Meira Levinson

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

An active political theorist and full-time public middle-school teacher, Meira Levinson is deeply committed to the philosophy, principles, and practice of public education. In addition to her book The Demands of Liberal Education (Oxford University Press, 1999), which was recently released in paperback, she has published a number of articles and book chapters while teaching in the Atlanta and now Boston public schools. She is regularly invited to present work at conferences on political theory, philosophy of education, and in-service teaching. She also was recently appointed to the editorial board of the journal Theory and Research in Education.

During her Radcliffe fellowship, Levinson will write the first draft of a book on civic and multicultural education in all-minority settings. It will be structured as a set of interrelated essays, each using an example from Levinson’s experience teaching in urban, predominantly minority public schools as a foil for discussing a significant issue in political theory and educational policy. The book will establish a theory of civic and multicultural education in particular and of citizenship and multiculturalism more generally, especially as they intersect with issues of narrative, identity, legitimacy, and stability.

Levinson earned her doctorate in political theory at Oxford University. Recently, she was awarded a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Young Scholar Award from Cornell University’s Program in Ethics and Public Life.