“Somewhere along the line, it just clicked for me. I saw myself in one social identity as the recipient of discrimination and then, as a white person, the recipient of privilege."

--Kelly Maxwell 

Dr. Andrea M. Hawkman (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Content Area Teacher Education in the College of Education at Rowan University. Her research focuses on the enactment of racialized pedagogies in the PK-20 classroom. Recently, her work has examined the ways that whiteness influences teaching, learning, and identity development through social studies curriculum, pedagogy, and media. She draws upon critical theories of race and queer theories to engage in her efforts as a teacher, researcher, colleague, mentor, and parent. Hawkman's research has been featured in several peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and practitioner-focused venues. Recent publications have appeared in Social Education, Teaching Education, The Urban Review, Theory and Research in Social Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, Whiteness & Education, and twice featured on the Visions of Education podcast. She is the co-editor of Marking the “Invisible”: Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies Education, published by Information Age Publishing in 2020. To date, Hawkman has contributed to research projects receiving more than $470,000 in grant funding. 

Prior to joining the professoriate, Hawkman taught high school social studies (US history, world history, history through film, and Advanced Placement US History) and coached basketball and softball in a rural Missouri community from 2008-2013. While she didn't possess a full understanding of this at the time, she recognized that as a product of school systems and communities established out of white flight, her PK-12 educational experiences lacked critical engagement with histories and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other Peoples of Color and were silent regarding the existence of LGBTQ+ people. In 2011, she pursued a master’s degree in educational administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. During this program, she was exposed to the work of critical education scholars whose work identified the ways that the educational system is designed to protect white, cisgender and heteronormative ways of knowing, learning, and leading. Hawkman found hope in working with teachers to disrupt this reality through curriculum (re)design and professional development. Therefore, in 2013, she began a PhD program focused on learning, teaching, and curriculum at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). 

From 2017-2022, Hawkman was an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education and Cultural Studies in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University (USU) where she taught courses in teacher education, cultural studies, and research methods. In 2019, Hawkman was named Researcher of the Year within the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at USU and in 2020 she was named an inaugural research fellow at the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research. In addition, she served as Chair of the Social Studies Research SIG of the American Education Research Association (AERA) in 2020-21, the culmination of a three year term on the executive board.  

Since joining Rowan University in 2022, Hawkman has continued her efforts in justice-centered education and research. As a teacher educator, Hawkman supports students in the development of racial literacy and racial pedagogical decision making. These efforts are grounded in justice-centered pedagogies that call teachers to decenter whiteness and to recognize the power and agency they possess inside and beyond the classroom. Hawkman’s ongoing scholarship attends to the ways that whiteness studies and queer studies interact within social studies curriculum and pedagogy and building preservice teacher agency for advancing justice-centered practices in their future classrooms amidst ever-changing sociopolitical contexts.  In 2026, Hawkman began a three-year term as Chair of the Department of Content Area Teacher Education at Rowan University. 

Beyond work at Rowan, Hawkman is an avid sports fan, music lover, and a so-so baker. She also enjoys traveling and spending time with her family.

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