Marisa Cannata, a post-doctoral fellow at ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ University’s of education and human development, has been awarded the , Division L (Education Policy and Politics) Outstanding Dissertation of the Year.
The national award will be presented at the organization’s annual conference on March 25 in New York City.
Her dissertation, “Where to Teach? Developing a More Comprehensive Framework to Understand Teacher Career Decision,” was completed at in 2007 with support from a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. It considers how teachers come to work in particular schools, their preferences for schools and how their career decisions relate to their social and cultural background.
According to the dissertation award committee chair, “the reviewers thought the work was highly original in its use of theory to explain teacher labor market decisions and in its creative use and analysis of mixed methods data.”
Cannata is a research associate at the at ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ and part of a -funded project on new middle school mathematics teachers’ induction experiences. She focuses on issues of teacher quality, including teachers’ career decisions, work experiences, professional community and hiring. Cannata also considers how teacher qualifications and work experiences vary between charter and traditional public schools.
She has recently published peer-reviewed articles in and .
Cannata is the second Peabody researcher to win the top AERA top dissertation award in their respective field this year.
Christopher Loss, assistant professor of public policy and higher education, won the award for the post-secondary division.
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