Three of the four co-authors of the study “Equity in Secondary Career and Technical Education in the United States: A Theoretical Framework and Systematic Literature Review,” published recently in Review of Educational Research, were Teachers College doctoral students when they did that work. (The fourth was Priscilla Wohlstetter, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Education Policy & Social Analysis [EPSA]). [Read a story about the study by the group, which Wohlstetter calls “the first systematic literature review in the field of CTE with an explicit focus on equity.”]

Lead author Elizabeth (Betsy) H. Kim (Ph.D. ’20), an EPSA alumna, is now the Robert Curvin Postdoctoral Associate at the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University-Newark. Her research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore the links between education policy and educational equity, with a particular focus on how contemporary policies moderate or exacerbate inequities for low-income students of color. Kim’s research interests include culturally responsive and sustaining education, student discipline policy, and school reform in urban settings.

"I feel fortunate to have been able to publish in a journal like RER as I begin my career as an education researcher,” Kim writes. “I enjoyed collaborating with an amazing team of EPSA students and faculty to conceptualize and execute our research idea. I learned a great deal from the process that I will take with me as I embark on my career as an education researcher.”

Clare Flack (Ph.D. ’20), an alumna of TC’s Program in Sociology & Education, Teachers College, is now Adjunct Assistant Professor of Education at the College and an independent consultant who researches education policy. Her work focuses on teacher working conditions, teacher expertise, systems-level support for teaching and learning, and equitable opportunities to learn. Flack is an experienced educator who holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from the Urban Teacher Education Program at the University of Chicago. Of the CTE literature review, she writes: “It was wonderful to work with such an amazing team of smart women dedicated to highlighting the need for more attention to equity in scholarship about career and technical education.”

Katharine Parham, a current doctoral student in EPSA’s Education Policy program, is originally from South Carolina and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of South Carolina. She began her career as a teacher in New Orleans, where she worked as a special education teacher and later an assistant principal in two charter schools. She holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she worked at the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Senate Education Committee.

Parham writes: “This was the first piece of research I started working on as a doctoral student at TC, and I feel lucky to have such a positive first-publication experience. I have learned a great deal from my senior peer and faculty co-authors throughout this process, and I'm incredibly grateful to have been a part of crafting an article on such an important topic.”