Dr. Ben Blaisdell's motivation in the field of education is to promote equity for culturally and linguistically diverse students. His research focuses on race and racism in education. His book, Seeing with Poetic Eyes (2009), discusses how critical race theory (CRT) can be used dialogically with teachers to help teachers understand and counter their unintentional complicity in institutional and structural forms of racism. His on-going work stems from this approach, and he is currently using CRT to work with teachers on understanding schools as racial spaces so that they can better develop culturally responsive practices. Dr. Blaisdell received his PhD in Culture, Curriculum and Change from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an English-as-a-second-language teacher and has lived and worked in North Carolina; Washington, DC; Spain; Colombia, and New York City.
