Dr. Dwuana Bradley

Statement of Research & Purpose

I am an education scholar formally trained in social science research methodologies and issues of systemic and structured inequality. I hold a Master’s of Education in Student Affairs (2014-2016) and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Education Leadership and Policy (2016-2020) from The University of Texas at Austin, both of which guide the work I do to understand organizational behavior in higher education and K-12 settings. These credentials rest on a foundation of philosophical principles gleaned from my Bachelor of Science in Sociology/Anthropology (2008-2011), and years of sustained dedicated training in the disciplines of psychology, women’s and gender studies, and cultural studies—particularly Black studies.

As a direct reflection of my training and experiential knowledge, my current projects center on Black experiences in academia, exploring persistent issues of policy-driven inequity at the organizational level and acts of agentic resistance at the micro-level. My K-12 research seeks to understand varied issues facing the parents and families who love Black children, and the schools that serve them throughout their P-20 trajectory.

Given the philosophical underpinnings of my research and my training, the totality of my materials should be understood as a body of co-constructed experiential knowledge systematically explored through pluralistic truth-telling that allows educators to minimize long-standing inequities, due to organizational behavior—particularly as such behavior is driven by local, state, and federal socio-legal pressures. Employing anti-oppressive methodologies has allowed me to develop an innovative culturally sustaining suite of projects contributing to scholarship on the topics of:

1. Organizational behavior across P-20 educational contexts; 

2. Racially marginalized education experiences amid politically contentious times; and

3. Black ontology in qualitative educational research. 

Throughout my career, this has led to a research agenda, and emerging record of scholarship, that focuses on educational institutions like community colleges, mission-driven institutions with disproportionately Black undergraduate and/or graduate populations (i.e, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Predominantly Black Institutions), and an emerging category of institutions that I refer to as Hispanic Serving HBCUs or Historically Black emerging/emergent HSIs.

Centering the Black experience has led me to focus on issues of policy and practice that negatively influence the everydayness and life opportunities of all students, but disproportionately and systematically impact Black students and other students of color in k-12 and postsecondary contexts.

As such, my record of research reflects community-driven, praxis-oriented scholarship that employs a wide variety of epistemological and methodological approaches to address some of the following issues in education—student financial literacy, transfer equity, free/hate speech on campus, socio-legal interpretations of isomorphic organizational behavior, Blackness as a socio-political identity, student leaders/civic engagement on campus and campus policing, issues of parent engagement at the k-12 level, as well as ontological violence and epistemic resistance at the doctoral/professorial level in qualitative research methodology.