Affiliated Institutions

United Nations International School

Judith King-Calnek teaches anthropology, theory of knowledge and history at the United Nations International School, where she is the Head of the Humanities Department. She has taught anthropology at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. Her publications have focused on education and citizenship in various contexts (Brazil, United States, international schools). Her most recent publications on free people of color in 19th Century Virginia reflect her continued interest in the intersection of race/color and citizenship in socially stratified societies. King-Calnek holds a Ph.D. in comparative education and anthropology from Teachers College Columbia University as well as two master's degrees (curriculum and teaching and anthropology and education) from the same institution, and a BA from Pomona College. In addition to her teaching and researching, Judith King-Calnek pursues her long time love of Brazilian music and jazz as a radio programmer and producer in the New York are

Areas of Research

critical pedagogy, racial formation, afrodescendants

Publications

Education for Citizenship: Interethnic Pedagogy and Formal Education at Escola Criativa Olodum. The Urban Review, pp. 145-164, volume 38, number 2, June 2006.

An Ethnographic Study of Critical Pedagogy and The Production and Mediation of Popular Culture in Salvador, Bahia Brazil. UMI Dissertation Services, ProQuest, 2003.

The Langston-Quarles Family: A Study of Free People of Color in Antebellum Virginia”, in Voices from within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy. W. H. Alexander, C L. Newby-Alexander and C. H. Ford, editors. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

John Mercer Langston and the Shaping of African American Education in the Nineteenth Century, in Education as Freedom: African American Educational Thought and Activism. N. S. Anderson & H. Kharem, editors. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009.

A Glimpse into the Making of Global Minds: The International Experience, co-authored with D. G. Gal, in Globalizing minds: Rhetoric and realities in international schools. Silova, I. & Hobson, D., editors. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, forthcoming.

Projects

Bahia, Brazil

Popular culture & critical pedagogy at an Afro-Brazilian carnival entity

An ethnographic study of how an Afro-Brazilian carnival entity, turned community development organization, uses popular culture to educate a traditionally marginalized community. Based on over 20 years of fieldwork, the study explores how a group of Afro-Brazilian (afrodescendents) activists use both formal and informal educational activities to redefine educational processes and outcomes in Salvador, Bahia.

Louisa, Virginia, USA

This is an historical study that focuses on the lived experiences of the Langston-Quarles family, a who were free people of color (afrodescendents) in antebellum Virginia. It examines notions of kinship, race and gender by focusing on the lives of three generations of women who, in spite of the legal codifications of the day, navigated their way and struggled to keep their families together.