Dr. Alexander B. Pratt - Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research

About Dr. Pratt

Professor Pratt joined the the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Research in 2025. His classroom experience as an elementary teacher in Chicago Public Schools led him to pursue a PhD in education research to help develop pedagogical and curricular interventions to better support students in urban schools. His favorite subject to teach was/is social studies. At UM he teaches qualitative methods courses and supports the qualitative research studies of students and colleagues across campus.

Dr. Pratt’s research centers on teacher experience and knowledge particularly when it comes to enacting antiracist curricula in classroom spaces. His research includes work developing theories of agency and entanglement based in classical pragmatism, new materialism, and posthumanism, and his engagement with racism has led him to work in antiblackness, afropessimism, afrofuturism, marronage, and fugitivity. He is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the Curriculum and Pedagogy Group, and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. He has published peer-reviewed work in the Review of Research in Education, Educational Theory, Teaching and Teacher Education, The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Education

Bachelor of Arts in History, Beloit College Master of Arts in Teaching, National Louis University PhD, Critical and Socio-Cultural Studies in Education, University of Oregon