Dr. Sharon M. Ravitch is a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She is Principal Investigator of Semillas Digitales, a school-based education program in the coffee-producing regions of Nicaragua that cultivates a holistic model of educational innovation focused on pedagogical and curricular enrichment, intensive inquiry-based teacher professional development, technology integration, digital literacy and community partnership guided by active collaboration, mutual capacity building, and participatory engagement.

Dr. Ravitch has published eight books: Leadership Mindsets for Adaptive Change: The Flux 5 (with Liza Herzog, Routledge, 2023); Flux Leadership: Real-Time Inquiry for Humanizing Educational Change (with Chloe Kannan, Teachers College Press, 2022); Critical Leadership Praxis: Leading Educational and Social Change (with Katie Pak, Teachers College Press, 2021); Applied Research for Sustainable Change: A Guide for Education Leaders (with Nicole Carl, Harvard Education Press, 2019); Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological (with Nicole Carl, Sage, 2016/2021); Reason and Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research (with Matthew Riggan, Sage, 2012/2017); School Counseling Principles: Diversity and Multiculturalism (American School Counselor Association Press, 2006); and Matters of Interpretation: Reciprocal Transformation in Therapeutic and Developmental Relationships with Youth (with Michael Nakkula, Jossey-Bass, 1998). Ravitch is currently completing the book Um Kulthumism: Arab American Women, Identity, and Intersectionality (with Dr. Reima Shakeir).

Ravitch earned two master’s degrees from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology and Education, mentored by Dr. Carol Gilligan, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in an interdisciplinary program that integrates across the fields of anthropology and education.

Dr. Ravitch has the distinct honor of being designated as a GIAN Scholar of the Government of India. Ravitch has received a Fulbright Fellowship, through the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Fulbright Specialist Roster, to work with Dr. BMN College in Mumbai, Maharashtra on an applied research project focused on pluralism and wellness for first-generation minoritized female students and their teachers (2021-2022). In 2021, she was selected as a faculty recipient of the Recognition of Outstanding Service Award to honor her dedication to providing a nurturing and supportive environment for students.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Ravitch’s scholarship integrates the fields of education, qualitative research, educational anthropology, human and organizational development, psychology, and business and has five strands: (1) Flux Pedagogy, teacher learning, inquiry, and professional development; (2) Practitioner and school-based research for sustainable professional and institutional development; (3) Leader education and professional development, communities of practice, applied research teams; (4) International development research using participatory, action, and ethnographic research approaches; and (5) Participatory research, evaluation, M&E, and assets-based assessment.

Ravitch’s approach to sustainable, assets-based organizational development and applied research is grounded in her decades-long experience serving as a collaborator with and advisor to educational leaders and practitioners, government, business, non-profit, and non-government organization leaders and policymakers working to foster equitable change and transformation at the individual, community, state, and national levels around the globe.

Ravitch’s U.S.-based work focuses on Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) and Flux Pedagogy facilitation with educational leaders and teacher teams in schools and districts, corporate leaders and teams, education boards, and higher education programs. Focal areas include anti-racist pedagogy, implicit bias/dysconscious racism, racial literacy and navigating identity-based stress, brave space pedagogy/organization and team norm development, critical inquiry stance and equity-focused theories of action, culturally responsive SEL pedagogies and leadership approaches, emergent design professional development, transformational and crisis leadership, healing-centered engagement, radical compassion and radical self-care in schools.

Publications

Featured

Leadership Mindsets for Adaptive Change

Flux Leadership: Real-time Inquiry for Humanizing Educational Change

Critical Leadership Praxis for Educational and Social Change

Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological (2nd ed.)

Applied Research for Sustainable Change: A Guide for Education Leaders

Reason and Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research, Second Edition

School Counseling Principles: Multiculturalism and Diversity

Matters of Interpretation

Selected Publications

Ravitch, S., & Herzog, L. (2023). Leadership mindsets for adaptive change: The Flux 5. Routledge.

Ravitch, S. M., & Kannan, C. A. (2022). (Eds.). Flux leadership: Real-time inquiry for humanizing educational change. Teachers College Press.

LeGrand, E., & Ravitch, S. M. (2022). The ‘Great Resignation’ as research context: Educational, organizational, and individual realities in flux. Sage MethodSpace.

Ravitch, S. M. (2021, March 15). Equitable teaching takes time and practice: Here are strategies to help. Harvard Business Publishing Education.

