Jabari Mahiri, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education and Chair of the Language, Literacy, Society and Culture program at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a Senior Fellow at Brown University in the Annenberg Institute for School Reform from 1995 to 1998; a Visiting Professor at Harvard University in 1998; and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Iowa in 2004, at Michigan State in 2005, and at the University of Minnesota in 2006. He is a Senior Scholar for the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education and the Principal Investigator of T E A C H (Technology Equity And Culture High-schools) a research initiative that collaborates with urban school and community partners on increasing educational equity, technology, and achievement for all students.
Dr. Mahiri conducts research on the literacy learning of urban youth — particularly African American students — in schools and outside of them. His focus is on successful academic development with a specific emphasis on writing development in conjunction with effective teaching and learning strategies including digitally mediated learning in urban schools and communities.
Dr. Mahiri is author of Shooting for Excellence: African American and Youth Culture in New Century Schools (1998), and editor of What They Don’t Learn in School: Literacy in the Lives of Urban Youth (2004). He as also published a number of articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes. He is currently completing two books: Teaching in New Times: Bridging Diversity and Achievement and “A Second Life for Learning in Schools.” Additionally, he has authored a children’s book entitled The Day They Stole the Letter J (1989).
Dr. Mahiri has a Ph.D. in English with focuses on Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He was also a credentialed high school English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools from 1985 to 1991. He is a member of the American Educational Research Association and the National Council of Teachers of English