“I joined CIRCL to make the connection between the university and the community — leveraging the resources within the university to the support the important work of parents, youth, activists, educational practitioners, community members, and community organizations.”
Gwendolyn Baxley earned her PhD from the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Drawing on critical qualitative and quantitative methodologies, her research explores educational spaces in which Black youth and families survive, thrive and navigate. She specifically investigates how school and community leaders cultivate nurturing, affirming spaces for Black youth as well as the structures, practices, and ideologies that facilitate or hinder the development of such spaces, including the role of race and AntiBlackness within these contexts. Her current research projects explore these areas within the context of school-community-family initiatives, with an emphasis on historical and contemporary community schooling.