College of Education

About Us Admissions & Academics Research & Engagement Departments & Faculty Current Students

Jon Hale

Key Professional Appointments

  • Associate Professor, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Acting Director, Forum on the Future of Public Education, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Awards, Honors, Associations

AESA Critics' Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association, 2018

AERA Division F New Scholar’s Book Award, American Educational Research Association, 2017

Publications

Hale, J. N., & Livingston, C. (2023). “If you want police, we will have them”: Anti-Black Student Discipline in Southern Schools and the Rise of a New Carceral Logic, 1961-1975. Journal of Urban History, 49(5), 1035-1048.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2022). A New Kind of Youth: Historically Black High Schools and Southern Student Activism, 1920–1975. University of North Carolina Press.

Hale, J. N. (2021). The Choice We Face: How Segregation, Race, and Power Have Shaped America’s Most Controversial Education Reform Movement. Beacon Press.

Hale, J. N. (2020). On Race, Teacher Activism and the Right to Work: Historicizing the ‘Red for Ed’ Movement in the American South. West Virginia Law Review , 121(3), 851-882.

Hale, J. N. (2020). On the Methods and Methodologies of Historical Studies in Education. In T. Fitzgerald (Ed.), Handbook of Historical Studies in Education: Debates, Tensions, and Directions (pp. 833-846). (Springer International Handbooks of Education). Springer.  link >

Hale, J. N., & Bethlenfalvy , A. (2020). “To Speak a Book”: Lessons from Myles Horton and Paulo Freire’s We Make the Road by Walking. In J. D. Kirylo (Ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (pp. 115-125). Bloomsbury Academic.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2019). On Slavery and the Racialization of Teaching Practices. In P. M. Jenlink (Ed.), Teacher Preparation at the Intersection of Race and Poverty in Today's Schools Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Hale, J. N. (2019). ‘We are not merging on an equal basis’: the desegregation of southern teacher associations and the right to work, 1945–1977. Labor History, 60(5), 463-481.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2018). Future foot soldiers or budding criminals? The dynamics of high school student activism in the southern black freedom struggle. Journal of Southern History, 84(3), 615-652.  link >

Hale, J., & Cooper, C. (2018). Lowcountry, High Demands: The Struggle for Quality Education in Charleston, South Carolina. In V. S. Johnson, G. Graml, & P. W. Lessane (Eds.), Deferred Dreams, Defiant Struggles: Critical Perspectives on Blackness, Belonging, and Civil Rights (pp. 154-174). Liverpool University Press.  link >

Hale, J. (2018). “The development of power is the main business of the school”: The agency of southern black teacher associations from Jim Crow through desegregation. Journal of Negro Education, 87(4), 444-459.  link >

O’Byrne, W. I., & Hale, J. (2018). Employing digital spaces to resist harmful discourses: intersections of learning, technology, and politics showing up in the lowcountry. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(4), 390-399.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2016). Reconstructing the Southern Landscape: The History of Education and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Charleston, South Carolina. History of Education Quarterly, 56(1), 163-171.  link >

Hale, J. (2016). The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Columbia University Press.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2015). “We Declare Independence from the Unjust Laws of Mississippi”: The Freedom Schools, Head Start and the Reconstruction of Education during the Civil Rights Movement. In D. Danns, M. A. Purdy, & C. M. Span (Eds.), Using Past as Prologue: Contemporary Perspectives on African American Educational History (Research on African American Education). Information Age Publishing Inc..

Sturkey, W., & Hale, J. N. (Eds.) (2015). To Write in the Light of Freedom: The Newspapers of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools. (Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies). University Press of Mississippi.

Hale, J. (2013). "The Fight Was Instilled in Us": High School Student Activism and the Civil Rights Movement in Charleston, South Carolina. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 114(1), 4-28.

Hale, J. N. (2012). The Struggle Begins Early: Head Start and the Mississippi Freedom Movement. History of Education Quarterly, 52(4), 506-534.  link >

Hale, J. N. (2011). The Freedom Schools, the Civil Rights Movement, and Refocusing the Goals of American Education. Journal of Social Studies Research, 35(2), 259-276.

Hale, J. (2011). “The Student as a Force for Social Change”: The Mississippi Freedom Schools and Student Engagement. Journal of African American History, 96(3), 325-347.  link >

Courses

CI 205: Undergraduate Honors Research (CI 205) Course focuses on reading/understanding education research and working with a College of Education faculty mentor on a small research project. Student projects will be presented at the Spring Campus Undergraduate Research Symposium. Classes initially will be led by the instructor, but later will be conducted as a seminar with students leading discussions on the topic of their research. To the extent possible, students will select readings and research topics of personal interest.

CI 401: Introductory Teaching in a Diverse Society (CI 401) Orients the student to ways in which English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies or Computer Science is learned in school settings. Integrates an introduction to the use of technology as both a tool and a context for teaching and learning. As participants in a series of learning activities, students will reflect on the teaching and learning of English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies or Computer Science from an inquiry oriented perspective. Coursework is integrated with a school field experience to connect theory with practice in an examination of research and current trends.

CI 403: Teaching a Diverse High School Student Population (CI 403) Examines the curriculum and philosophy of teaching students in high school grades. Students will focus on a number of related topics including teaching a diverse student population, including all students in instruction, using technology for teaching high school English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies and alternative means of assessing students' learning. Seminar content will be integrated with coursework in instructional technology, assessment, and special education with high school students. Coursework is integrated with a high school field experience.

CI 501: Curriculum Development for the 21st Century (CI 501) Examines a variety of definitions of curriculum development, from past to present. Course activities use theories and research to frame discussions of substantive issues in the field: how learning is influenced by the stated goals of education; the cultural background of diverse learners; structure of the school setting; competencies of teachers; means of student assessment; and approaches to incorporating technology and 21st Century skills into classrooms.

EPOL 401: History of American Education (EPOL 401) Development of American education in relation to political, social, and cultural developments; attention to the influence of movements in the cultural environment upon evolving conceptions of educational theory and practice.

EPOL 403: Historical and Social Barriers (EPOL 403) Examines the relationship between ability, race, class, and gender to citizenship and schooling. Particular emphasis is placed on how the construction of "citizenship" has been used as a tool to further deny equal participation in the public sphere such as schools. To that end, an application of historical understanding of social barriers to educational access is analyzed from the Colonial period to the present.

EPOL 500: Proseminar in EPOL (EPOL 500) Introduces new doctoral students in EPOL to the variety of educational research traditions in order to foster reflective inquiry and critical research literacy.

EPOL 501: History of U.S. Educational Thought (EPOL 501) Studies the evolution of educational theories and philosophies since the eighteenth century; particular reference to their impact upon educational developments in the United States; a broad view of the general growth of American educational thought; and attention to selected major educational theorists, or schools of thought, exploration of their fundamental ideas, and the relation of these ideas to significant intellectual currents in American culture.

EPS 400: History of American Education (EPS 400) Development of American education in relation to political, social, and cultural developments; attention to the influence of movements in the cultural environment upon evolving conceptions of educational theory and practice. Same as EPOL 401. 3 undergraduate hours. 2 or 4 graduate hours.

EPS 405: Historical and Social Barriers (EPS 405) Examines the relationship between ability, race, class, and gender to citizenship and schooling. Particular emphasis is placed on how the construction of "citizenship" has been used as a tool to further deny equal participation in the public sphere such as schools. To that end, an application of historical understanding of social barriers to educational access is analyzed from the Colonial period to the present. Same as EPOL 403. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours.

EPS 502: (EPS 502)