Gloria J. Ladson-Billings is an Americanpedagogical theorist and teacher educator. She is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She also served as the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs. She retired in January 2018. Ladson-Billings is known for her work in the fields of culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory. Ladson-Billings' work The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children is a significant text in the field of education. She was born in Philadelphia, Pa. and was educated in the Philadelphia public school system. Ladson-Billings served as president of the American Educational Research Association in 2005-2006. During the 2005 AERA annual meeting in San Francisco, Ladson-Billings delivered her presidential address, "From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools", in which she outlined what she called the "education debt", highlighting the combination of historical, moral, socio-political, and economic factors that have disproportionately affected African-American, Latino, Asian, and other non-white students.
Selected articles
Ladson-Billings, G.J.. Is the team all right? Diversity and teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 56, 229-234.
Ladson-Billings, G.J.. Silences as weapons: Challenges of a Black professor teaching white students. Theory Into Practice, 35, 79-85.
Ladson-Billings, G.J.. Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Education Research Journal, 35, 465-491.
Ladson-Billings, G.J. . But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34:3, 159-165.
Chapters in edited texts
Ladson-Billings, G.. Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln. Handbook of Qualitative Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ladson-Billings, G.J.. Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education. In L. Parker, D. Deyhele, S. Villenas Race is…race isn't: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Ladson-Billings, G.J.. From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Presidential address at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
