Jennifer Padilla Wyse, PhD
- Assistant Professor
- Co-Coordinator, African and African-American Studies
- Race
- Arts & Culture
Affiliated Programs
Education
- PhD, Social Inequality (Race/Gender/Class) and Africana Studies (2014)
Virginia Tech (VA) - Certificate, Race and Social Policy (2014)
Virginia Tech (VA)
About Me
I earned my Ph.D. in sociology from Virginia Tech with a concentration in social inequality (race/gender/class) and Africana studies. My teaching goals include empowering students’ sociological imaginations, critical thinking skills, and agency. In the classroom, I teach with a passion and create a respectful space that fosters open dialogue. I regularly bring real-world issues into the classroom to encourage critical dialogue so that students can relate their lived experiences to current events and social realities.
Additionally, I like to take the classroom into the real world by conducting field-trips so that students can apply concepts to real life. I purposefully construct my syllabi to build knowledge, as well as utilize various teaching styles including using primary sources, class discussions, lecture, and assignments.
Research Interests
My teaching both influences, and is influenced by my research. My research interests include social inequality (race/ethnicity, gender, and class), race and ethnicity, as well as the sociology of knowledge. My publications have appeared in the Journal of Historical Sociology and the Ashgate Research Companion to Black Sociology. The trajectory of my research will continue to focus on social inequalities and education, particularly with regard to racialized and gendered stratification of knowledge. While my current research focuses on how race and gender structure the reproduction of knowledge within U.S. Sociology, this work is centered in a global perspective that investigates how race and gender pattern the construction of knowledge in a globalized society. Further, my future research will explore the reproduction of racialized knowledge in public high schools and the application of critical pedagogy therein.
Publications
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“The Culture of White Space: On the Racialized Production of Meaning.” Co-authored with Brunsma, David L., Nathaniel G. Chapman, Joong Won Kim, J. Slade Lellock, Erik Withers, and Megan Underhill. American Behavioral Scientist 64(14):2001-2015. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220975081
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“The Possessive Investment in White Sociology.” Co-Authored with David L. Brunsma. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(1):1-10. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649218809968
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Wyse, Jennifer Padilla (2014). American sociology: History and racially gendered classed knowledge reproduction. Journal of Historical Sociology, 2(1):49-74.
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Wyse, Jennifer Padilla (2015). Black sociology: The sociology of knowledge, racialized power-relations of knowledge and humanistic liberation. Ashgate Research Companion to Black Sociology.
- Wyse, Jennifer Padilla (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Contemporary Sociology, 44(6):843-845.
Professional Affiliations & Memberships
Southern Sociological Society, The Society for the Study of Social Problems
News
Noteworthy
- Three Humanities Faculty Invited to Join Summer Leadership Development Program
Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Jessica Guzman, Assistant Professor of English Christine Woody, and Assistant Professor of Sociology Jennifer Padilla Wyse have been invited to participate in Swarthmore College’s Humanities Leadership Development Program.
This program is designed for faculty in the humanities and will provide facilitated discussions, guest speakers, case studies, and more for faculty from Widener and select other Philadelphia-area colleges and universities. The goal is to support faculty in growing their leadership skills and continuing to step into leadership roles within their institutions. The experience is funded by a grant from The Mellon Foundation, a known advocate for humanities and the arts.