Andrew O. del Calvo

Dr. Andrew O. del Calvo is an Assistant Professor of Urban Teacher Education at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. His work explores justice-oriented social studies teacher education and asset-based approaches to civic literacy teaching and learning, with a particular focus on writing in secondary social studies classrooms.

Dr. del Calvo’s scholarship seeks to create a bridge between social studies learning and students’ lived experiences and identities. He builds this bridge by co-designing and investigating learning experiences for teachers and students, using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on literature from teacher education, history education, literacy studies, sociolinguistics, and critical social justice studies in education. His research program is oriented around three main questions: 1) How do early-career social studies teachers develop as practitioners of culturally sustaining writing instruction?; 2) How can youth voices be integrated into teacher education to support novice social studies teachers in learning to enact justice-oriented instruction?; and 3) How can social studies teachers support students in writing civically engaged histories that connect the past, present, and self?

Previously, Dr. del Calvo was a high school social studies teacher in New York City public schools. His experiences as a classroom teacher continue to inform his research program and his focus on supporting teachers in realizing their own visions for justice-oriented social studies teaching.