Jamila Lyiscott, assistant professor of social justice education, is being recognized as a 2019-20 UMass Amherst Spotlight Scholar.
Growing up as a first-generation American in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, Lyiscott learned how to navigate the contrasts between her family’s Caribbean background and an educational system that demanded assimilation.
“I was an A-student only because I knew how to do school,” recalls Lyiscott, now an assistant professor of social justice education in the UMass Amherst College of Education, a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, and a nationally renowned spoken word artist.
Learn more on the Research Next website.