This past April, our students Marcella Winter and Paula Mantilla Blanco successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations and obtained the Doctoral Dissertation Grant in recognition of their salient work. Following a merit-based criteria, the Doctoral Dissertation Grant aims to support students by recognizing their outstanding doctoral work.
Marcella Winter
Marcella, born in Brazil, started her Ph.D. in 2019. Working under professor Regina Cortina supervision, Marcella acted as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Current Issues in Comparative Education between 2021 and 2023, obtained different research awards and published her work in prestigious journals, like Teachers College Records.
In her dissertation, Marcella asked: what would happen if two of the most prominent Brazilian educators became policymakers and had the chance to implement schooling policies based on their theories and worldviews? Would their reforms succeed in establishing new ways of seeing public school students, usually neglected in the policy process, or would their ideas fail due to long-standing stereotypes about poor students from urban areas in Brazil? My dissertation analyzes how Paulo Freire and Darcy Ribeiro, education scholars and advocates of public schooling as a tool to foster democracy, tried to translate their pedagogical theories into practice while occupying distinguished positions in public administration, the first in São Paulo and the other in Rio de Janeiro. Both were renowned educators, recognized nationally and internationally for their intellectual work. They proposed reforms when Brazil was transitioning to democracy after more than two decades of military rule. Freire and Ribeiro had the academic credentials, experience in policymaking, and a window of opportunity in a moment conducive to change. Still, they did not succeed. In this study, I aimed to understand how the creation of stereotypes about the public school child, mostly impoverished urban students of African descent, developed in Brazil. In the dissertation, I analyzed how challenging traditional assumptions about these children and their education have cost Freire and Ribeiro the success of their policies, but also how their reforms hold promise for action to increase racial and social justice in Brazil and beyond.
Paula Mantilla Blanco
Paula started her Ph.D. journey in 2018 under the supervision of Professor Garnet S. Russell. During her time at TC, Paula was CICE’s Editor-in-Chief during the 2019-2020 and she has obtained multiple research awards supporting her work, including the USIP Peace Scholar Fellowship, the EPSA fellowship, the ITS summer research grant and the AC4 Columbia University for pilot research, among others.
Paula’s dissertation project “Education through Memory Sites: Youth and the (Im)Possibility of Peace in Colombia” examines the role of state-sponsored memory sites, such as museums and memorials, in crafting and disseminating memories of conflict and expectations about peace. It draws on an embedded, multiple-case study of two memory sites and four schools in Bogotá and Medellín to understand the role of memory sites in educating about the past and for the future. Throughout 18 months of fieldwork, Paula conducted observations of school visits to memory sites, surveys, focus groups, and interviews with students, and interviews with teachers, site staff, and key informants. Bringing together data from multiple stakeholders and across regions, this project highlights the intersection of public pedagogy and formal schooling. It examines how youth take part in memory work in a context of protracted violence and continuous peace-seeking. By examining the connections between past and future and between individuals and collectives, this project sheds light on the challenges that arise as youth situate themselves as social and historical subjects amid social and political transition.
Paula’s project was funded by the NA/Ed Spencer Fellowship and the USIP Peace Scholar Fellowship, among others.[PM1] One article from this work was published in Comparative Education Review (Mantilla-Blanco, 2023).
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Congratulations again Marcela and Paula, for earning your doctorate and this fantastic award. We are eager to follow your work in the years to come!