Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Ph.D

Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, PhD, currently an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Clemson University, is a self-described motherscholar, critical pragmatist, and liberation theologian.  Crawford’s scholarship focuses on equity and inclusion for marginalized students across the P-20 pipeline as well as how research, particularly improvement science, can be leveraged as methodological tools to catalyze justice.  Brandi’s research uses quantitative and qualitative traditions to illuminate the experiences and opportunities of minoritized students and educators.  Her quantitative scholarship is informed by QuantCrit where she is careful to use a critical lens and not add to discourses that reify deficit narratives about marginalized populations.

In her 2020 book: Improvement Science in Education A Primer, she reconceptualizes improvement as a pursuit of justice.  She asks scholars and scholar practitioners to consider equity not only as an outcome of improvement but to ensure equity in the process by continuously asking who is involved (who is defining the agenda, who is given decision making authority) andwho is impacted (who benefits and who bears the burden of the work). From teaching in the rural south, to working in central office in the urban northeast, to conducting research across the county, she remains committed to providing equitable opportunities to learn for all students (preK to graduate degree).  Brandi seeks to do the work her God and her soul require, her ancestors approve, and her children deserve.