Education 

  • Ph.D. 2003 – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
  • M.P.A. 2001 – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
  • M.A. 1999 – Wake Forest University 
  • B.A. 1997 – University of North Carolina at Wilmington 

Areas of Expertise

  • Critical Race Studies and Black Education
  • School Desegregation and Resegregation
  • Social Context of Schooling (Urban & Rural)
  • Qualitative and Mixed Research Methodologies
  • Interdisciplinary Foundations of Education
  • (Un)Conscious Bias Identification and Intervention
  • Intersections of Equity, Innovation, and Health

Background

Sherick Hughes has spent more than 20 years investigating and addressing equity issues at the intersection of theory, policy, and practice. He has applied a variety of research methods that inform international dialogues on how inequitable social structures are developed, reproduced, and resisted; including the processes of learning and unlearning intergroup biases. Hughes’ contributions to the academy were recognized by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Washington, DC in 2016, when he received one of the association’s highest honors, the Distinguished Scholar Award. Most recently, his textbook on autoethnography research methods earned the 2020 Society of Professors of Education book award. The textbook demonstrates applications of autoethnography as an educational tool for individuals and small teams to begin unlearning intergroup biases and learning to recognize, resist, and redress the inequitable social structures that are manifestations and reproducers of our biases.

Research 

Sherick Hughes is one of the pre-eminent scholars of critical race studies and Black education and social context of schooling in urban and rural settings. He has over 60 current and forthcoming publications, including articles and reviews accepted for publication in high-impact peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), Educational Studies, Urban Review, Urban Education, and Teachers College Record. His work has been used widely (for example, to inform an educational equity argument before the Supreme Court of North Carolina; and to inform popular culture Netflix series, “The Patriot Act” hosted by Hasan Minaj).

  • EDUC 994, Doctoral Research and Dissertation
  • EDUC 508, Equity, Leadership, and You
  • EDUC 796B, Independent Study Doctoral Level
  • EDUC 970, Applied Theory and Research: Dissertation Proposal Prep
  • EDUC 994
  • EDUC 868, Advanced Qualitative Analysis and Interpretation
  • EDUC 830, Field Techniques in Educational Research
  • EDUC 977, Autoethnography Educational Research
  • EDUC 865, College Teaching Internship
  • EDUC 790, Special Topics in Education – Graduate
  • EDUC 871, Seminar in Education
  • EDUC 906, Education of African Americans
  • EDUC 878, Seminar in Educational Studies
  • EDUC 990, Supervised Research
  • EDUC 696, Independent Study Doctoral Level

“GP-IMPACT: Increasing Diversity and Enhancing Academia”, Gray, K., Lead Principal Investigator; Hughes, S., Technical Staff; NSF, $224,265. (December 1, 2016 – November 30, 2020).

  • Sigma Xi, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. (March 2026).
  • Invited Author of Opening Chapter in AERA Award Winning Book (Division B-Curriculum Studies), American Educational Research Association. (April 2023).
  • Nominated for:Faculty Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring, UNC-Chapel Hill. (2021).
  • Book Award, Society of Professor of Education. (April 5, 2020).
  • Nominated for:Book Award, Society of Professor of Education. (April 5, 2019).
  • Nominated for:Critics’ Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association. (March 1, 2019).
  • Annual Interdependence-Wednesday: Build Bridges (I-We: Build Bridges) Event, Carolina Parents Council, UNC-Chapel Hill, $500. (July 1, 2017).
  • $28,500 for Interdependence Day and Interdependence Week campus wide initiative, Office of the Provost, UNC-Chapel Hill. (2016).
  • Distinguished Scholar Award, American Educational Research Association. (2016).
  • Nominated for:Vanderbilt University Peabody College Dean’s Diversity Lecture Series. (2016).
  • William T. Grant Foundation Mentoring Workshop Award. (2016).
  • Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. (March 2026 – Present).
  • Society of Professors of Education. (2016 – Present).
  • American Educational Research Association. (2001 – Present).
  • American Educational Studies Association. (2001 – Present).
  • Phi Delta Kappa. (2002 – 2012).

Journal Article

Hughes, S., Sun, W., & Powell, C. A. (accepted). The Impact of Race- and Equity-Based Coursework on Preservice Educators’ Implicit and Explicit Racial Biases. The Urban Review. School of Education

Wendlandt, B., Edwards, T., Hughes, S., Gaynes, B. N., Carson, S. S., Hanson, L. C., & Toles, M. (2024). Novel Definitions of Wellness and Distress among Family Caregivers of Patients with Acute Cardiorespiratory Failure: A Qualitative Study. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 21(5), 782–793. https://doi.org/10.1513/annalsats.202310-904oc

Hughes, S. (2023). Context Matters as Racialization Evolves: Exploring Bias in Preservice Teacher Responses to Children. American Educational Research Journal, 6, 1258–1300.