Barek, H., Namukasa, I., & Ravitch, S. M. (2021). Pedagogies of care in precarity. SageMethodSpace.

Ravitch, S. M. (2021). Teaching Black Lives Matter principles to shape humanizing research and methods pedagogy. Sage MethodSpace.

Ravitch, S. M. (2020). Sage MethodSpace Series on Theory and Qualitative Research Design:

Ravitch, S. M. (2020, August 12). Why teaching through crisis requires a radical new mindset: Introducing Flux Pedagogy. Harvard Business Publishing Education.

Ravitch, S. M. (2020). Moving to healing-centered engagement: Reimagining trauma-informed leadership. TraumaVenture.

Pak, K. & Ravitch, S. M. (2021). (Eds.). Critical leadership praxis for educational and social change. Teachers College Press.

Ravitch, S. M. (2020). Flux leadership: Leading for justice and peace in & beyond COVID-19. In: Special pandemic back-to-school edition: New tools for a new house: Transformations for justice and peace in and beyond COVID-19. Perspectives on Urban Education, (18)1.

Ravitch, S. M. (2020, August 12). Why teaching through crisis requires a radical new mindset: Introducing Flux Pedagogy. Harvard Business Publishing: Education.

Ravitch, S. M. (2020) Flux Pedagogy: Transforming teaching and leading during coronavirus. Perspectives on Urban Education, 17(4), 18–32.

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2020). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological (2nd ed.). Sage.

Ravitch S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2019). Applied research for sustainable change: A guide for education leaders. Harvard Education Press.

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2019). Putting research to work in your school or district. ASCD Express, 14(34).

Nakkula, M. J., Schneider-Munoz, A., & Ravitch S. M. (Eds.). (2018). Adolescent psychology in today’s world: Global perspectives on risk, relationships, and development (Vol. 1: The Americas). Praeger.

Ravitch, S. M., & Riggan, M. (2017). Reason and rigor: How conceptual frameworks guide research (2nd ed.). Sage.

Ravitch, S. M., & Lytle, S. (2016). Becoming practitioner-scholars: The role of practice-based inquiry dissertations in the development of educational leaders. In V. Storey & K. Hesbol (Eds.), Contemporary approaches to dissertation development & research methods. IGI Global.

Ravitch, S. M. (2014). The transformative power of taking an inquiry stance on practice: Practitioner research as narrative and counter-narrative. Perspectives on Urban Education, 11(1).

Schultz, K., & Ravitch, S. M. (2013). Narratives of learning to teach: Taking on professional identities. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(1).

Ravitch, S. M., & Tillman, C. (2010). Collaboration as a site of personal and institutional transformation: Thoughts from inside a cross-national alliance. Perspectives on Urban Education, 8(1).

Ravitch, S. M. (2009). Tapping into research for innovation. Chief Learning Officer, 8(11).

Ravitch, S. M. (2009). El sentido las metodologías de la investigación cualitativa para terapeutas familiares: Una introducción [The meanings and methods of qualitative research for family therapists: An introduction]. In S. M. Ravitch (Ed.), Metodología de la investigación cualitativa [Qualitative research methods: A reader]. Centro Integral de la Familia.

Ravitch, S. M., & Wirth, K. (2007). Collaborative development of a pedagogy of opportunity for urban students: Navigations and negotiations in insider action research. Journal of Action Research, 5(1).

Ravitch, S. M. (2006). School counseling principles: Multiculturalism and diversity. American School Counselor Association Press.

Nakkula, M. J., & Ravitch, S. M. (1998). Matters of interpretation: Reciprocal transformation in therapeutic and developmental relationships with youth. Jossey-Bass.

