Bettie Ray Butler, PhD is an Associate Professor of Urban Education and the Director of the M.Ed. in Urban Education program at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Butler is also the Associate Editor for the Journal of African American Women and Girls in Education (JAAWGE), a research journal devoted to advancing scholarship and praxis. She currently serves as a Content Specialist for the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: The Collaborative (NTACT:C) where she leads initiatives centered around culturally responsive practices. Dr. Butler earned her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Urban Education and her master’s in Political Science with a concentration in Public Policy/Public Administration and Race and Education at Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas). She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Political Science and Criminal Justice with a minor in Journalism and Mass Communications. She currently teaches both core and specialized courses in the Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. program at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. She has also taught undergraduate and master’s level courses that center on equity and diversity in education and teacher preparation. Dr. Butler has nearly 20 years of scholarly experience in the area of social justice and education reform, as well as, 18 years of teaching and presenting on diversity in education using an interdisciplinary approach. Dr. Butler has facilitated numerous professional development workshops, led multiple national webinars, presented at international and national conferences, and published several peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, toolkits, and policy reports. Her publications have appeared in nationally recognized publishing outlets such as Teachers College Press, Routledge, Peter Lang Publishers, and Emerald Group Publishing; and her work featured in academic journals, such as, Journal of Negro Education, The Urban Review, Theory into Practice, Multicultural Perspectives, Teachers College Record, and The Journal for Multicultural Education (recipient of the 2019 Emerald Literati Award for Outstanding Paper/Article). She is the lead editor of the book Mentoring While White (2022) and co-editor of the book Unsilencing Youth Trauma (2022). Broadly, her larger interdisciplinary research interests focus on issues of culturally responsive practices (i.e., instruction, classroom management, leadership, advising/mentoring, and transition planning). More specifically, Dr. Butler’s specialized area of interest is in restorative practices. Through this work she uses a restorative philosophy to improve school/institutional climate, reduce educational disparities and positively impact academic and socioemotional outcomes.
Last modified: August 31, 2022