Adkins, S., & Hughes, S. (2020). The Future of Autoethnography. Journal of Autoethnography, 1(3), 297–303.

Halberstadt, A., Cooke, A., Garner, P., Hughes, S., Neupert, S., McPhail, M., & Oertwig, D. (2020). Racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias of children’s faces. Emotion, Advanced Online Publication.

Bausell, S. B., Staton, T. A., & Hughes, S. (2020). Out of Site, Out of Mind: The Evolving Significance of Race in the Story of an Early Quaker-Freedmen School. American Educational Research Journal, 57(4), 1730–1756. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219883871

Hughes, S. (2020). My skin is unqualified: an autoethnography of black scholar-activism for predominantly white education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(2), 151–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1681552

Hughes, S., Sun, W., Halberstadt, A., & Garner, P. (published). Context Matters as Racialization Evolves: Exploring Bias in Preservice Teacher Responses to Children. American Educational Research Journal.

Hughes, S. A., Davis, T., & Imenda, S. (2019). Toward Demystifying Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks. Journal of Social Science, 58(1-3), 24–35.

Hughes, S., Davis, T. E., & Amenda, S. N. (2019). Demystifying Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: A Guide for Students and Advisors of Educational Research. JOURNAL of SOCIAL SCIENCES, 58(1-3), 24–35. https://doi.org/10.31901/24566756.2019/58.1-3.2188

Hughes, S. (2018). Editor’s Opening Statement. The Urban Review, 888–889.

Bullock, R., & Hughes, S. (accepted). Re-imagining Three Responsibilities of Teacher Education/Preparation: Structural Racism, Poverty, and Implicit Bias. Research Monograph: Teacher Education at the Intersection of Race and Poverty in Today’s School.

Hughes, S. A. (accepted). Applying Educational Research Outside of the Building. Professing Education: A Journal of the Society of Professors of Education, Special.

Hughes, S., & Noblit, G. (2017). Meta-ethnography of autoethnographies: a worked example of the method using educational studies. Ethnography and Education, 12(2), 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2016.1216322

Hughes, S. A., Thompson Dorsey, D., & Carrillo, J. F. (2016). Causation Fallacy 2.0: Revisiting the myth and math of affirmative action. Educational Policy, 30(1), 63–93.

Berry, R. Q., Ellis, M., & Hughes, S. (2014). Examining a history of failed reforms and recent stories of success: Mathematics education and Black learners of mathematics in the United States. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(4), 540–568. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.818534

Lynn, M., Jennings, M. E., & Hughes, S. (2013). Critical race pedagogy 2.0: lessons from Derrick Bell. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(4), 603–628. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.817776

Hughes, S., Noblit, G., & Cleveland, D. (2013). Derrick Bell’s post-Brownmoves toward critical race theory. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(4), 442–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.817765

Hughes, S., Pennington, J. L., & Makris, S. (2012). Translating Autoethnography Across the AERA Standards. Educational Researcher, 41(6), 209–219. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189×12442983

Hughes, S. (2011). Justice for All or Justice for Just Us? Toward a Critical Race Pedagogy of Hope Through Brown in Urban Education. Urban Education, 46(1), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085910377515

Book

Hughes, S. A., & Pennington, J. (2017). Autoethnography: Process, Product and Possibility for Critical Social Research. Sage Publications.

Book Chapter

Hughes, S. (accepted). Meta-Ethnography of Autoethnographies: A brief history, worked example, and what we are learning. In A. Anders (Ed.), Yes: Vol. 1. Routledge.

Hughes, S. (2023). Revisiting Claims about #BlackLivesMatter: Toward an equity literate fact-checking approach to data interpretation. In Black Lives Matter in US Schools: Race, Resistance, and Education (pp. 23–56). SUNY. School of Education

Hughes, S. (2020). Toward Equity Literate Advising: Learning from George. In How We Got Here: The role of critical mentoring and social justice praxis. Sense.

Hughes, S. (2020). Toward Equity Literate Advising. In How We Got Here: The Role of Critical Mentoring and Social Justice Praxis (pp. 3–21). De Gruyter Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004432468_002

Yanisko, E. J., & Hughes, S. (2018). LEARNING TO PLAN, PLANNING TO LEARN A Co-Narrative about the HTPE toward Disrupting Teacher Education. In BECOMING CRITICAL TEACHER EDUCATORS: NARRATIVES OF DISRUPTION, POSSIBILITY, AND PRAXIS (pp. 196–204). Routledge.

