Edwin Mayorga is Nicaraguan-Chinese immigrant raised in Southern California. He’s an Assistant Professor-in the Department of Educational Studies and the Program in Latin American and Latino Studies at Swarthmore college. His engaged scholarship is primarily an application of cultural political economic perspectives to questions concerning urbanism, urban educational policy, Latinx education, ethnic studies, digital social science, and teaching for social justice.
Edwin is the founder and co-researcher of the Education in our Barrios Project in Philadelphia and New York City, a college and high school-aged, participatory action research collaborative. Currently the research collaborative is designing a Youth Voices (Voices) survey of Latinx youth in Philadelphia with the hope of providing research and analyses that can be used to advocate for more just social conditions for Latinx communities. The project has also lead to the creation of #EthnicStudiesPHL, a curricular database and educator group that advocates for ethnic studies in K-12 and higher education settings. The other major project is the Philadelphia Community, School and College Partnership (CSCP) study examining various approaches and visions of community and school partnerships in the Philadelphia school district.
Edwin also initiated the Critical Education Policy Studies (#CritEdPol) group, a space geared toward encouraging critical policy studies approach. Recently the first issue of #CritEdPol was published, an open source, online, journal of critical education policy studies for undergraduates and education advocates. He is co-editor (w/Bree Picower) of the volume What’s Race got to do with it? How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality from Peter Lang.
As a doctoral student his teaching experiences included being a part-time faculty member at Hunter College, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College (Lehman College) and a Writing Fellow at Hostos Community College. Edwin has an M.A., from Colombia University and a PhD., from Graduate Center, City University of New York.
