

"Learning and Knowledge-Making in Contemporary Educator Movements" Globalisation, Societies and Education (2023).

Engages with themes from Aziz Choudry’s writings to explore learning and knowledge-making within and through the United Caucuses of Rank-and-File Educators (UCORE) network. Brings together organizers from nearly thirty social justice caucuses from across the United States, fuelling the development of contemporary educator movements. Argues that informal and non-formal processes of learning and knowledge production drive the growth of the educator labor networks and, with them, broader educator movements.

"Educators Learning Through Struggle: Political Education in Social Justice Caucuses" Journal of Educational Change 24 (2023): 291–315.

Examines the grassroots organizing work of three educator-led social justice caucuses and a national network in order to explicate how five forms of political education support educators’ political learning. Shows how activist educators become politicized and how their activist organizations contribute to such political education efforts.

Reflections on Contemporary Educator Movements (edited with Erin Dyke and Rhiannon Maton) (E. Wayne Ross, Sandra Mathison and Stephen Petrina , 2022).

Highlights some of the contributions of a four-part special series I co-edited for the journal Critical Education, discussing the contributions this series makes to research on social justice unionism and educator organizing.

"School Closures and the Political Education of US Teachers" (with Rhiannon M. Maton), in Shuttered Schools: Race, Community, and School Closures in American Cities, edited by Ebony M. Duncan-Shippy (Information Age Publishing, 2019), 287-384.

Investigates the links between school closures and the political education of U.S. teachers. Finds teachers have the ability and obligation to work toward a more equitable future for their students and communities.