Kysa Nygreen’s research and teaching address topics of race, class, and culture in education; urban schooling; critical and anti-racist pedagogies; participatory action research; and educational ethnography. One strand of her research is focused on youth identity formation in school—that is, how students develop a sense of “their place” within the social world—and how these identities, in turn, shape educational achievement. A second strand of her research focuses on practices of education for social change. In this work, she explores the use of popular education, participatory action research, and critical pedagogy as strategies for engendering social critique and equitable change in education. A core theme in her research is the study of how educational institutions and actors (e.g. teachers, teacher-educators, education reformers, students, and parents) contribute to reproducing or challenging patterns of social inequality. Professor Nygreen teaches courses in urban education, adolescent identity, educational diversity, and qualitative/participatory research methods.