David Alexander Philoxène

David A. Philoxene is Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at the University of San Francisco. His scholarship examines Black educational life across schooling, urban space, memory, and humanizing pedagogy. Working at the intersections of Black education, critical youth studies, Black geographies, critical race spatiality, critical qualitative inquiry, and teacher education, his work asks how Black youth, educators, and communities interpret and navigate racialized conditions of schooling and urban life while creating practices of care, refusal, belonging, and educational possibility.

His research has examined the educational lives of Black youth, including spatial knowledge and racialized safety; the organic pedagogies of Black educators; critical race and spatial methodology; and humanizing educational futurities. He is co-editor of Crafting Homeplace in the Academic Borderlands: Humanizing Education, Research, and Relationships, and his scholarship appears in venues including Equity & Excellence in Education, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and “We Dare Say Love”: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys.

An Oakland native, Philoxene has spent more than two decades working with young people and educators across the Bay Area as a classroom teacher, youth caseworker, school design-team member, teacher supervisor, researcher, and teacher educator. He earned his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, his M.Ed. and secondary teaching credential from UCLA, and his B.A. in Sociology and African American Studies from UC Berkeley. He has also been an NIH/NIGMS Predoctoral Fellow at UCSF, a Chancellor’s Fellow at UC Berkeley, and a Gerardo Marín Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellow at USF.

• Black educational life
• Urban education 
• Critical youth studies: racialized safety, violence, and urban belonging
• Critical race spatiality and Black geographies
• Critical teacher education
• Critical qualitative inquiry (e.g., auto/ethnography, youth mapping, and place-based methods/CRSA)

• Black educational geographies
• Youth sociospatial knowledge and navigation
• Critical race methodology, and place-based inquiry
• Critical teacher education and educational futures
• Humanizing education and futurity

• Co-Chair/Committee Member, Center for Humanizing Education and Research (C-HER), School of Education
• Co-Coordinator, Urban Education & Social Justice Program (UESJ), TED
• Co-Founder/Organizer, Ed Futures Lab/Humanizing Education Conference 
• Facilitator, School of Education Faculty Learning Community (FLC), CTE

• University of California, Berkeley, PhD in Social & Cultural Studies of Education, 2021.
• University of California, Los Angeles, MEd in Urban Education, 2006.
• University of California, Berkeley, BA in Sociology and African-American Studies, Education minor, 2003.

• Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, University of San Francisco, International and Multicultural Education
  (IME) & Center for Humanizing Education and Research (C-HER), Fall 2021—Spring 2022.
• Program Coordinator, National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
  Biology Site at University of California, Berkeley, Spring 2011—Spring 2020.
• Instructor/Research Fellow, Step to College (S2C) Program at Fremont High School Site, Fall 2011— Spring 2014.
• Teacher Field Supervisor, University of San Francisco, Urban Education & Social Justice Department, Spring 2010—Winter 2011.
• Program Coordinator & Case-Manager, Leadership Excellence/Flourish Agenda, Fall 2008—Summer 2010.
• English & Ethnic Studies Teacher, Oasis Alternative High School, Fall 2007—Spring 2008.
• Humanities Teacher & Design Team Member, East Oakland Community High School (OUSD)— Fall 2003-Spring 2007.
• Social Studies Teacher, Adolph Leuzinger High School (CVUHSD), Spring 2005—Spring 2006.

• University of San Francisco, Sarlo Prize for Excellence in Teaching Award 2023-24
• University of San Francisco, Gerardo Marín Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2021-22
• University of California, Berkeley, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Graduate Fellowship (ISSI), 2020-22
• University of San Francisco, Gerardo Marín Doctoral Fellowship, 2020-21
• University of California, Berkeley, Center for Race & Gender Graduate Grant, 2019
• University of California, Berkeley, School of Education Cross Collaborative Scholarship Award, 2015
• University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor’s Fellowship, 2012-16, 2010 (declined)
• Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational, and Environmental Design (ISEEED), Healthy Communities Fellowship (East Oakland Step To College), 2011-13
• University of California, San Francisco, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, IMDS Fellowship, 2010-2012
• Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), 2008
• Bay Area Writing Project Summer Fellow (BAWP), 2007
• Fund For Teacher, Team Teacher Fellowship, 2006
• Marcus A. Foster Educational Institute, Teacher Award, 2006
• University of California, Los Angeles, Paso Robles Family Fellowship, 2004-2005

• Philoxene, DA. (2026). Blueprint of Abandonment—Mapping Engineered Conflict, Mapping Resistance. In D. O. Stovall, Engineered Conflict: School Closings, Public Housing, Law Enforcement and the Future of Black Life. Haymarket Books. 

• Philoxene, D., Soto-Vigil Koon, D., & Fuentes, E. H. (Eds.). (2024). Crafting Homeplace in the Academic Borderlands: Humanizing Education, Research, and Relationships. Teachers College Press.

• Koon, D. S. V., Jordan, C., & Philoxene, D. (2024). Mapping a (R)evolutionary Education for a Just Future: Building on the Educational Lessons of the Late Anthropocene. In Innovative School Reforms: International Perspectives on Reimagining Theory, Policy, and Practice for the Future (pp. 231-253). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.

• Camangian, P. R., Philoxene, D. A., & Stovall, D. O. (2021). Upsetting the (Schooling) set up: autoethnography as critical race methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,1-15

• Philoxene, D. A Geography of Safety and Violence: Black Youth, Spatial & Racial Logics. Institute for the Study of Societal Issues—Working Paper Series, 2020.

• Johnson, P., & Philoxene, D. (2018). It makes me feel like I’m a monster: Navigating Notions of Black Damage in This Work, in Nasir, N. Chatmon. C. & Givens, J. (Eds.). “We Dare Say Love”: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys. Teachers College Press, Multicultural Education Series. ross, k.m., Nasir, N., Givens, J., McKinney de Royston, M, Vakil, S., Madkins, T., & Philoxene, D. “I do this for all of the reasons America doesn’t want me to”: The Organic Pedagogies of Black Male Instructors. Equity & Excellence in Education, 49(1), 85-99.

• Nasir, N. & Philoxene, D. (2016). Review of Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, resources, and suburban schooling. Teachers College Record.