Rate My Professor Alexandra Aylward

Alexandra Aylward, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno's College of Education and Human Development. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology of Education from New York University in May 2018, where she served as a graduate research assistant with the Technical Assistance Center for Disproportionality at the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. Aylward's research examines the relationship between context and persistent racial inequities in the U.S. educational system through a sociological and intersectional lens that accounts for identities as axes of marginalization, oppression, and privilege across contexts. She employs critical quantitative analytical methods to study how social contextual factors, school leadership, and structural inequities relate to racial/ethnic opportunity gaps in education, particularly in special education, including identification, discipline, and compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) policy.

Prior to her appointment at the University of Nevada, Reno, Aylward held a Research Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin's Texas Education Leadership Lab, addressing diversity and equity in K-12 educational leadership, investigating contextual influences on promotion and retention patterns contributing to inequities, and supporting school districts with data-informed decision-making to better serve students and educators. Her peer-reviewed publications appear in journals such as Sociology of Education, American Educational Research Journal, and Journal of Disability Policy Studies, focusing on school-level contextual factors and their temporal changes in relation to racial/ethnic disproportionality in special education. Notable works include "Unpacking the logic of compliance in special education: Contextual influences on discipline racial disparities in suburban schools" (Sociology of Education, 2021) and "The aftermath of disproportionality citations: Situating disability-race intersections in historical, spatial, and sociocultural contexts" (American Educational Research Journal, 2023). Her expertise has been featured in The Dallas Morning News.