Assistant Professor of English Education at Truman State University
About
Dr. Summer Melody Pennell is an assistant professor of English education at Truman State University, in the Department of English & Linguistics. She received her PhD in education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2016 under the direction of Dr. George Noblit. For her dissertation, she studied (and co-created) an interdisciplinary social justice middle school course. Her research interests are centered around social justice, particularly intersectional LGBTQ populations in schools, and include critical literacies; social justice pedagogy; queer theory, pedagogy, and methods; young adult (YA) literature; and qualitative methods. One of her goals is to celebrate LGBTQ communities through her research.
Current Work:
Dr. Pennell has three current research strands: queering social justice pedagogy; queer cultural capital; and using YA literature with critical theory. The first strand draws from an ethnographic study of a middle school class created using queer pedagogy and social justice pedagogy.
The second is an education sociology project aiming to expand the concepts of cultural and social capital to celebrate the strengths within diverse queer communities.
The aim for the last strand is to show educators how YA literature can be used to discuss complex topics through accessible texts. Overall, she is interested in analyzing the ways critical and queer pedagogy, theory, and spaces can push boundaries and create more equitable and intellectually challenging schooling experiences.
Research Area(s):
