Faculty Vita

Bradley Levinson, Ph.D

Academic Degrees

Professional Experience

Faculty load

Other Administrative Responsibilities

Faculty Teaching

Selected Publications

Forthcoming "Valores y cultura estudiantil en una secundaria mexicana: Cómo y qué tanto puede incidir la formación cívica y ética en la conducta de los jóvenes?" In Memorias del Primer Encuentro Internacional de Educación. Carlos Ornelas, ed. Mexico City: Santillana.

Forthcoming "From Non-Compliance to Columbine: Ethnographic and Student Perspectives on Misconduct and Violence in High School" (First author, with E. Doyle Stevick). In The High School Age: Youth Culture and the American High School. R. Cohen, A. Urbiel, and S. Walter, Eds. New York: Teachers College Press.

In Press Ethnography and Educational Policy: A View Across the Americas. Edited volume (First editor, with S. Cade, A.P. Elvir, and A. Padawer). WEstport, CT: Ablex Press. (Projected for August 2002)

In Press Todos somos iguales: cultura y aspiración estudiantil en una secundaria mexicana. Mexico City: Editorial Santillana. (A significantly revised Spanish version of the Duke book, with responsibility for crosschecking the translation; June 2002)

In Press "Contradictions of Gender and the (Dis)empowerment of Women at a Mexican Secundaria." Translated for the volume, Género y cultura en América Latina (Gender and Culture in Latin America, Volume 2 on "Literature and Education"), Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco, ed. Mexico City: El Colegio de México.

2001 "Foreword." In Education in the New Latino Diaspora: Policy and the Politics of Identity. Edited by S. Wortham, E.G. Hamann, and E. Murillo. Westport, CT: Ablex Press.

2001 "Anthropology Goes Inside: The New Educational Ethnography of Ethnicity and Gender" (with Douglas Foley and Janise Hurtig). In Review of Research in Education. Volume 25. Pp. 37-98. Walter Secada, ed. Washington, D.C.: AERA.

2001 We Are All Equal: Student Culture and Identity at a Mexican Secondary School, 1988-1998. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2001 Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy. Edited volume (with Margaret Sutton). Westport, CT: Ablex Press.

2001 "Policy as/in Practice: Developing a Sociocultural Approach to the Study of Educational Policy." (First author, with Margaret Sutton) Introduction for the volume, Policy as Practice., op. cit., pp. 1-22.

2000 Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education. Edited volume. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

2000 "Whither the Symbolic Animal?: Society, Culture, and Education at the Millennium." ; "The Symbolic Animal: Foundations of Cultural Transmission and Acquisition." ; "Cultural Production and Reproduction in Contemporary Schools" (with A. Fox and K. Borman); "Afterword: Implications for Policy and Practice." (with M. Sutton). In the volume, Schooling the Symbolic Animal, pp. 1-11, 15-24, 239-47, 378-82.

2000 "Ideologías de género en una escuela secundaria mexicana: hacia una práctica institucional de equidad." (Gender Ideologies at a Mexican Secondary School: Towards an Institutional Practice of Equity) Revista latinoamericana de estudios educativos (Mexico) 19(2): 9-36.

2000 "New Immigrants in Indiana: Challenges for Education Policy and Research." Policy News and Notes (Indiana Education Policy Center) 9(1):5-7.

1999 "Resituating the Place of Educational Discourse in Anthropology." American Anthropologist 101(3):594-604.

1999 "Linking State and Society in Discourse and Action: Political and Cultural Studies of the Cárdenas Era in Mexico." (with Daniela Spenser) Latin American Research Review 34(2): 227-245. (Translation into Spanish: Desacatos/Revista de Antropología Social, Fall 1999, pp. 122-140. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS), Mexico City, Mexico).

1999 " 'Una Etapa Siempre Difícil': Concepts of Adolescence and Secondary Education in Mexico." Comparative Education Review 43(2):129-161.

Funded Projects

2001 Incorporating Spanish-Speaking Students into Service-Learning Projects. Instructional Support Services, Indiana University, $750

2000 Spencer Foundation Advanced Studies Fellowship Award, "Reconsidering the Interrelationship of Anthropology and Education", $113,000 (with A. Stambach and K. Hall)

1998-1999 Proffitt Grant, Indiana University School of Education, $12,000

1998 Faculty Writing and Course Development Fellowship, Campus Writing Program, Indiana University, $2,500

1996-1998 National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, $40,000

Current Professional and Academic Association Memberships

American Anthropological Association

Comparative and International Education Society

Latin American Studies Association

AmericanEducational Research Association - Special Interest Group for Qualitative Research

American Association of University Professors

Conference Presentations

2002 "Student Culture and Identity at a Mexican Secondary School: Lessons Learned." Invited talk, New York University, February 22.

2002 "Valores y cultura estudiantil en una secundaria mexicana: Cómo y qué tanto puede incidir la formación cívica y ética en la conducta de los jóvenes?" Invited paper, Primer Encuentro Internacional de Educación: Valores, Calidad, y Evaluación. Mexico City. February 15-16.

