Jennifer K. Adair
Associate Professor
Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, the Director of the Dynamic Innovation for Young Children (DIFYC) Collective, and Chair of the Op-Ed Project’s Public Voices Program at The University of Texas at Austin. A trained cultural anthropologist and former preschool teacher, Dr. Adair works to understand how racism and white supremacy impact the agency and overall learning experiences of young children. Dr. Adair is a former Young Scholars Fellow with the Foundation for Child Development, a major grant recipient of the Spencer Foundation to study civic action in preschool classrooms within Maori, Aboriginal and Latinx immigrant communities, and most recently a multi-year grant recipient of the Brady Foundation to culturally validate and test the Markers of Agency tool, a capacity-building, culturally flexible agency measurement tool rooted in 10 years of agency research, racial justice and children’s capabilities. Dr. Adair is the author, along with co-author Dr. Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, of the book, Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Early Learning (The University of Chicago Press, 2021) which was awarded the 2021 Council on Anthropology and Education Outstanding Book Award and the 2021-2022 Book Award from the High Scope Educational Research Foundation.
As an academic, Dr. Adair has published in numerous journals including Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Young Children, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. She teaches courses on qualitative research with young children, the impact of socio-political/cultural factors on development and a range of early childhood and research methods courses. Dr. Adair currently serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and lectures in multiple countries. In addition to academic conferences, Jennifer speaks to the public at venues such as SXSW about the relationships between agency and racism in our schools, homes and online, as well as through public media work including appearances and writing with CBS, ABC, CTV News, Washington Post, NPR, New America, Code Switch, Huffington Post, and The Conversation. More info is at jenniferkeysadair.com or agencyandyoungchildren.com.
Associate Professor
Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, the Director of the Dynamic Innovation for Young Children (DIFYC) Collective, and Chair of the Op-Ed Project’s Public Voices Program at The University of Texas at Austin. A trained cultural anthropologist and former preschool teacher, Dr. Adair works to understand how racism and white supremacy impact the agency and overall learning experiences of young children. Dr. Adair is a former Young Scholars Fellow with the Foundation for Child Development, a major grant recipient of the Spencer Foundation to study civic action in preschool classrooms within Maori, Aboriginal and Latinx immigrant communities, and most recently a multi-year grant recipient of the Brady Foundation to culturally validate and test the Markers of Agency tool, a capacity-building, culturally flexible agency measurement tool rooted in 10 years of agency research, racial justice and children’s capabilities. Dr. Adair is the author, along with co-author Dr. Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, of the book, Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Early Learning (The University of Chicago Press, 2021) which was awarded the 2021 Council on Anthropology and Education Outstanding Book Award and the 2021-2022 Book Award from the High Scope Educational Research Foundation.
As an academic, Dr. Adair has published in numerous journals including Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Young Children, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. She teaches courses on qualitative research with young children, the impact of socio-political/cultural factors on development and a range of early childhood and research methods courses. Dr. Adair currently serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and lectures in multiple countries. In addition to academic conferences, Jennifer speaks to the public at venues such as SXSW about the relationships between agency and racism in our schools, homes and online, as well as through public media work including appearances and writing with CBS, ABC, CTV News, Washington Post, NPR, New America, Code Switch, Huffington Post, and The Conversation. More info is at jenniferkeysadair.com or agencyandyoungchildren.com.
