Bianca J. Baldridge is a sociologist of education who studies the socio-political context of community-based youth work and afterschool education.

Bianca’s research critically examines the confluence of race, class, and gender, and its impact on educational reforms that shape community-based spaces that engage Black and Latinx youth. She explores the organizational and pedagogical practices employed by youth workers/community-based educators amidst neoliberal education restructuring.

Her book, with Stanford University Press, Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work, examines how market-based education reforms, with its emphasis on privatization and accountability, undermines Black community-based organizations’ efforts to support comprehensive youth development opportunities.

As a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Bianca’s current research studies how racial discourse shapes community-based spaces that engage Black youth in predominantly white cities that espouse a liberal and progressive ethos. Bianca’s research has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Review of Research in Education, Teachers College Record, Contemporary Sociology, and Race, Ethnicity, and Education. Bianca’s experiences as a community-based youth worker in domestic and international contexts continue to inform her research in profound ways.