The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
Associate Director, Independent School Teaching Residency; Adjunct Assistant Professor
Charlotte E. Jacobs, as an associate director for the Independent School Teaching Residency program (ISTR), coordinates and designs the day school strand of this residency-based collaborative teacher education program. Dr. Jacobs also teaches a course on adolescent development in the Urban Teaching Residency program at Penn GSE.
Dr. Jacobs’ research interests focus on issues of identity development and gender in education concerning adolescent girls of color, teacher education and diversity, and youth participatory action research. To this end, Dr. Jacobs has recently co-authored the book Teaching Girls: How Teachers and Parents Can Reach Their Brains and Hearts (Rowman & Littlefield) with Penn GSE professor Dr. Peter Kuriloff and Penn GSE alum Dr. Shannon Andrus. The book focuses on how schools can support the development and educational needs of girls by adopting a gender conscious perspective. Dr. Jacobs has also co-authored and solo-authored journal articles that focus on the development of adolescent girls of color at the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. For these articles, Dr. Jacobs drew on her dissertation research, which focused on the schooling experiences of high school-aged Black girls who attend elite independent schools.
In addition to her role with the Independent School Teaching Residency program, Dr. Jacobs consults with schools about diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and also serves as the executive director of the Girls Justice League, a non-profit organization supporting the social, educational, and economic rights of girls in Philadelphia.