James Wright, Ph.D.

Bio

Dr. Wright’s research highlights how educational policy and educational leadership discourses, research, and practices contribute to a repressive school experience for minoritized students and their communities. James has worked with educational leaders internationally and is part of a burgeoning Culturally Responsive School Leadership conversation. Dr. Wright has written extensively on the discourses and practices of coloniality regarding educational leadership; and has published critical works on educational policy, leadership preparation and practice, community engagement, qualitative methods, and self-reflection. He has published in the highest-ranked education journals, including Journal of Education Policy, Educational Administration Quarterly, Urban Education, Teachers College Record, Journal of School Leadership, and Journal of Latinos in Education. 

Areas of Specialization

K-12 School administration and leadership; Administration and leadership in ethnic studies; achievement gap discourses in education; community engagement and parental involvement in education; race, culture, and ethnicity in K-12 education; inequities and injustices in K-12 school policies, leadership, and education; K-12 school policy and history of school policies.

Education

• Ph.D., Michigan State University
• M.B.A., Southern Connecticut University
• B.S., Post University 

Publications

Selected publications:

• Wright, J. (2022). [Review of the Book Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership, by Decouteau Irby]. Teachers College Record. Retrieved May 24, 2022, from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=24076
• Wright, J. (2022). The Deep Roots of Inequity: Coloniality, Racial Capitalism, Educational Leadership, and Reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X211029483
• Wright, J. S., & Kim, T. (2020). Reframing community (dis)engagement: The discursive connection between undemocratic policy enactment, minoritized communities, and resistance. Journal of Education Policy, 0(0), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1777467
• Wright, J., Whitaker, R. W., Khalifa, M., & Briscoe, F. (2020). The Color of Neoliberal Reform: A Critical Race Policy Analysis of School District Takeovers in Michigan. Urban Education, 55(3), 424–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918806943
• Wright, J. S. (2019). Re-Introducing Life History Methodology: An Equitable Social Justice Approach to Research in Education. In Research Methods for Social Justice and Equity in Education. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Stein, K. C., Wright, J., Gil, E., Miness, A., & Ginanto, D. (2018). Examining Latina/o Students’ Experiences of Injustice: LatCrit Insights from a Texas High School. Journal of Latinos and Education, 17(2), 103–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017.1282367