Embedded Files
Dr. Ayana Allen-Handy is an Associate Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Policy, Organization, and Leadership in the School of Education at Drexel University. She is also the Founder and Director of The Justice-oriented Youth (JoY) Education Lab. Born and raised in Philadelphia, her 19-year career has been dedicated to advancing justice in all of its forms, particularly education, racial, and social justice. She holds a BA with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MEd from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX, and a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction-Urban Education from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. Prior to becoming a professor at Drexel University, Dr. Allen-Handy was a first-grade teacher, a literacy specialist, a gifted and talented coordinator, and a high school counselor in Houston, Texas. She was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Urban Education Collaborative at UNC Charlotte.
Dr. Allen-Handy employs anti-racist and asset-based critical pedagogies and perspectives in her teaching, research, and service, recognizing the assets that individuals and communities possess that derive from their lived experiences, and the role that power and privilege have played in maintaining racist and inequitable educational, social, and economic systems and structures. Her work does not focus on challenges and problems, but critical solutions and participatory approaches in an effort to espouse antiracism, equity, agency, and critical capacity building. She works collaboratively with students, teachers, schools, and communities to co-create, implement, and sustain their own solutions to issues that directly impact them through critical Youth and Community-led Participatory Action Research. In her nomination letter for The Dorman Award, her students share:
Dr. Allen-Handy is ultimately a teacher within her heart & soul who hopes to inspire the next generation of multicultural and urban education teachers and leaders. In her daily work and life, she seeks to embody the powerful words of Toni Morrison: “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power; then your job is to empower somebody else”. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband Frederick, her son Aiden, and her Pomeranian-Chihuahua Naya.
Dr. Allen-Handy employs anti-racist and asset-based critical pedagogies and perspectives in her teaching, research, and service, recognizing the assets that individuals and communities possess that derive from their lived experiences, and the role that power and privilege have played in maintaining racist and inequitable educational, social, and economic systems and structures. Her work does not focus on challenges and problems, but critical solutions and participatory approaches in an effort to espouse antiracism, equity, agency, and critical capacity building. She works collaboratively with students, teachers, schools, and communities to co-create, implement, and sustain their own solutions to issues that directly impact them through critical Youth and Community-led Participatory Action Research. In her nomination letter for The Dorman Award, her students share:
Dr. Allen-Handy is ultimately a teacher within her heart & soul who hopes to inspire the next generation of multicultural and urban education teachers and leaders. In her daily work and life, she seeks to embody the powerful words of Toni Morrison: “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power; then your job is to empower somebody else”. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband Frederick, her son Aiden, and her Pomeranian-Chihuahua Naya.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse