Lori Delale-O’Connor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy. Additionally, she is serving as an Interim Co-Director of the school’s Center for Urban Education.
She currently teaches courses in qualitative methods, urban education, and the social contexts of education. Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s research focuses on examining the connections between families, communities, and education across spaces with a particular focus on fostering equity and justice for children and youth in urbanized educational systems.
Dr. Delale-O’Connor earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University where she was also a certificate fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences — a pre-doctoral training program funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. She also holds an M.Ed. in secondary education from Boston College, where she was a Donovan Urban Scholar and taught secondary social studies in the Boston Public Schools. Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s research has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education, among other outlets. She is also co-author of the 2019 book, “These Kids Are Out of Control”: Why We Must Reimagine “Classroom Management” for Equity (Sage Publications).
Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s work has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Prior to joining the School of Education, Dr. Delale-O’Connor was a research scientist at Child Trends, a non-profit research center focused on improving the well-being of children across the lifespan.
- Qualitative Methods, EDUC 3041
- Urban Education Reform, EDUC 2088
- Social Contexts of Education, EDUC 3004
- Delale-O’Connor, L., Huguley, J., Parr, A., & Wang, M-T. (2020). Racialized compensatory cultivation: Centering race in parental educational engagement and enrichment. American Educational Research Journal. 57(5):1912-1953. doi:10.3102/0002831219890575
- Akiva, T., Delale-O’Connor, L. & Pittman, K. (2020). Building systems for equitable, connected learning: The potentials and barriers for moving beyond school-centric urban education. Urban Education. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920926230
- Delale-O’Connor, L. & Graham, D. L. (2019) Teachers’ talk about race and caregiver support: “You can NEVER be too sure about parents.” Urban Education. 54(4), 499-534. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918806941
- Milner, H.R., Cunningham, H.B., Delale-O’Connor, L., & Kestenberg (2019). These Kids Are Out of Control: Why We Must Reimagine Classroom Management for Equity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
- Delale-O’Connor, L. (2018) Choosing, defaulting or falling short: Defaulters in the education context. Teachers College Record 120(4), 1-36. https://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 22034
- 2019-2024 National Science Foundation INCLUDES Alliance. STEM Pathways for Underrepresented Students to Higher Ed (PUSH) Network ($10,000,000), Senior Research Personnel, Equity Team Lead
- 2019-2021 Gates Foundation. Shifting Power Initiative ($1,000,000), Senior Research Personnel, Research Lead
- 2019-2021 University of Pittsburgh Seed Project. Development of the Broadening Equity in STEM Center (BE STEM Center) ($50,000), Co-Principal Investigator
- 2017-2019 National Science Foundation INCLUDES Grant. Diversifying Access to Urban Universities for Students in STEM Fields ($299,903), Co-Principal Investigator
- 2017-2018 Year of Diversity Research Grant. University of Pittsburgh Berg Center for Ethics ($3,900), Principal Investigator
Awards and Honors:
- 2020 – Extra Mile Award, Council of Graduate Students in Education, University of Pittsburgh
- 2019 – Provost’s Diversity in the Curriculum Award, Provost’s Office, University of Pittsburgh
- 2018 – Outstanding Service Award, Center for Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh
- 2020-2021 Program Chair, American Educational Research Association Family, Community, and School Partnerships Special Interest Group (SIG)
- 2020-2021 Inclusive Excellence in Education Working Group, Middle States Accreditation
- 2014-present Editorial Board, Urban Education