Deirdre Mayer Dougherty

Meet Professor Dougherty

Dr. Deirdre Mayer Dougherty is an Associate Professor and chair of Educational Studies at Knox College, where she has taught since 2018. Her research examines educational inequality in the United States and internationally through historical and ethnographic methods.

Her scholarship focuses extensively on school desegregation and educational access. Her first two book projects explore school desegregation in Maryland and New Jersey from both historical and ethnographic perspectives. She is the author of Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George’s County, Maryland (Rutgers University Press, 2025) and co-author of Making School Integration Work: Lessons from Morris (Teachers College Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in the Journal of Urban History, Educational Studies, Media History, Annals of Iowa, and Whiteness and Education.

Since coming to Knox, Dougherty has developed a deep interest in local history and place-based learning. She has collaborated with students on community-engaged and immersive research projects, investigating topics ranging from the history of Knox College’s founders to the experiences of Mexican American students and communities in the Midwest. She served as a curriculum consultant for the Davenport Community School District, partnering with the University of Iowa Women’s Archives to bring local history into elementary classrooms. 

Her research and teaching have been recognized with numerous honors, including the Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2022), the Knox College Exceptional Achievement Award (2020), and grants from organizations such as the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

Before earning her Ph.D. in education from Rutgers University–New Brunswick in 2018, Dougherty taught 7th-grade language arts and adult basic education in Maryland. She also holds an M.A. in Latin American studies and anthropology from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Latin American studies from Smith College.

Years at Knox: 2018 to present

Email Professor Dougherty: dmdougherty@knox.edu

Education

Ph.D., Education (Theory, Organization, and Policy), 2018, Rutgers University—New Brunswick
M.A., Latin American Studies/Anthropology, 2008, Georgetown University
B.A., Latin American Studies, 2005, Smith College 

Selected Professional Accomplishments

Honors/Grants

2022, Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Excellence in Teaching

2021, State Historical Society of Iowa Research Grant, “Migrant Education and the Social Construction of Mexican-American Learners in Iowa,” $1000.

2020, Knox College Exceptional Achievement Award      

2016, Lord Baltimore Research Fellow, Maryland Center for Research and Culture, $1000.           

Books

Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2025. 

Trachtenburg, Paul, Allison Roda, Ryan Coughlan, and Deirdre Dougherty. Making School Integration Work: Lessons from Morris. New York: Teachers College Press, 2020.

Publications

“Mapping the Contours of Black Juvenile Delinquency: The Journal of Negro Education, 1945- 1975.” Journal of Urban History, 49:5 (2023), 995-1014.

 “‘Outside of the Environment of Anglo Schools’: Ethnic Mexican and Migrant Children and a New Age of Linguistic Rights in Iowa, 1950-1975.” Annals of Iowa, 82: 1 (2023): 3–40. 

“Urban Redevelopment, School Closure, and the Abstract Space of Black Schooling in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1968-1972.” Journal of Urban History, 46: 5 (2020): 1117–41.

Paul Trachtenberg, Ryan Coughlan, Allison Roda and Deirdre Dougherty. The Fertile Ground of School Integration: A Counter-Story to Segregated and Unequal Education, (Book under contract at Teacher’s College Press).

Deirdre Dougherty. “Urban Redevelopment, School Closure, and the Abstract Space of Black Schooling in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1968” (2019) Journal of Urban History.

Deirdre Dougherty and Sean Leavey. “Feeling Busing: The Washington Post, Emotion, and Desegregation in Suburban Maryland, 1968-1973,” (2019) Media History.

Deirdre Dougherty and Beth Rubin “Learning the Colonial Past in a Colonial Present: Students and Teachers Confront the Spanish Conquest in Post-Conflict Guatemala.” Educational Studies 52(3), 1–21.

Deirdre Dougherty. "From Classrooms to the Streets: Trump, DeVos, and Denial of Racism." Mid-Atlantic Education Review (2017), 5(1).

Presentations

With Walter Stern, Menika Dirkson, Max Felker-Kantor, Noah Remnick, Judith Kafka, and Matthew Kautz. Roundtable on Education and the Carceral State, Urban History Association Annual Meeting, 2023.

“Caring for the College: The Knox Faculty Wives, Reproductive Labor, and In/visibility, 1920-1980.” History of Education Annual Meeting, 2023

“‘This Child Is Rated X’: Juvenile Delinquents in Print and Film, 1945-1975.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, 2022.

 “From Margin to Center: Some Reflections from the Undergraduate Classroom.” History of Education Society Annual Meeting, 2021.

“Schools as Dangerous Spaces: Desegregation and Discipline in Sub/Urban Maryland, 1973-2012.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, 2021. 

“Theorizing Neighborhood: Race, Community, and Neighborhood Schools in Prince George’s County, 1969-1973,” Washington D.C. Historical Society Annual Conference, 2019.

Deirdre Dougherty “The Moral Geography of Busing: Prince George’s County, Maryland 1969 1973 Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, April 2019

Deirdre Dougherty “Pleasant Living Is an Everyday Fact of Life: School Desegregation in Suburban Maryland, 1950-1960 Paper presented at the History of Education Society Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 2018

Deirdre Dougherty. “A Genealogy of Danger: Some “Truths” about Desegregation in Suburban Maryland, 1967-2015” Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas, April 2017

Public Scholarship

“School Segregation in the Land of Lincoln” TEDx Talk, Knox College 2024. 

“School Segregation in the Land of Lincoln – The Abolition for All Time Digital Humanities Lab.” May 2023. 

“Nicer in Newtown: The Stories White Folks Tell about Place.” Why Is Newtown So White? (blog), April 2021.