Education
- BS in Language Arts Education, Tuskegee University
- MEd in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership, Vanderbilt University Peabody College
- PhD in Language, Literacy and Sociology, Vanderbilt University
Area of Expertise
- Discussions of “race”
- Contemporary African American Studies
- Discourse Analysis
- Teacher Education
- Content Area Literacy
- Sociolinguistics
Professional Highlights
- 2027 AERA Program Co-Chair
- Chair, The Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English for the National Council of Teachers of English. (2024-2027)
- Editor — Racial Literacies Informed by the Sociopolitical and Sociocultural Contexts for Youth
- Co-Editor — Critical Consciousness in Curricular Research: Evidence from the Field
- Equity Fellow- The Great Lakes Equity Center
- Founding Member — The World Congress of Applied Linguistics on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
- Trustee to the Research Foundation for the National Council of Teachers of English
- National Science Foundation $1.3 million Grant Award for Culturally Relevant & Sustaining STEM Teachers
Dr. Ayanna F. Brown earned her B.S from Tuskegee University in Secondary Education Language Arts, her M.Ed in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership, and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Interdisciplinary Studies: Language, Literacy, and Sociology. Her career in education spans both public and private organizations, including teaching Middle-Level English Language Arts and leading college readiness planning for urban youth. Her research explores discussions of race and the linguistic codes that reflect and expand speech communities. More specifically, her scholarship examines literacy practices as a pretext for racial literacies and their significance for how students make sense of content knowledge development in everyday life. Her current research explores racial literacies among African American elder communities in the South and their uses of narrative employed to discuss race. Her work disentangles the fluidity of pedagogies that represent: (a) dialogism, (b) reflexivity, and (c) context within social, political, moral, and economic structures.
Dr. Brown is the author of several peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and is the editor of Racial Literacies Informed by the Sociopolitical and Sociocultural Contexts for Youth (2022). Her most recent editorial work focuses on African immigrant literacies, entitled ,” Diasporic Tellings of Race, Literacies, Joys, and Geographies in the Lives of Black African Immigrant Youth” a community scholarly effort with Watson, Smith, and Brown (2024). In 2026, Dr. Brown co-authored several publications based on years of research focused on reading comprehension and social meaning. These publications are as follows:
- Bloome, D., Brown, A.F., Hong, H. & Pinto, M.B. (2026). Reading comprehension as intertextual practice: Building meaning together. Routledge.
- Bloome, D., Brown, A. F., & Pinto, M. B. (2026). Reading comprehension as social practice(s) in social events. In S. E. Israel (Ed.), Handbook of research on reading comprehension (3rd ed.). Routledge.
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Pinto, M.B., Hong, H.,Brown, A.F, Bloome, D. (Forthcoming). Reading comprehension as jazz practice. Talking Points, Volume (Issue), XXX.
In addition to engaging in research and advocacy nationwide, Dr. Brown has presented her scholarship on four continents. Over her nearly 30-year career in both public and private education, Dr. Brown has taught in Metro Nashville Public Schools, developed curricula and programs for school partnerships, and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Brown is presently the 2027 AERA Co-Program Chair and also serves as Chair for The Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) among several other national leadership appointments in the teaching and research fields.
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