Adam Alvarez, Ph.D., began his career as an elementary teacher at a residential treatment facility where he taught in a self-contained classroom for K-5th grade students with a range of traumatic experiences and diverse racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. As an assistant professor of urban education at Rowan University, Alvarez’s research aims to support educators in K-12 settings. He is particularly interested in educators who work with children of color, children living in urban environments and children who are exposed to violence and trauma. Alvarez uses various race-based, analytic frameworks and diverse methodological approaches to study how race and racism shape the social context of education across various settings. His work and research have been featured in peer-reviewed journals, such as Review of Educational Research, Theory into Practice, Equity and Excellence in Education and Teaching Education. His scholarship contributes to a growing body of research, attempting to shift our institutional approaches toward preparing future educators and researchers to recognize and disrupt longstanding school and social inequalities.
As assistant professor of urban education in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Education, Alvarez teaches graduate courses such as critical pedagogy, power and privilege, and other topics related to urban education. Additionally, Alvarez is a core faculty member in the Urban and Diverse Learning Environments concentration within Rowan’s Ph.D. in education program for students seeking to either specialize in urban education research or broaden their understanding of and interdisciplinary approaches to exploring race, equity and justice across various school and social contexts. He also works with his colleagues in the Partnership for Equity and Educational Research (PEER) Lab to help school districts build equitable school policies and practices that work to improve students’ school outcomes.
Alvarez earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, an M.Ed. in educational leadership and policy from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in social and comparative analysis in education from the University of Pittsburgh. He can be reached at alvareza@rowan.edu or @adam_alvarez13 on Twitter.