Hughes, S., & Noblit, G. (2018). Meta-Ethnography for Autoethnographies. In Meta-ethnographic synthesis in education: Challenges, aims and possibilities.. Routledge.

Hughes, S. A., Martinez, J., Corfield-Adams, M., Morettini, B., Rudolph, N., & Yip, J. (accepted). Co-Reflexive Dialogues and Freirean Pedagogy: A co-constructed autoethnography to improve a graduate Education course on qualitative field techniques. In S. Marx & J. Pennington (Eds.), Autoethnographies in the Field of Education.

Hughes, S. A. (2017). Family Pedagogy: Reclaiming a topic for inclusion in teacher education. In M. Etherington (Ed.), What Teachers Need to Know: Topics of Inclusion. Wipf and Stock.

Hughes, S. A., Brock, R., & Nix-Stevenson, D. (2017). Speaking Back to What’s Black: Using Critical Family History against that lying old Jim Crow. In Critical Black Studies Reader. Peter Lang Publishers.

Yanisko, E. J., & Hughes, S. (2017). Learning to Plan, Planning to Learn. In Becoming Critical Teacher Educators (pp. 196–204). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315400945-20

Hughes, S., & Swain, A. (2015). Remembering Pre- and Post-Desegregation in Northeastern North Carolina. In School Desegregation (pp. 21–35). SensePublishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-965-4_2

Hughes, S., & Willink, K. (2015). Going Native/Being Native: The Promise of Critical Co-Constructed Autoethnography for Checking “Race,” Class, and Gender In/Out of the “Field.” In Autoethnography as a Lighthouse (pp. 25–45). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-62396-824-320251005

Hughes, S. (2010). A ‘Symbolic Rebirth’ of the Bootstrap Guild: Applying Kenneth Burke to the Cultural Politics of the “Negro Problem” Underlying Black-White Test Score Gap Ideology. In Handbook of Cultural Politics and Education (1st ed., pp. 423–449). De Gruyter Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789460911774_021

Other

Hughes, S. (2019). Writing Qualitative Dissertations. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.737

Professional

  • Committee Member, AERA Committee on Scholars of Color in Education–Distinguished Scholar Award Committee. (2022).
  • Committee Member, AERA Committee on Scholars of Color. (2019 – 2020).
  • Committee Member, AERA Division K, Mid-Career Award Committee. (2019 – March 2020).
  • Committee Member, AESA Executive Council. (2015 – 2019).
  • Editor, Professing Education. (2016 – 2017).

University

  • Senior Faculty Member, Carolina Black Caucus. (2013 – 2060).
  • Founder and Director, BASE (Black Alumni and Students of Education). (2010 – 2050).
  • CCTE Senior Faculty, Qualitative Faculty Search Committee. (2023 – 2024).
  • Alternate (Elected), APT Committee. (2022 – 2023).
  • CCTE Senior Faculty, Qualitative Faculty Search Committee. (2022 – 2023).
  • Editor-in-Chief, The Urban Review. (January 1, 2018 – January 1, 2023).
  • Alternate (Elected), APT Committee. (2021 – 2022).
  • School Advisory Council, School of Education, Dean’s Office. (2018 – 2022).
  • Chair, Sub-Committee on Education and Dissemination, Chancellor’s Commission on Race, History and a Way Forward. (January 2020 – January 2022).
  • Founding Member, Black Faculty Initiative. (2017 – 2020).
  • Chair, Post-Tenure Review Committee. (2018 – 2019).
  • Committee member, Science Education Search Committee. (2018 – 2019).
  • Member, Post-Tenure Review Committee. (2018 – 2019).
  • CCHD Pre-doctoral Fellow Mentor, Center for Developmental Science. (2017 – 2019).
  • Member, Vice Provost of Enrollment & Undergraduate Admiss. Naming Working Group. (2016 – 2019).
  • Founder and Director, Interdependence WednesDay (I-We Day). (2014 – 2019).
  • Member, Provost’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Planning Committee. (February 2019 – October 2019).
  • Member, Education Policy Committee. (2016 – May 2019).
  • Appointed Voting Member, Community and Diversity Committee. (January 2015 – May 2019).
  • Faculty mentor, Brothers of Success, The Graduate School. (2017 – 2018).
  • Member, Vice Provost of Enrollment & Undergraduate Admiss. First Gen. Initiative. (2016 – 2018).
  • Member, Comm. & Public Affairs Inclusion and unc.edu Redesign Consultant. (2016).
Download CV