Dr. David Osworth is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations.
What is your educational background?
I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources from Rutgers University. I graduated in 2013. Then I got a Master’s of Education in college student affairs from Rutgers in 2015.
I took a break from being a student and taught middle school for a year at a charter school before working in higher education again. I worked at Brown (University) for a couple of years in residence life and then I ran a tutoring and writing center at Regis College outside of Boston.
Then I went to the University of South Carolina where I did my doctorate in educational administration. I graduated from there in 2024.
Why did you choose to come to UNCG?
One of my mentors, Dr. Allison Anders, knew some folks in this department and said, “I think you would really like this job.”
When I interviewed at UNCG, I was appreciative of the diverse people, the friendliness. There was no ego with the folks when I interviewed. Then, when I came to campus, I enjoyed my time with the students. I loved the department. The people are great.
What are your current research interests and what attracted you to those areas?
One is looking at school discipline and the disparities in school discipline – how certain racial, socioeconomic status, or gender groups end up being disciplined more than others. A lot of the research shows that it’s not just because these groups misbehave. There are social systems and structures that I’m really interested in trying to understand.
How are policies possibly not allowing for alternatives to things like in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension to create something that’s a little more educational for students as opposed to strictly punitive?
I’m also interested in how leaders engage and try to make discipline better. That led me to a project that I’m working on now in collaboration with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Massachusetts.
We’re looking at the Rethinking Discipline Initiative. I’ve been interviewing educational leaders in Massachusetts to better understand how they’re changing school culture to use restorative practices, to use peer conferencing and peer mentoring to fix interpersonal issues. It’s trying to create a stronger community as opposed to just kicking kids out of school for a few days.
My interest in this comes from teaching at a charter school. It was a “no excuses” charter school where they say they’re holding people to a high standard and high expectations, but theirs was overly punitive. Seeing kids sent out of the classroom, that’s not helping them learn.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time looking at school choice, especially charter schools, and trying to understand if charter schools are supposed to be the pinnacle of innovation, wouldn’t you expect our wealthiest communities to be doing it?
I look at how race and socioeconomic status intersects with charter school proliferation and the uses of charter schools. I have been working on mapping charter schools. We’re using GIS in New Jersey, which is where I taught and grew up. In New Jersey, (charter schools are) really centered in these very specific pockets. We map using census data, look at household income, and racial density in certain communities. We mapped all the charter schools, and the maps show that they’re exclusively clustered in these racially isolated populations. The lines are super clear. As soon as you see an uptick in median household income, you don’t see charter schools there.
My third space of research is focused on LGBTQ issues in education. A big project I just wrapped up data collection on is interviewing educational leaders – ranging from assistant principals, principals, central office, superintendents, and assistant superintendents. The study looks at a couple of things. First, it is uncovering their experiences across their educational career. Then, as they get into their current career, as it relates to navigating their sexuality, navigating how open they’ve been, and navigating difficult political spaces. The other aspect of that study is trying to find out a little bit more about how they seek out support.
Schooling and working in education has at times been a really hostile place for Queer and Transgender folks to work. Part of why I wanted to do this study is that there has been a lot of discourse around this being an unprecedented time, but that’s false. We’ve seen it for a long time.
Part of this study is to show the resilience of these folks and to understand the ways in which we could better support them. But part of it is to say that we haven’t made as much progress as we think.
What are you hoping to accomplish with these projects?
For me, I want to make schools better places for everyone. Sometimes there’s a perception that when we focus on things like race, class, or gender that we’re taking away from other people. But the reality is that everyone benefits.
With the study of discipline, I want to reduce the amount of exclusionary discipline used generally. I want to do research that can influence leaders, especially at the local level. How do we move the needle to make it so that principals are training teachers and creating a culture where it’s not just about sit up straight and do your work, but if you disrupt a class you use that as a learning experience. I want to help teachers develop skills, especially newer teachers who struggle with discipline. The goal is to make schools safer places for kids – places where there is less bullying, places where they feel like they have positive relationships with the adults in the school, and places where they feel like they are able to express themselves.
How do students assist with your research?
I have a graduate research assistant who spends 10 hours a week with me here. She helps with the interviews and she’s helping on the LGBTQ leader project. She also helps with cleaning up the data and doing the analysis. We’ve written some of our conference proposals together. We’ll write at least two manuscripts together.
I think there’s an important role that faculty, especially those who work with grad students in a doctoral program, have in providing opportunities for them to gain skills. You learn from those practical skills of research. You learn how to do interviews. You get better at data analysis. You understand how to navigate the particularities of qualitative research. I want to make sure that work is ultimately developmental for them towards their end goals and providing them skills that will be helpful once they go do their dissertation and beyond.
What do you enjoy outside of work?
I like to read fiction and spend time with my husband and our pets and our friends. I like to experience other cities.
What advice would you give people who are going into an educational leadership career?
One thing I would say is make sure the community and the school is a good fit. Don’t just take the first job. Make sure it’s a place where you’ll be set up for success. Make sure it’s somewhere that you’ll be respected, somewhere your work and ideals will be valued.
And then as you’re thinking about if you’re interested in going into research, be open to lots of new experiences when you’re in grad programs. Learn from other faculty that might not always be exactly aligned with your area of interest.
If you were given $1 million to use on your research, what impact would that make?
Some of the most compelling work is ethnography and a deep immersion in a space for a long period of time. I would allocate that money to help reduce course loads or pay a summer salary so that I’m able to spend six months to a year going to school every day, shadowing a principal. Ethnographic work is always some of the most descriptive and rich scholarship.
I would also look at developing some workshops to help school leaders become more comfortable navigating LGBTQ issues. A lot of people’s hearts are in the right places, but if you don’t know a lot of Queer or Trans people, it can feel a little scary.
