
Nancy Ares
Associate ProfessorTeaching & Curriculum
PhD, Auburn University (educational psychology)
BS, The University of Arizona (ecology and evolutionary biology)
Nancy Ares joined the Warner School in 2003 to teach doctoral-level courses in learning and teaching theories and research methods, as well as master’s-level courses in adolescent development; race, class, gender and disability in American education; and educational equity in global contexts. She has taught at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels, and coordinated academic support programs for underrepresented and migrant students. Her primary concentration in teaching is in addressing power, culture, class, and privilege as central issues in educational research and practice. To that end, she explores social constructivist and critical approaches with students to pose problems and investigate solutions.
Ares conducts research using critical geography and sociocultural theories as frameworks for investigating classroom and community practices. This research focuses on social and spatial practices that shape participation, how structures and activity are mutually constituted, and how power and roles are negotiated through social interaction. Her work in formal and informal settings emphasizes resource-rich approaches to understanding school and community transformation. She is committed to bridging multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives in studying learning, teaching, and culture as complex phenomena.
Her work has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Cognition & Instruction, International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Journal of Literacy Research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Mathematical Thinking and Learning.
She is the author and editor (with Edward Buendía and Robert Helfenbein) of Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing: Critical Geography of Educational Reform (Sense, 2017); and Youth-full Productions: Cultural Practices and Constructions of Content and Social Spaces (Lang, 2009). She is also co-author, with Edward Buendía, of the book Geographies of Difference: The Social Production of the East Side, West Side, and Central City School (Lang, 2006).
She is currently conducting a multi-year case study that focuses on community-based standards for school-aged children’s learning and development in a Children’s Defense Fund-sponsored Freedom School (FS) summer program provided by North East Area Development (NEAD), a not-for-profit in upstate NY. This community-based participatory research is aimed at disrupting academic and social structures that maintain social, academic, and economic inequities. Ares and her community collaborators are working to 1) identify ways that forms of community cultural wealth (CCW) manifest in a FS summer program, and 2) understand the relationship between CCW and FS staffs’ criteria for students’ social and academic learning.
Research Projects
Freedom Schools as settings for youth development: Identifying community-based assets and accountability criteria
Freedom Schools as settings for youth development: Identifying community-based assets and accountability criteria
In the News
- 7/25/2019Crossing Borders: Warner Professor Teaches Scholarly Life, Academic English in China
- 5/10/2017New Sociology of Education Book Co-Edited by Warner School Professor
- 11/09/2015How Freedom Schools Use Resources of Oppressed Students, Parents, and Communities
- 4/01/2015Former, Current Warner School Researchers Publish Book to Help Support the Educational Needs of Rochester’s Latina/o Students
- 2/21/2013Engaging Youth in Community Activism: A Class Project Designed to Give Students a Closer Look at Adolescence
- 4/27/2012Warner Diversity and Inclusion Committee Celebrates Five Years
- 5/25/2011Warner Fosters Dialogue on Diversity, Inclusion at University Conference
- 5/12/2010Emerging Scholarly Writers: Students Give Behind-Scenes Look into the Creation of Youth-full Productions
- 1/25/2010Professor, Students Collaborate on New Book Examining the Rich Resources Marginalized Youth Bring to the Classroom
- 3/06/2009Ares Publishes Study on Innovative Classroom Technologies in Top-tier Education Journal
- 8/22/2008Teen Action Team Empowers Rochester Surround Care Community Youth to Have a Voice in the Community
- 10/01/2007Ares Publishes Geographies of Difference
- 8/01/2007Larson Edits Second Edition of Book on Literacy Education
- 7/02/2007Three Warner Faculty Earn Tenure, Promoted to Associate Professor
- 5/30/2007Paula Kluth to Speak in Rochester
- 5/10/2007Students Present Symposium on Youth Cultural Practices
- 5/01/2007Ares Wins Excellence in Teaching Award
Courses
ED507 Qualitative Research Methods
ED506 Concepts and Issues in Social Science Research
ED415 Adolescent Development and Youth Culture (ages 10 to 20)
EDU442 Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in American Education
EDE436 Diversity and Equity in Education
EDU522 Theory and Research in Learning
EDE490 Faculty Development Topics: Anti-Racist Curriculum Development in Higher Education
ED535 Creativity in Qualitative Methods
EDE497 Title Anti-Racist Curriculum Development in Higher Education