Biography
Judy Pace came to USF after teaching K-12; working on PBL, portfolio assessment, teaching for understanding, and school reform at Project Zero; and earning her doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In TED her courses include Learning and Teaching, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, Curriculum Currents and Controversies, and Curriculum Development and Design. She has also taught Qualitative Research and Sociology of Education in the EdD program in the School of Education. She aims to prepare educators with conceptual and practical tools to create constructivist, transformative, and equitable learning experiences that promote critical and democratic habits of mind, deep understanding, and civic agency.
A qualitative researcher, she is fascinated by classroom teaching and how it is shaped by teachers, students, schools, and society. Her research has focused on classroom authority and academic engagement, teaching for democratic citizenship, social studies teaching under high-stakes accountability, and preparation of preservice teachers for teaching controversial issues. Her new book is Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues (Rowman & Littlefield). She is the author of The Charged Classroom: Predicaments and Possibilities for Democratic Teaching (Routledge), and co-editor of Educating Democratic Citizens in Troubled Times (SUNY) and Classroom Authority: Theory, Research, and Practice (Routledge).
- Appointments
- Visiting Scholar, 2016–2017
- Teacher Education Department Chair, 2013–2016
- Coordinator of MAT master's courses, 2012–present
- Education
- EdD, Harvard University
- CAS, Harvard University
- MEd, Lesley College
- BA, Brandeis University
- Experience
- K-12 Teacher in special education and progressive settings in the Boston area
- Researcher and developer, Harvard Project Zero
- Research
- Teacher education
- Social studies education
- Teaching controversial issues and contested history
- Classroom relationships, curriculum, and teaching in the sociopolitical contexts of schooling
- Selected Publications
Pace, J. L. (in press). Hard questions: Learning to teach controversial issues. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Pace, J. L. (2019). Contained risk-taking: Preparing pre-service teachers to teach controversial issues in three countries. Theory & Research in Social Education, 47.
Pace, J. L. (2015). The Charged Classroom: Predicaments and Possibilities for Democratic Teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.
Pace, J. L. (2012). Teaching literacy through social studies under No Child Left Behind. Journal of Social Studies Research, 36(4), 329-358.
Pace, J. L. (2011). The complex and unequal impact of accountability on untested social studies across diverse school contexts. Theory and Research in Social Education, 39(1), 32-60.
Bixby J. & Pace, J. L. (Eds.). (2008). Educating democratic citizens in troubled times: Qualitative studies of current efforts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Pace, J. L. & Hemmings, A. (2007). Understanding authority in classrooms: A review of theory, ideology, and research. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 4-27.
Pace, J. L. & Hemmings, A. (Eds.). (2006). Classroom Authority: Theory, Research, and Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Awards & Distinctions
Spencer Foundation Grant, 2016–2017
Spencer Research Training Grant, 1995–1998