Rhina Fernandes Williams
Clinical Professor - Critical and Multicultural Education Early Childhood and Elementary Education- Education
Doctor in Philosophy in Educational Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, 2005
Master of Education in Early Childhood Education, Mercer University, Atlanta, 2000
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Agnes Scott College, 1992
- Specializations
Critical pedagogy
Teacher development
Biracial schooling
Social justice education
Multicultural education
- Biography
Rhina Fernandes Williams is a clinical professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University.
Her expertise is in teacher development in critical, culturally responsive and social justice education. Her belief in the transformative power of critically conscious teachers drives her scholarship and work with in-service and pre-service educators in graduate and undergraduate programs.
She is a university-based member of the Cross-Institutional Collaboration and Reimagining toward Equity, Access and Teacher Effectiveness (CREATE) Project, a federally and philanthropically funded project that trains and supports educators across their career trajectory. She has collaborated on starting up an innovative educational specialist program; served as co-coordinator for the Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction; created numerous graduate and undergraduate courses; planned and facilitated workshops and retreats for educators in local and global communities; and taught elementary school for several years.
Williams is an affiliate faculty in the Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence where she connects and collaborates with others who are committed to providing all children with access to a high-quality education. She served on the school board for the International Community School (ICS), a charter school in DeKalb County, Georgia, whose commitment is to provide quality, social justice-oriented education to refugee, immigrant and U.S.-born children.
- Publications
Williams, R.F. & Chilungu, N.E. (2016). Multiracial students and educational policy. In Korgen, K. (Ed.) Race Policy and Multiracial Americans. University of Chicago Press.
Stenhouse, V., Jarrett, O., Williams, R. F. & Chilungu, N. E. (2014). In the Service of Learning and Empowerment: Service-Learning, Critical Pedagogy, and the Problem-Solution Project. Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, N.C.
Williams, R. F. (2013). The schooling experiences of Black-White students: When Gray Matters More than Black and White. Education and Urban Society.
Williams, R. F. (2011). “When gray matters more than black or white: The schooling experiences of Black-White biracial students.” Education and Urban Society.
Williams, R.F. (2009). “Black-White Biracial Students in American Schools: A Review of the Literature.” Review of Educational Research.
Williams, B. A., May, L. & Williams, R. F. (2013). “Flowers, Fruits, and Trees: An examination of how preservice teachers write about difficult topics in multicultural education.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.