Faculty Research Profiles: Sarah Lubienski

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Associate Professor

Curriculum & Instruction
303 Education Building
1310 S. 6th St. MC 708
217 333-1564
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Research Biography

My scholarship centers around intersections of education and equity, focusing on mathematics achievement, instruction, and reform.  I have studied these issues in both quantitative and qualitative ways, with my most recent work focusing on large-scale trends related to social class, race/ethnicity, and gender, using NAEP and ECLS-K data.  My work on identifying powerful SES-related indicators also spurred a line of research on public-private school differences in instruction and mathematics achievement.

Through these and other studies, I have illuminated inequities in diverse students' experiences at home, in the mathematics classroom and in their mathematics outcomes. My findings challenge the field to attend to the struggles that marginalized students, parents, and their teachers face daily.  I also write about the nature of education research, itself, analyzing the ways in which education researchers approach and avoid difficult  issues of socioeconomic disparities.

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Curriculum, Teaching and Educational Policy, Michigan State University, 1996
  • M.S., Mathematics, Michigan State University, 1991
  • B.S., Mathematics/Secondary Education, Northern Michigan University, 1989

Key Professional Appointments

  • Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004--
  • Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, Iowa State University, 1999-2004
  • Assistant Professor, Mathematics Department, Buffalo State College, 1997-1999

Activities & Honors

  • Editorial Board Member, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2006-2009
  • Distinguished College Scholar, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006-2007
  • Ranked excellent, Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students, 2005- present
  • Chairperson, Editorial Panel, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 2005-2006
  • Chairperson, Research Using NAEP Data Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association, 2003-2007
  • Thomas N. Urban Research Award, Iowa Academy of Education, First in the Nation in Education lll, 2001

Grants

  • Principal Investigator, A Longitudinal Study of Gender and Mathematics Using ECLS Data, Institute of Education Sciences, 2008
  • Co-Principal Investigator, Mathematics Science Partnership: Sense-Making in Science and Mathematics, Illinois State Board of Education, 2007
  • Principal Investigator, A New Look at School Type, Mathematics Achievement and Equity, U.S. Department of Education, 2005
  • Co-Principal Investigator, A Closer Look at Mathematics Achievement and Instructional Practices: Examinations of Race, SES, and Gender in a Decade of NAEP Data, U.S. Department of Education, 2002
  • Co-Principal Investigator, Recruiting, Educating, Inducting, Supporting and Retaining Mathematics and Science Teachers to Improve the Quality of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education for K-12 Students in the 21st Century, U.S. Department of Education, 2002

Selected Publications

  • Lubienski, S. T. (2007). What we can do about achievement disparities. Educational Leadership, 65(3), 54-59.
  • Hill, H. C. & Lubienski, S. T. (2007). Teachers' mathematics knowledge for teaching and school context: A study of California teachers. Educational Policy, 21(5), 747-768.
  • Lubienski, S. T. (2007). Research, reform and equity in mathematics education. In N. S. Nasir & P. Cobb [Eds.] Improving access to mathematics: Diversity and equity in the classroom (pp. 10-23). New York: Teacher’s College Press.
  • Lubienski, S. T., & Lubienski, C. (2006). School sector and academic achievement: A multi-level analysis of NAEP mathematics data. American Educational Research Journal, 43(4), 651-698.
  • Lubienski, S. T. (2006). Examining instruction, achievement, and equity with NAEP mathematics data. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 14(14), 1-33.

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