2001 Discussant for panel, "Student Non-Compliance in Retrospect." Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. December 2.

2001 "Modes of Analysis and Means of Engagement in Ethnographic Studies of Educational Policy." Paper presented at Spencer Advanced Studies Institute, "Reconsidering the Interrelationship Between Anthropology and Education." Chapel Hill, NC. September 28.

2001 "The Exhaustion of the Nationalist Paradigm?: Mexican Secondary School Graduates Reflect on Schooling and Politics." Paper presented at the 29th Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Washington, D.C. September 5.

2001 "The Challenge of Trans-Border Peoples." Opening remarks at the Workshop, "Transborder Peoples and the Intersections between Latino and Latin American Studies". Indiana University. June 1.

2001 "Nationalism, Equality, and Student Culture at a Mexican Secondary School." Lecture presented at "Mini-University," Indiana University, June 21.

2001 "Childhood, Adolescence, and Student Rights: Historical and Transnational Influences on the Conceptions of Mexican Schoolchildren." Presentation for the conference, "Children, Generation, and Place," Cross-Cultural Network for Child Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark. May 19-21.

2001 "Reconsidering the Interrelationship between Anthropology and Education." Invited talk delivered at the "Danish University of Education," Copenhagen, Denmark, May 22.

2000 "Drawing the Dotted Line Around 'Student' and 'School' Culture: A Playful Example from Mexico." Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Invited Session of the Council on Anthropology and Education. San Francisco. November 18.

2000 "Conceptualizing a Multi-Tiered Ethnography of Educational Policy: The Example of Immigrant Students in an Indiana School." 9th Interamerican Symposium on Ethnographic Educational Research. Mexico City. October 24-27.

2000 Panelist for session on gender and research issues. Pre-Conference Workshop on Gender. Annual meetings of the Comparative and International Education Society, San Antonio, TX, March 7.

1999 "The Ethics of Access to Education in Latin America" (with Ana Patricia Elvir). Comments for panel on the Ethics of Access to Education, Comparative and International Education Society Annual Midwest Meeting. Loyola University, Chicago, IL. November 5.

1999 Co-organized, chaired, and served as discussant for session on "The Ethnography of Educational Policy: Moments of Formation, Moments of Negotiation." For the Annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Chicago, IL. November 19.

1999 "The Relation Between Ethnography and Educational Policy." 8th Interamerican Symposium on Ethnographic Educational Research. Organized and chaired entire conference, Indiana University, October 6-9.

Research Areas

Bradley A.U. Levinson, Associate Professor of Education, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology. Professor Levinson specializes in ethnographic studies of youth and student culture in secondary schooling. He is especially interested in the relation between schooling, identity, and life choices in the context of broader educative processes, including family, popular culture, media, youth organizations, state and nation formation, religion, and migration. His research has focused on Mexico, Latin America, and the U.S. within a comparative framework. His latest book is We Are All Equal: Student Culture and Identity at a Mexican Secondary School, 1988-1998 (Duke University Press). His teaching interests include anthropology of education, critical social theory, immigration and education, ideology and discourse analysis, youth and popular culture, gender and education, policy ethnography, civic education reform, and ethnographic methods. One of his books, Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education (Rowman and Littlefield) is a reader in the social foundations of education. His other publications include The Cultural Production of the Educated Person: Critical Ethnographies of Schooling and Local Practice (edited, with Douglas Foley and Dorothy Holland: SUNY Press, 1996) and Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy (edited, with Margaret Sutton, Ablex Press, 2001). His latest projects include a multi-sited study of educational policy for cultural-linguistic difference in the state of Indiana, with particular attention to Latino immigrant educational strategies and aspirations, the study of civic education reform in Mexico, and the study of Buddhist Insight Meditation retreats as secular educational encounters.

Service/Outreach Projects

Helped form Latino Club at Bloomington North High School

Drafted proposal for high school student exchange between Blooomington North High School and a technical high school in Michoacan, Mexico

Supervised service learners from my course, H340 (Education and american Culture), to tutor students at Gambold Middle School in Indianapolis.

Created new service-learning course, H380 (Latino Education Across the Americas), and arranged for placements with Latino children in Monroe County schools, Boys and Girls Club, and girls. Inc.

Active in groups in Bloomington (Central Latina, CCEI) to facilitate educational achievement of latino immigrant students

Honors/Awards

1994 Outstanding Dissertation Award, Council on Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association

1994 National Endowment for Humanities Summer Institute for College Teachers: "Telling Tales": Humanities Approaches to Folk Narratives

1993 On-Campus Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate School, University of North Carolina

1991-1992 Honigmann Prize, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina

1991-1992 Spencer Dissertation-Year Fellowship for Research Related to Education, Spencer Foundation

1990-1991 Fulbright Student Grant to Mexico (IIE), with two month extension