Dr. Amber Pabon

Director of the Frederick Douglass Institute and Emerging Educators of Color

Headshot of Dr. Amber Pabon

Associate Professor
Secondary Education
610-683-4721
Beekey 232
pabon@kutztown.edu

About Dr. Pabon:

Dr. Amber Jean-Marie Pabon is a critical teacher educator and qualitative researcher who began her career in the New York City Department of Education as a secondary English teacher. She then served as a literacy coach; providing faculty professional development for middle and high school educators in reading instruction and writing curricula. After nearly a decade in public education, Dr. Pabon pursued and then earned her doctorate in urban education from the City University New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.

Currently, Dr. Pabon is an associate professor in Secondary Education at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, the founding director of Emerging Educators of Color (EEC), and the director of the Frederick Douglass Institute (FDI). While EEC is focused on the recruitment and retention of BIPOC K-12 teachers, a primary goal of FDI is to increase the representation of faculty of color in higher education. Programming for both organizations including mentorship, literary study, service-learning, and school-community projects--designed and facilitated by Dr. Pabon—prepares BIPOC educators with crucial knowledge and skills for success as full-time faculty. In addition, Dr. Pabon’s leadership of faculty professional development on culturally responsive and sustaining educational competencies (CRSE) has been instrumental to fostering a more inclusive culture and climate in Kutztown’s College of Education.

Dr. Pabon’s critical qualitative research encompasses two strands: 1) the life histories of Black teachers; and 2) race-related trauma, coping, and healing among Black people. Her research has been published in well-respected peer-reviewed journals including The Multidisciplinary Journal of Education Research, The Journal of Negro Education, Educational Studies, Race, Ethnicity, and Education, Equity and Excellence in Education, and Urban Education. In addition, Dr. Pabon has presented her research at several major conferences including the International Conference on Urban Education, the National Council on Black Studies, the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit, and the American Educational Research Association.

Her forthcoming edited volume: Black women mothering and daughtering in a dual pandemic: Writing our Backs with Drs. Venus E. Evans Winters, Theresa Lawrence, and a host of other Black women scholars-practitioners will be released in Spring 2024.

  • PUBLICATIONS:
    • Pabon, A. & Basile, V. (2021). "It don't affect them like it affects us: Disenfranchised grief of Black boys in the wake of peer homicide." Urban Review. DOI: 10.1007/s11256-021-00605-2.
    • Pabon, A. (2019). "Can we say the ‘r’ word?: Identifying and disrupting colorblind epistemologies in a teacher education methods course." Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Education Studies Foundation.
    • Pabon, A. (2017). "In hindsight and now again: Black male teachers’ recollections and reflections on the suffering of Black male youth." Race, Ethnicity & Education. 20(6), 766-780.
    • Woodson, A. & Pabon, A. (2016). "'I’m none of the above': Exploring themes of heteropatriarchy in the life histories of Black male educators." Equity & Excellence in Education. 49(1), 57-71.
    • Pabon, A. (2016). "Waiting for Black Superman: A look at a problematic assumption about Black male teachers." Urban Education. 51(8).
    • Milner, R., Pabon, A, Woodson, A., McGhee, E. (2013). "Teacher education and Black male students in the United States." Multidisciplinary Journal of Education Research, 3(3), 235-263.
    • Pabon, A., Kharem, H., Anderson, N. (2011). "Minding the gap: Cultivating Black male
      teachers in a time of educational crisis." Journal of Negro Education, 80(3), 358-367.
    • Pabon, A. (2011) Creating an alternative teacher education program for urban
      Theory, Research & Action in Urban Education(1), 1.
  • REGULARLY TAUGHT COURSES:
    • EDU 100
    • EDU/MLS 428
    • EDU 436
    • EDU 496
    • EDU 500
    • EDU 528
    • EDU 541
    • EDU 597
    • SEU 592
    • SEU 540
    • EDD 720