Courses

EDUC 545: Applied Research for Institutional Change

EDUC 545: Navigating Identity and COVID-Related Stress for Educators: Building Racial Literacy and Pandemic Agility

EDUC 545: Education Reforms: Design and Implementation in Global Context (with Usama Mahmud)

EDUC 545: Flux Methodology: Qualitative Fieldwork During Coronavirus

EDUC 603: Advanced Professional Development: Utilizing and Building Resources within Community Agencies and Organizations (with Dr. Michael Nakkula)

EDUC 610: Fieldwork and Mentoring

EDUC 664: Participatory Research in Global Perspective: Theory and Practice

EDUC 665: Research on Teaching

EDUC 672: Qualitative Modes of Inquiry

EDUC 699: Race and Cultural Issues in Urban Education

EDUC 703: Advanced Qualitative and Case Study Research

EDUC 750: Leadership Development Seminar: Negotiating Identity-Related Stress (with Dr. Howard Stevenson)

EDUC 760: Practitioner Research (School Leadership Program)

EDUC 800: Racial Literacy and Brave Space Pedagogy (with Dr. Howard Stevenson)

EDUC 801: Qualitative Research Methods (Higher Education Management Executive Doctorate)

EDUC 802: Research Proposal and Instrument Design

EDUC 803/805: Qualitative Research Methods and Data Analysis (Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership)

Academic Director and Methods Instructor, CLO Doctoral Program Evidence Block

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Ensuring frontier philanthropy makes a lasting impact

Sharon Ravitch and Reima Shakeir recently released case studies of eight philanthropies operating in the Global South.

March 2, 2021

In the Media

Why Teaching Through Crisis Requires a Radical New Mindset

“The more we consider this new reality and the new rules it brings into our curriculum and pedagogy, the more grounded, humanizing, and transformational our teaching and courses will become,” Ravitch said.

Harvard Business Review Online | August 12, 2020

Learning and Teaching Hope

Sharon Ravitch joined a filmmaker and a pediatrician as guest speakers on the Reinventing School podcast in which they explored the many aspects of hope in the midst of challenging times.

Learning Revolution: Reinventing School | June 17, 2020

Grit in Flux: An Interview with Angela Duckworth and Sharon Ravitch

Sharon Ravitch joins Angela Duckworth of Penn School of Arts & Sciences in a discussion of leadership, grit, and flexibility.

Penn Center for Professional Learning | May 26, 2020

Living and Teaching in Flux: A Conversation with Sharon Ravitch

Sharon Ravitch joins host Rob van Nood of Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon to discuss the current crisis as an opportunity to rebuild learning experiences based on a world in flux and from ideas and visions that put students at the center. "As educators, we have to find active ways to nourish ourselves, connect with each other, and really think about this moment," said Ravitch.

Elevate with Spark! podcast | May 11, 2020

Seeds of a Quiet Revolution

Sharon Ravitch discusses Semillas Digitales (Digital Seeds), a rural education effort in Nicaragua coordinated by a group of Penn alumni, faculty, and students that emphasizes sustainability and collaboration over technology.

The Pennsylvania Gazette | May 1, 2013

Sharon Ravitch of Penn’s Graduate School of Education Named Advisor for Haitian Ministry of Education

Sharon Ravitch has been named senior international advisor to the Haitian Ministry of Education for its Education Reconstruction Plan, designed to rebuild the nation’s education system.

Penn Today | December 6, 2010

The Educator's Playbook

Where we are now: Flux Pedagogy

College instructors have moved their courses online, but Penn GSE's Sharon Ravitch says they need to do more to meet their students' needs during this pandemic. Here, she gives ideas for instructors to consider.

Awards & Honors

Sharon Ravitch received a Fulbright Fellowship, through the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Fulbright Specialist Roster, to work with Dr. BNM College in Mumbai, Maharashtra for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Posted on December 1, 2020

Dr. Sharon Ravitch was invited to serve as Sage MethodSpace’s Methodologist-In-Residence for March 2020. As part of her residency, she was interviewed on topics including multi-modal research and Flux Methodology and wrote a series of articles on Theory and Research Design.

Her posts included:

Qualitative Methodologies: Equity and Local Knowledges
Research Design in Qualitative Research
The Space between Stimulus & Response: Creating Critical Research Paradises
Storytelling, Relational Inquiry, and Truth-Listening
Research Design in the Time of COVID-19
FLUX Pedagogy: Transforming Teaching and Learning during Coronavirus
From Individualism to Collective Truth-listening: Transformative Listening in a Time of COVID-19

Posted on July 1, 2020

Sharon Ravitch has received a grant from ERFIP (Empowering Families for Innovative Philanthropy), which is funded by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation in Geneva. Dr. Ravitch will work with Dr. Reima Shakeir, who will serve as a post-doctoral fellow for 2019-2020, on the development of case studies of eight family philanthropies as a way to assess this model of frontier philanthropies as a development gap- filler within and across the Global South.

Posted on October 16, 2019

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