Campus Directory

Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself

Division Social Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Education Department

Title Assistant Professor Critical Studies of Education

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Areas of Expertise African American / Black Studies
Education
Race
Youth Studies
Violence and Violence Prevention
Class
Colonialism
Community-based Research
Critical Theory

Web Site

Primary Office Location McHenry Library
3146

Mail Stop Education Department

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D. Social and Cultural Studies of Education, UC Berkeley

B.A. Peace and Justice Studies, Community Health, EPIIC, Tufts University

Summary of Expertise

Critical Social Theory

Violence and Critical Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class in Education

Decolonial, Anticolonial, Black Feminist Thought, Black Radical Thought in Education

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

Urban Education

Ethnography

Research Interests

Antiblackness and education; theorizations of violence, punishment, and care in schooling; race and neoliberalism; restorative justice in education; ethnic studies in education, racial capitalism; youth cultures in schooling; sociogeny

Awards, Honors and Grants

(2025-2026) - Principal Investigator, Institute of Social Transformation Catalyze Grant, UCSC

(2025-2026) - Principal Investigator, Committee on Research Large Grant, UCSC

(2022-2024) - Principal Investigator, Committee on Research Large Grant, UCSC

(2025-2026) - Principal Investigator, Office of Research Seed Funding, UCSC

(2022-2023) - Principal Investigator, Institute of Social Transformation Sprouts Grant, UCSC

(2020-2021) Concha Delgado Gaitán Presidential Fellow, awarded by the Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE) of the American Anthropological Association 

Selected Publications

Jibrin, Rekia. “Ain’t I a Feminist?: The Politics of Gender Violence, Anti-violence, and Education in Oakland.” Special issue: “Embodying Violence”. Gender, Place and Culture—A Journal of Feminist Geography, June 2017.

Jibrin, Rekia. “An Open Letter to Alameda County’s Plaintiff’s Bar: ‘What is Black life worth today?’” The Verdict, Association of Southern California Defense Counsel. Spring 2016.

“The Possibilities and Challenges Implementing Restorative Justice in Schools.” Discipline Over Punishment: Successes and Struggles with Restorative Justice in Schools. Trevor Gardner. Rowman and Little Publishers. 2016, 95-105.

Jibrin, Rekia & Salem, Sara, “Revisiting Intersectionality: Implications for Theory and Praxis.” Trans-Scripts Journal, “Race and Gender Revisited,” June 2015.

“Disciplinary Learning and Youth Cultural Resources”. Nancy Ares. Youth-full Production: Cultural Practices, Agency, and the Construction of Social Space. Peter Lang Publishing, 2010, 235-243.

Selected Recordings

Rekia Jibrin, Amanda Lashaw, and Andrea Vazquez. "New Approaches to the Study of Anti-Blackness in Education". Virtual podcast conference session at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2021 Annual Meeting. This session explored the different and contested ways that anti-Blackness is theorized in the field of education. (Co-sponsored by the Council on Anthropology and Education & the Society for The Anthropology of North America.) 

Advisees, Grad Students & Researchers , (andvazqu)
Orihuela, Erick (eorihuel)
Campbell, Colleen (comacamp)

Courses Education 135 Gender and Education
Education 164 Urban Education
Education 190 Black Intellectual Traditions of Educational Thought
Education 207 Social and Cultural Foundations of Education (MA Credential Program)
Education 262 Social and Cultural Contexts of Education
Education 295 Critical Perspectives in Education
Education 277 Second Year Project Proseminar