Lynnette Mawhinney is Chair of the Department of Urban Education and Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark. She is also affiliated faculty in the Africana Studies Department. Her love for teaching has always been a deep passion. She started her teacher training at Penn State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education/English and Communications, with a minor in Movement Science to use for athletic training with youth and adults. Later, she earned her Masters and Ph.D. in Urban Education at Temple University.
As a seasoned educator, Dr. Mawhinney is proud to have taught within many diverse populations from the American Indian reservations of South Dakota to urban Philadelphia. She has taught in a range of urban educational contexts, including middle school, high school, undergraduate, graduate, and GED and employment training programs for TANF (formerly known as Welfare) recipients and dislocated workers. For the last ten years, she has conducted teacher training in the U.S., Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, and Egypt.
In 2013, Dr. Mawhinney was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Core Scholar award. For the award, she spent one academic year (2013-2014) as Associate Professor of Educational Psychology teaching courses in educational trends and issues, action research, and child and adolescent development at Bahrain Teachers College in The University of Bahrain. In 2018, Dr. Mawhinney received the American Educational Research Association’s Division K award for Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education. In 2020, Dr. Mawhinney was the recipient of the American Educational Studies Association’s Critics Choice Book Award for There Has to be a Better Way: Lessons from Former Urban Teachers
Dr. Mawhinney’s publications are as international as her teaching experience. She has published extensively in both U.S. and internationally focused peer-reviewed journals. She is the author of There Has to be a Better Way: Lessons from Former Urban Teachers and We Got Next: Urban Education and the Next Generation of Black Teachers and co-editor Teacher Education Across Minority-Serving Institutions: Programs, Policies, and Social Justice and Opportunities and Challenges in Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Teachers’ Voices Across the Pipeline, and Strong Black Girls: Reclaiming Schools in Their Own Image. Dr. Mawhinney is also co-editor of the book series, Contemporary Perspectives on the Lives of Teachers: Opportunities and Challenges, with Information Age Press.
Aside from academic books, Dr. Mawhinney is also a children’s book author. Her book, Lulu the One and Only, received an acclaimed starred Kirkus Review. Imagination Soup labeled the book as one of the best picture books of 2020. The book has received a Mom’s Choice Award in 2020 , the Notable Social Studies Trade Book Award by the National Council for Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council, and the Multicultural Children’s Publication Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education.
Dr. Mawhinney’s research focuses on the retention and recruitment of teachers of color and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in K-12 urban schools.
