UNC School of Education

>> Noblit, George

George Noblit’s research focuses on the sociology of knowledge, school reform, critical race studies, anthropology of education and qualitative research methods. He regularly conducts funded research and evaluation projects, most recently on A+ (arts-enhanced) schools, charter schools in North Carolina and prison education for youth adult offenders in North Carolina. “For me, evaluation and policy studies are a way to be part of larger political processes in our society,” he says, “and to help shape the agendas of important innovations.”

Noblit’s research is also dedicated to enriching the wider human discourse about knowledge, values, race and education. The American Educational Studies Association selected his 1996 book, The Social Construction of Virtue: The Moral Life of Schools, fora Critic’s Choice Award. With Jill Fitzgerald, he won the 2000 Dina Fietelson Outstanding Research award from the International Reading Association for research on literacy development in Latino children.  

His studies of school reform ─ especially of “Comer” schools ─ funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Office of Educational Research and Improvement resulted in two books: The Kids Got Smarter: Case Studies of Successful Comer Schools and Cultural Matters. A third book is currently in process. Continuing a career of research on school desegregation and race equity in education, Noblit and James Leloudis, professor of history, associate dean for honors and director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence at UNC-Chapel Hill, are completing an oral history study titled “Roads Not Taken in School Desegregation,” funded by the Spencer Foundation. Noblit is also completing nine years of research with a forthcoming book about the A+ Schools Program, an arts-based school reform program, with funding from the Kenan Institute for the Arts and the Ford Foundation.  His work on qualitative research methods has led to numerous publications, including three books: Meta-Ethnography; Particularities: Collected Essays on Ethnography and Education and Postcritical Ethnography.  With William Pink, professor of education at Marquette University, Noblit is compiling the first ever International Handbook on Urban Education. To help others develop their scholarship, he serves on the editorial boards of Educational Foundations, The Journal of Teacher Education and Qualitative Research.  He is also co-editor of The Urban Review, a book series titled Understanding Education and Policy and another book series titled Breakthroughs in the Sociology of Education.