In this talk, sociologist of education Eve L. Ewing presents her book Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side (2018). She will talk about the story of Chicago's 2013 mass public school closures—the largest wave of such closures in the nation's history.

The event will include a reading of excerpts from the book and a discussion of the lessons the book presents about history, segregation, racism, and the future of America’s public schools. The talk will be followed by a question and answer session.

Eve L. Ewing is an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. She is a qualitative sociologist of education whose work is centered around two primary questions: First, how do racism and other large-scale structures of social inequality impact the everyday lives and experiences of young people? Second, how can K–12 public school systems serve to interrupt or perpetuate these social problems, and what role can educators, policymakers, families, community members, and young people themselves play in understanding, acknowledging, and disrupting them?

Professor Ewing’s scholarship, community work, and classroom teaching are aimed at expanding the ways that urban school stakeholders, other researchers, and the broader public can be equipped to understand, respond to, and ultimately dismantle white supremacy and to make school systems liberatory institutions rather than oppressive ones. Her book Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018. She also writes in other genres for broad audiences; she is the author of the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919 and writes the Ironheart series for Marvel Comics. Her work has appeared in many venues, including Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Washington Post, and The New Republic.

Professor Ewing is a faculty affiliate at the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. Prior to joining SSA, Professor Ewing completed her doctoral studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While there, she served as editor and co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review. She then completed a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago. She also holds a Master of Education degree in education policy and management from Harvard University, a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in elementary education from Dominican University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.