Dominic T. Walker
Term Associate
Dominic Terrel Walker’s research is motivated by questions at the nexus of racism, identity, neoliberalism and the cultural politics of education in the United States. His dissertation, The Terms of Inclusion: A Study of Youth of Color in Transitional School Programs, is about transitional school programs (TSPs), non-profit organizations that recruit poor and working-class youth of color and prepare them to transition from mostly public schools in urban communities to elite, mostly private schools. Merging the historical development of TSPs with ethnography, he examines how these organizations work to prepare working class youth of color to move across race, class, and space for racial progress (historically) and upward social mobility (currently), and how those experiences influence how TSP students come to see themselves and the communities they come from.
His first article from this research, “The Terms of Inclusion: Transitional School Programs in a Racialized Organizational Field” investigates how TSPs navigate the conflicting interest of promoting social change while relying on old sources of inequality like elite schools. The article has been accepted for publication in the journal, Sociology of Education.
His first article from this research, “The Terms of Inclusion: Transitional School Programs in a Racialized Organizational Field” investigates how TSPs navigate the conflicting interest of promoting social change while relying on old sources of inequality like elite schools. The article has been accepted for publication in the journal, Sociology of Education.