Katherina Payne is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum & Instruction in Social Studies Education. She received her B.A. in American Studies with a concentration in History and Political Science from Yale University, an M.A. in Urban Elementary Education from Adelphi University, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Professor Payne taught in New York City Public Schools, where she developed her own practice and pedagogy as a democratic elementary school teacher and a strong commitment to urban education.
Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2013
M.A. in Child Urban Education Studies and Elementary Education, Adelphi University, 2004
B.A. in American Studies, Yale University, 2000
Her research and teaching interests focus on understanding, questioning, and furthering the relationship between public schools and the health and renewal of democracy. Professor Payne's work as a teacher educator and researcher seeks to better prepare and support elementary teachers as democratic educators who can create more equitable classrooms and learning experiences for all students to see themselves as able and active members of our democratic society. Currently, her work in social studies education focuses on the civic lives of young children and aims to promote recognition of the every day civic actions in which young children engage.
Chair, Research Community, National Council for Social Studies(2016 - Present)
Payne, K.A.. & Green, E.. (2018). Inquiry through the lens of identity. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 30(3), 4–8.
Payne, K.A.. (2018). Young Children's Everyday Civics. The Social Studies, 109(5), 1–7.
Payne, K.A.. (2018). Democratic teachers mentoring novice teachers: Enacting democratic practices and pedagogy in teacher education. Action in Teacher Education, 40(2), 133–150.
Payne, K. (2018). Teacher Education's Role in Thick Democracy. Teacher Education & Practice, 31(2), 293–296.
Payne, K.A.., Hoffman, J.V.. & DeJulio, S.. (2017). Doing democracy through simulation, deliberation, and inquiry with elementary students. Social Studies Research and Practice, 12(1), 56–69.
Payne, K.A.. (2017). Democratic teacher education in elementary classrooms-Learning about, through, and for thick democracy. Journal of Social Studies Research, 41(2), 101–115.
Payne, K.A.. & Zeichner, K.. (2017). Multiple voices and participants in teacher education. D. Clandinin & J. Hukka (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (pp. 1101–1116). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc..
Flessner, R.. & Payne, K.A.. (2017). The Impact of Social Theories on Agency in Teacher Education. In D. Clandinin & J. Hukka (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (pp. 286–300). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc..
Payne, K.A.. (2015). Who Can Fix This? The Concept of "Audience" and First Graders' Civic Agency. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 27(4), 19–22.
Zeichner, K.., Payne, K.A.. & Brayko, K.. (2015). Democratizing knowledge in university teacher education through practice-based methods teaching and mediated field experience in schools and communities. Journal of Teacher Education, 66(2), 122–135.
Falkner, A. & Payne, K. (n.d.). "But all your walls are blank!" Civics in the Classroom Environment. Young Children.
McManus, M.., Payne, K.., Lee, S.., Sachdeva, S.., Falkner, A.., Colegrove, K.S.S.. & Adair, J.. (n.d.). Expanding video-cued multivocal ethnography for activist research in the Civic Action and Learning with Young Children Study. Anthropology & Education Quarterly.
Civic Action and Young Children
The Civic Action and Young Children project is a video-cued multivocal ethnography of preschools across three countries: the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. The project sought to observe, document, and contextualize the everyday ways that young children engage in civic action, i.e. acting on behalf of and with their community. I primarily participated in research at the site in the United States; however, I also did some field work to learn in our New Zealand site in Porirua, Wellington.
Big XII Faculty Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin, collaborating with Iowa State University (2018 - 2019)
Dean's Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin (2017 - 2017)
Summer Research Assignment, University of Texas at Austin (2017 - 2017)
VPR Special Research Grant, University of Texas at Austin (2017 - 2017)
Anna Falkner, Ph.D., expected 2020 (Co-supervisor)
Courtney B Cook, Ph.D., expected 2019 (Committee Member)
Courtney's work engages in Critical Pedagogy, Critical Whiteness Studies, Cultural and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Relational Ethics, Women and Gender Studies, and Trauma Studies. Most recently her research is guided by post-structural feminist theories of precarity to more closely attune to affective relations of vulnerability - and embodied experiences of survival/resistance/refusal of violence in educational institutions - amidst politically uncertain times.
Justin H Krueger (Committee Member)
As a doctoral student in the Curriculum and Instruction - Social Studies Education program his research interests include informal learning spaces, public pedagogy, maps, historical memory, rural education, outdoor education, and museum education.
