Directory

I am an interdisciplinary scholar with expertise on democracy and public education, youth activism, and social movements that examine the relationship between social problems and social change. My current projects consist of drafting my book manuscript, Audacious Agitation: Black Youth and the Uncompromising Commitment to Equal Education Post-Brown, and drafting two articles, “Beyond the Binary: Challenging the Default Rubric Used to Measure Educational Equality” and “Lean on Me: Love, Black Youth Advocacy, and Progressive Educators in Urban Schools.”

My teaching interests revolve around the premise that education must develop human beings who can think critically so that they are able to help create a more equitable society. When students are taught to think critically about particular people and events, they begin to ask more than surface-level questions. Therefore, I teach courses—Social Issues and Ethics, Cooperation and Conflict, History of American Education, and Introduction to African American Studies—that strongly persuade students to critically analyze social issues through a lens that seeks to improve the world for those who are marginalized.

In Progress

• Willis, Vincent. Audacious Agitation: Black Youth and the Uncompromising Commitment to Equal Education after the Brown Decision.
•  Willis, Vincent. “Beyond the Binary: Challenging the Default Rubric Used to Measure Educational Equality.”

Journal Articles (*peer-reviewed)

• Willis, Vincent. “A Biscuit for a Letter: Black Children and the Education in the Antebellum South.” Africana Studies: A Review of Social Science Research Vol.6, Transaction Publishers (April 2015): 5-20.*
• Willis, Vincent. “‘Let me in, I have the right to be here:’ Black youth struggle for equal education and full citizenship after the Brown decision, 1954-1969.” Citizenship Teaching & Learning 9, no.1, (December 2013): 53-70.*

Book Reviews

• Willis, Vincent. Review of From Brown to Meredith: The Long Struggle for School Desegregation in Louisville, Kentucky, 1954-2007, by Tracy E. K’Meyer. The Journal of African American History 100, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 544-546.
• Willis, Vincent. Review of The Resegregation of Schools: Education and Race in the Twenty-First Century, by Jamel K. Donnor and Adrienne D. Dixson. The British Journal of Educational Studies 62, Issue 4 (October 2014): 466-468.