Christopher Brown

Photo of faculty member Christopher P Brown
Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy

Phone: +1 512 232 2288
Email: cpbrown@utexas.edu
Office: SZB 3.318A
View Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
 

Christopher is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy. He also is a Faculty Fellow with The Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis. He is also a former preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teacher who worked in Title 1 schools.

Dr. Brown's research interests, rooted in qualitative methodologies, emerged from his experiences as a classroom teacher across a range of early childhood contexts. These experiences led him to build a research agenda rooted in the lived experiences of those working in contexts undergoing educational reform. By studying varied education stakeholders, he has sought to advocate for educational policies that seek to foster, sustain, and extend the complex educational, sociocultural, and individual goals and aspirations of children, their families, teachers, and school leaders.

Much of his research seeks to understand how policymakers' reforms impact the lived experiences of those working across the varied fields of early education. This work illuminates how early childhood stakeholders in public school settings, including district/school administrators and classroom teachers, make sense of and can respond to policymakers’ reforms that emphasize increased academic achievement, standardization, and accountability while providing limited resources through rigorous and developmentally appropriate learning experiences; such practices seek to support all children through equitable learning experiences so that they can grow as learners and as members of their communities.

His other primary line inquiry examines the impact of policymakers' reforms on the lived experiences of education stakeholders is in the field of teacher education. In doing so, his goal is to understand how teacher education programs can prepare preservice teachers to not only being successful classroom teachers but also advocates for change so that they can engage in equitable instructional practices that best align with the needs and wants of their students and the communities in which they teach.

Such work has resulted in Dr. Brown receiving funding from the Spencer Foundation multiple times and publishing over 75 peer-reviewed articles using a range of qualitative research methods, including case study, video-cued multi-vocal ethnographic, and qualitative metasynthesis methods, to examine issues centering on policy, teaching, and teacher education. These publications have appeared in such journals as: Journal of School Leadership, Educational Policy, Leadership and Policy in Schools, Teachers College Record, American Educational Research Journal, The Elementary School Journal Qualitative Inquiry, Teaching and Teacher Education, AERA Open, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, and The Teacher Educator. Among these pieces, he is the first author on 72 of them, and 48 were written with 16 former and current graduate students. Additionally, he has written several pieces with former graduate students published in such practitioner-based journals as Principal and Phi Delta Kappan.

He has also edited two research-oriented books, written one practitioner-oriented textbook with two former graduate students, a parent-oriented book on the issue of kindergarten readiness, and published a book about the changed kindergarten with Teachers College Press. Lastly, he has written numerous book chapters and research-based commentaries.

As an instructor at UT, he is a highly rated professor who has been awarded the University of Texas System Board of Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award and the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Outstanding Early Childhood Teacher Educator Award.

In terms of service, he currently serve as the co-editor for the ECE Series at Teacher College Press. He is also on the editorial board for the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, and the International Advisory Board for the Journal of Early Childhood Research. He has also served as the Past-Chair, Chair, and Chair Elect of the Early Education and Child Development Special Interest Group of AERA. Furthermore, at UT, he currently serves as the Graduate Studies Council Chair and Assistant Graduate Advisor for the ELP department as well as the M.Ed. Program Co-Coordinator for the Educational Policy and Program Area.