John B. Diamond

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

John B. Diamond is a sociologist of education who studies how race and social class intersect with school leadership, policies, and practices to shape the educational opportunities and outcomes of students. His recent research focuses on distributed leadership, educational policies and instruction, social class and black parents’ educational engagement, and organizational influences on teachers’ expectations of students. He is an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

At Radcliffe, Diamond will work on a manuscript in which he uses survey and interview data to examine issues of race, class, and opportunity in an affluent suburban high school. Contending with common explanations for racial achievement disparities, he will highlight the structural, institutional, and cultural forces that shape African American, Latino, and white students’ educational opportunities in this ostensibly integrated context. He will detail the subtle processes through which, even in “integrated” communities and schools, the educational terrain that students navigate is largely separate and unequal.

Diamond holds a BA in sociology and political science from the University of Michigan and a PhD in sociology from Northwestern University. He is a past recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and has received research awards from the National Science Foundation, the American Educational Research Association, and the Institute for Education Sciences. He has published widely in his areas of interest.