Teachers College alumna Prudence L. Carter (M.A. ’95) has been named Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California-Berkeley, effective June 30, 2016.

Dr. Carter, who is currently the Jacks Family Professor of Education and Professor of Sociology (by courtesy) at Stanford University, is an authority on racial and ethnic relations, social and cultural inequality, the sociology of education, urban schooling, and research methods. She is the author of two books, Keepin’ It Real: School Success beyond Black and White (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Stubborn Roots: Race, Culture, and Inequality in U.S. and South African Schools (Oxford University Press, 2012), and co-editor of Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give All Children an Even Chance (Oxford University Press, 2013).

“I think Dr. Carter will be a tremendous leader,” says Amy Stuart Wells, TC Professor of Sociology & Education. “She has a very clear sense of vision, coupled with deep compassion for and understanding of people who have been oppressed in the educational system.”

Wells particularly praised Carter’s “exploration of sociocultural issues that are ignored when we simply put young people together in a building and declare a school to be integrated. Her work has revealed the complexity of minority students’ reactions to cultural oppression in schools, deconstructing the narrative that they are simply ‘resisting acting white.’”  

Carter is a member of the National Academy of Education, a newly elected member of the Sociological Research Association, and a Fellow of the American Research Association. In addition to her TC degree, she holds a B.S. in applied mathematics and economics from Brown University, and an M. Phil. and PhD in Sociology from Columbia University. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2007, Professor Carter was Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Carter is the second TC graduate recently named to lead a major graduate school of education in California.  This past summer, Daniel Schwartz (Ph.D. 92, M.S. ’88), an expert in human cognition and educational technology, was named Dean of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

Published Monday, Dec 21, 2015