Adrienne Dixson

Professional Bio

Adrienne D. Dixson is the Harry and Marian Eberly Faculty Fellow and Department Head of the Department of Education Policy Studies. Her research primarily focuses on how race, class, and gender intersect and impact educational equity in urban schooling contexts. Dr. Dixson is the co-editor of CRT in Education: All God's Children Got a Song (2006, Routledge) and Handbook of Critical Race Theory and Education. Adrienne Dixson, Ph.D. is interested in how educational equity is mediated by school reform policies in the urban south. Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. In September 2024, she was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin. She is also a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association.

From 2021-2024, Adrienne Dixson, Ph.D. served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation its new Race Equity Program and the Eddie Bernice Johnson NSF INCLUDES Program. Prior to coming to Penn State she was the Executive Director of the Education and Civil Rights Initiative and Professor of Educational Leadership Studies at the University of Kentucky.