Christina Collins
Ph.D. Candidate (ABD)
ccollin2@dolphin.upenn.edu
Education
B.A. in History, The College of New Jersey (1998); Joint Ph.D. Candidate in History and Education, Candidate for Certificate in Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Fields
History of Education, 20th Century U.S. History, Urban Studies
Dissertation
"‘Ethnically Qualified:' A Social History of New York City Teachers, 1920-1980"
Dissertation Committee
Personal Statement
I became interested in the history of education while working on an undergrad honors thesis on the 1968 New York City teachers' strike, and have had a great experience at Penn working on a joint degree in History and Education. Before coming to grad school I worked as a museum guide and a high school history teacher in Trenton, and then lived in Peru for five months. My work at Penn has included service as a teaching assistant in both the Graduate School of Education and the Department of History. My exam fields were in U.S. History, U.S. Social and Urban History, the History of Education, the Sociology of Education, and the Social Foundations of Teaching. I've recently co-authored an article on the changing life course of American young people and published a review of a book on the history of American folk music, and am working on a review of a book on the history of gay and lesbian teachers and an article comparing the schools of education at Penn and Temple University. However, most of my time (when I'm not out enjoying Philly or going to various rallies and meetings) is spent working on my dissertation, with help from a generous fellowship from the Spencer Foundation. My work focuses on the low numbers of black and Latino teachers in New York City from the 1920s through the 1970s, and argues that discrimination within the network of institutions that controlled access to the profession was one of the key causes of the lack of diversity in the city's teaching force. I find the topic endlessly fascinating, and, of course, it's also a good excuse for lots of trips to New York. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about my work; I'm especially happy to discuss it with anyone dealing with the issue of teacher diversity in public schools today.
