Erica Bree Edwards (cc8021)

Administrative and Organizational Studies 

•  Ph.D. Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University
• Certificate in Qualitative Research Methodology, Georgia State University
• M.S. Education, University of Pennsylvania
• B.A. History, Spelman College

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, Administrative & Organizational Studies

Intersectional Justice through Education Research, Policy, & Practice

Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:00am-1:30pm

Erica B. Edwards, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University. She is a former urban middle-school teacher, youth organizer, and non-profit program coordinator. Her research makes use of community-engaged qualitative methodologies to advance educational justice, particularly with Black girls affected by the school-prison nexus. Her works have documented the schooling experiences of Black girls on probation, Black girls' STEM engagement among those chronically disciplined, and the counter-narratives of Black girls remanded to alternative schools.

Dr. Edwards also narrates the experiences of Black women who teach across the P-20 school spectrum. She takes interest in how education policy affects their pedagogical choices and personal experiences, demonstrating the unique and ongoing relations of social domination in their caregiving work.

Considering the central ideological role of popular culture in Black women and girls' experiences, Dr. Edwards also writes about the educative value of television, film, and music. She co-authored Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts: Clarity in the matrix and has written several articles demonstrating popular culture's role in contemporary social conflict.

As a qualitative methodologist, Dr. Edwards has most recently taken up Black Joy, Rest, and Play as methods to advance education for liberation and looks to partner with Black women education leaders working to re-vision schooling for and with Black children. 

363 College of Education Bldg.

• Justice-Oriented & Culturally-Situated Qualitative Research Methodologies
• Black Girlhood Studies
• Black Feminist Studies

• The Schooling & Teaching Experiences of Black Women & Girls
• The Educative Value of Popular Culture
• Race, Class, Gender & The School/Prison Nexus

Faculty Community Engagement Award with Wilson, A., Bradley, H., Miller, A., Reynolds, A. & Edwards, E. B. for “In search of freedom: A participatory action research project with Black girls,” Wayne State University, May 10, 2023.

Kathleen Reilly Koory Endowed Faculty Development Award, College of Education, Wayne State University, May 6, 2021. 

Faculty Scholarship Award, College of Education, Wayne State University, May 6, 2021.

2021 American Educational Studies Critics Choice Award Winner for Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts: Clarity in the matrix.

2021 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Book Award for Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts: Clarity in the matrix.

Nominee, “Foundation for Child Development’s 2021 Young Scholars Program,” April 15, 2020.

Edwards, E. B. & Reynolds, A. (forthcoming). You can’t steal my joy! Practices and possibilities for Black joy in urban education. A paper accepted for publication in Urban Education.

Edwards, E. B. & King, N. S. (2023). “Girls hold all the power in the world!” Cultivating sisterhood and a counterspace to support STEM learning with Black girls. Education Sciences, 13(7), 698. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070698

Edwards, E. B., Singer, J., & Lenhoff, S. W. (2023). Antiblackness and attendance policy implementation: Evidence from a midwestern school district. Educational Researcher, online version. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X221079853

Edwards, E. B. (2022). “It’s going to go in one ear and out the other”: Black girls talk back to administrator perceptions of justice-oriented school discipline. The Urban Review, online version. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-022-00647-0

Edwards, E. B. & Esposito, J. (2022). Popular culture as an educative site regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection: Grappling with complexity through intersectional analyses. Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 22(5), 435-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086221094285

Yu, M., Edwards, E. B., Gonzales, S. M., Robert, S. A., & DeNicolo, C. P. (2022). Remember. (Re)member. Re-member: Theorizing the process of healing sustaining, and transforming as motherscholars. Peabody Journal of Education, 97(2), 199-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2022.2055892

Edwards, E. B., Patton-Terry, N., Bingham, G., Singer, J. (2021). Perceptions of classroom quality and well-being among Black women teachers of young children. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(56), 2-27. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5964

Lenhoff, S., Edwards, E. B., Claiborne, J., Singer, J., French, K. (2020). A collaborative problem-solving approach to integrating practitioner voices in attendance policy. Educational Policy, 36(3), 1464-1506. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904820974402

Fournillier, J. B. & Edwards, E. B., (2020). Liminal pedagogy at the graduate level: Reflections on the doctoral advisement process in a neoliberal university context. The Journal of Negro Education, 89(4), 459-470. Access article here

Edwards, E. B. (2020). Toward being nobody’s darling: A womanist reframing of school culture and climate. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(7), pp. 759-772. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1753254

Owens, L., Edwards, E. B., & McArthur, S. (2018). Black women researcher’s path to breaking silence: Three scholars reflect on voicing oppression, self-reflexive speech, and talking back to elite discourses. Western Journal of Black Studies, 42(3&4), pp. 125-135.

Edwards, E. & Esposito, J. (2018). Reading the Black woman’s body via Instagram fame. Communication, Culture & Critique, 11(3), pp. 341-358.