In 1963, celebrated author and cultural critic James Baldwin addressed a group of educators in New York City about the social and political turmoil of the day and the integral role that education plays in healing a nation's wounds. In that now-famous speech, Baldwin expressed this revelation.
“The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.”
Guided by this same ethos, Garry S. Mitchell, Jr., Sanford’s newest Assistant Professor of Public Policy, has applied his education and experience to examine the society in which he was being educated, and he is enthusiastic about bringing that work to Duke.
Mitchell recently earned his Ph.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was a Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration at the Kennedy School and an Ethics Pedagogy Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics. Mitchell’s research commitment to educational justice is deeply intertwined with his identity as a lifelong student and African-American male, descended from enslaved peoples in the United States.
Mitchell is an inequality scholar whose work operates at the intersection of sociology, history, and philosophy of education, focusing on the punishment-to-privilege spectrum within K-12 schools and its broader societal implications. His recent research investigates the empirical and ethical contours of college preparatory school programs (CPSPs), a subset of educational access non-profit organizations, designed to help low-income, minoritized students compete in elite independent schools. By combining empirical data with ethical analysis, Mitchell aims to shed light on how these programs influence upward mobility and shape educational discourse. His work seeks to elevate our understanding of education, particularly in elite settings, as a catalyst for social, economic, and racial advancement.
We asked Mitchell to share insights from his research, discuss the personal and professional experiences that drive his commitment to educational justice, and outline his vision for fostering equity in education here at Sanford.
What influenced your journey to teaching/researching public policy?
I grew up outside of Chicago and attended various kinds of schools. I attended schools where I was in the racial majority and others in which I was one of two Black students of hundreds. I've attended both private and public schools and was even homeschooled for a year. These seemingly disparate educational experiences have fundamentally influenced my interest in education and belief in its transformative potential.
I conducted my undergraduate studies at Stanford, where I majored in African and African American Studies and conducted preliminary research on the interplay between ancestry testing and African American identity. After finishing undergrad, I taught in New York City charter schools in Harlem and Brooklyn. My time in the classroom spurred questions around our educational system in the U.S. and the inequality therein. These questions led me to Harvard's Graduate School of Education, where I began by studying discipline in schools before beginning my current project, which looks at students' experiences in College Preparatory School Programs (CPSP) and these programs' roles in shaping students' mobility journeys, identities, and worldviews.
My myriad life and professional experiences sparked my interest in education as a lever for positive social change and policy's role in moving us closer to that ideal.
What do you look forward to most in working at Sanford?
I look forward to working with a constellation of intellectually and practically engaged colleagues and students. As a scholar of education and inequality, I am excited and grateful to have found an academic home that is as deeply committed to rigorous, engaged research as I am. Sanford's name also carries with it a standard of research and teaching that I look forward to contributing to.
What does working AT SANFORD mean for you and your career?
Working at Sanford means that I have the opportunity to dig deeper into the intersections of education and policy alongside colleagues working to enact change in their respective fields. Additionally, Sanford's commitment to excellence in teaching from undergraduates to doctoral students means that I have the joy of playing a role in cultivating the next generation of scholars. Beginning my faculty career in a place that supports and values the brand of complex, nuanced work that I aim to produce means that I will have the opportunity to further my research agenda toward understanding the experiences of marginalized communities and thereby bringing society one step closer to the justice we seek.
Tell us about your expertise/research. What legacy do you hope your research leaves?
My research interrogates the intersections of educational inequality with a specific focus on mobility. As a qualitative sociologist of education who draws on normative ideas and frameworks, I aim to understand the intended and unintended consequences of our attempts to redress social inequality, particularly through education. My current project focuses on non-profit education access organizations that prepare low-income students of color for highly selective secondary schools. Through this work, I've identified ways in which the journey of upward mobility impacts students' identities and worldviews as they navigate gains and sacrifices along the way.
My hope is that my research continues to challenge social logics and assumptions around mobility as an unequivocal good. Years from now I hope that my work is remembered as not only giving voice to those who are often overlooked, but also as giving voice to the facets of their experiences that are oft-suppressed and sanitized.
Why did you get into this research?
My interest in my current project emerged as I began to realize that many of the highly educated Black and Brown folks in my personal and professional life entered elite educational spaces by way of educational access organizations. Many of them had stories to tell about the benefits and less-desired aspects of their journeys. As I turned toward the research, I realized that there was very little scholarly focus on this particular juncture. Many focused on the experiences of marginalized students attending highly selective colleges, but few examined the experiences of students who began their mobility journeys in those early, formative teen years.
As I began to conduct my research, I realized that an entire subsector of the educational access landscape is comprised of CPSPs who have an outsized presence in the non-profit world and have a large philanthropic base. In turn, I grew more interested in these spaces and what selective schools' dependence on them means for inequality, mobility, and social policy.
What do you want the Sanford community to know about you and your personal interests?
Passion, gratitude, and the importance of deep listening are three of my life's throughlines. These values undergird my work as a qualitative scholar. They sustain my relationship with my wife, two children (and my two dogs!). Besides these values, I enjoy opportunities to meaningfully connect with others and I look forward to doing so with my Sanford colleagues.