Today’s conversation is with Carol D. Lee, Professor Emerita and the former Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education in the School of Education and Social Policy and in African-American Studies at Northwestern University. Lee, immediate past president of the National Academy of Education, is best known in academia for her five decades of work helping students from minority backgrounds excel in an environment of low expectations, poverty, negative stereotypes, and other barriers. She was among the early scholars to scaffold children’s everyday experiences as a resource for learning in school. Today her sophisticated ideas behind “cultural modeling” are a standard approach in the field.

In 2021, Lee received the McGraw Prize in Education, the 2021 James Squire Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, the premier acknowledgment of outstanding achievement and success in education research.

She is a member of the National Academy of Education in the United States,  the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a fellow of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, and a former fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.

Lee received her doctorate from the University of Chicago.  She is a past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), AERA’s past representative to the World Educational Research Association, past vice-president of Division G (Social Contexts of Education) of the American Educational Research Association, past president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, and past co-chair of the Research Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English. She received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, Scholars of Color Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association, the Walder Award for Research Excellence at Northwestern University, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Illinois-Urbana, the President’s Pacesetters Award from the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, a Presidential Citation from the American Educational Research Association and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

She has led two international delegations in education on behalf of the People to People’s Ambassador Program to South Africa and the People’s Republic of China.  She is the author or co-editor of three books, the most recent Culture, Literacy and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind, four monographs, and has published over 108 journal articles and book or handbook chapters in the field of education.

Her research addresses cultural supports for learning that include a broad ecological focus, with attention to language and literacy and African-American youth.  Her 54-year career includes teaching English Language Arts at the high school and community college levels. She was also a primary grade teacher and university professor.

She founded three African-centered schools, including two charter schools under the umbrella of the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools (est. 1998) where she serves as chair of the board of directors.  She is married to Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti, poet and publisher of Third World Press, and is the mother of three adult children and four grandchildren. Together they have six adult children and nine grandchildren.