Knox County School MLK Teacher In-Service Training Facilitator.
GINA BARCLAY-MCLAUGHLIN, PH.D.
University of Tennesses, Knoxville
College of Education, Health and Human Science
Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education
Urban Multicultural Program
A415 Bailey Education Complex
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-3442
Office Phone (865) 974-3435 or 865-974-0443, FAX (865) 974-8718
E-mail: gmclaugh@utk.edu
Gina Barclay-McLaughlin is an associate professor in the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a member of the Urban Multicultural Program. She teaches a range of educational courses, serves as principal investigator for several research projects, and coordinates the practicum and year-long internship program. Gina is actively involved in working groups and committees at the university, local, state, and national levels addressing issues of poverty, social and educational justice, diversity, multiculturalism and immigration. At the College level she serves on the International and Intercultural Council and chairs the International-Intercultural Committee for the department.
In 1965 following completion of her undergraduate studies, Gina was among the first group of teachers across the country hired to work with Head Start children during the War on Poverty. Over the years, she has worked with Head Start programs on a local, regional, and national level in a variety of positions. She was a Zero To Three Fellow (1991-1993) and later a National Head Start Fellow (1998-1999) where she worked for the Commissioner's Office for Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children, Youth and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Gina Barclay-McLaughlin is the founding director of the Beethoven Project, a comprehensive early intervention and research demonstration project designed to serve children 0-5 and their families. The program served as a national demonstration model and pioneer for the Comprehensive Child Development Program, Early Head Start, and numerous state and local early intervention programs across the country and abroad. The program served the country's largest public housing project and provided her with a unique opportunity to learn from children and families living in severe poverty and to increase her understanding of the influence of poverty and its correlates on child development, learning, and family functioning.
In 1990, Gina enrolled in the Combined Program of Education and Psychology for graduate studies at the University of Michigan. Upon completion, she served as a Senior Research Associate for several years at Chapin Hall Center for Children, a research and development institute at the University of Chicago. She has participated in numerous studies and projects linked to urban poverty, education, families, and immigration. Among her many publications, she is a contributing author for the book, Coping with Poverty: The Social Contexts of Neighborhood, Work, and Family in the African-American Community, published in July 2000, where she introduced the concept communal isolation. Neighborhoods experience communal isolation when residents are denied access to a communal system of support. The long-standing tradition of caring and support is no longer a viable resource for healthy functioning and neighbors seem reluctant to trust or share as they did in the past. Instead, they withdraw from each other and from available opportunities for tangible and intangible resources and support. Gina's work on communal interdependence and isolation is an attempt to examine the nature and role of support in changing contexts (i.e., family, neighborhood, community, economic, social) and the ways such changes influence child development and student learning and achievement.
Gina has conducted a number of studies and participated in a range of intervention initiatives. They include: the Paternal Involvement Project, Partnerships for Neighborhood Initiatives, the Children, Youth, and Families Initiative sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust, the Full Family Partnership sponsored by Jobs for Youth, the Urban Impact Initiative, Literacy Collaborative, and Project IMPACT. Most recently, she was a contributing author for an article in Theory Into Practice featuring cultural autobiographies and oral histories as a tool for pre- and in-service teachers serving urban schools.