Lory Janelle Dance

Lory Janelle Dance received a B.A. degree in Government in 1985 from Georgetown University and the M.A. from Harvard University in 1991. In June of 1995, she received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard. She has worked as an instructor in the Social Studies and Sociology Departments at Harvard. She is presently employed as an associate professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. During the Spring semester of 2008, Dance will join the faculties of the Department of Sociology and the Institute of Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Dance's areas of interest include the sociology of education, urban sociology, youth cultures in cross-national comparisons, U.S. "race" and ethnic relations, intersectional and critical theory, and qualitative methods (with an emphasis on ethnographic research). Her most recent research project, funded by a fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a study of promising practices in schools in Sweden and the U.S. with a high percentage of immigrant students. The title of this cross-national comparative NSF study is the Children of Immigrants in Schools (Richard Alba, SUNY-Albany, PI). Dance is a member of the Swedish research team; the other nations included are the U.S., Great Britain, France, Spain, and Holland. Her most recent U.S. research, funded by a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, was conducted on site at two inner city schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She interviewed students, teachers, and community members to better understand the impact of small learning communities on ninth grade educational performance.

As a 2003/2004 Fulbright scholar, Dance spent the Spring semester of 2004 teaching at Lund University in Lund, Sweden. As a result of her Fulbright, she was invited back to Sweden during the Fall semester of 2004 to work as a guest researcher at Kalmar University in Kalmar, Sweden. While in Kalmar, Dance conducted pilot study on national belonging and ethnic identity among ethnic minority teenagers in Sweden funded by a grant from the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education. Dance currently holds a visiting scholar position at Kalmar University College and spends summers and semester breaks in Sweden.

Dance has authored several academic papers. She has also published articles and a book titled, Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling (Routledge, 2002). Book manuscripts in progress include: At Risk Near Harvard U. Working Class Teens and the Teachers They Love, and Black Strawberries: Teenagers, School Reform, and Urban Change in North Philly. She has been a guest lecturer and speaker at many universities in the United States, as well as at Universities in Germany and Sweden.