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Erica Barnett-Southworth
erica barnett

Erica Barnett

Associate Professor of Teacher Education
Division of Education, Community & Global Engagement920-403-3203

Erica Barnett-Southworth is an associate professor in the teacher education program at St. Norbert College. She serves as an instructor, mentor and guide for pre-service teachers seeking license certification in grades K-12. Barnett-Southworth uses her previous experience as a full-service teacher in various school districts in Wisconsin to model educational pedagogies that deviate from rote learning. Her goal is to cultivate culturally sensitive educators who are reflective practitioners. She believes that pre-service teachers who achieve these outcomes prior to graduation will not only “survive” their first years as full-service teachers, but also thrive as effective educators.

Barnett-Southworth’s research interests focus on using content analysis to examine overall women’s agency and the agency of women of color in social studies textbooks to promote more gender-balanced curriculums. She introduces pre-service teachers to content analysis and elements of her research to assist them in developing critical review skills of curriculum materials, regardless of content area. She is a strong believer in undergraduate research opportunities and has enjoyed many successful study collaborations with student researchers.

  • SSCI 408 Social Inequalities
  • EDUC 226 Elementary/Middle School Social Studies Methods
  • EDUC 254 Instructional Methods for Adolescents
  • EDUC 278 Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies
  • EDUC 330 Classroom Management
  • EDUC 332 The Adolescent - Psychology & Methods in the Middle School

  • B.A. – University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
  • M.A. – Viterbo University, Wisconsin
  • Ph.D. – University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Barnett-Southworth, E.M., Dykhuis, N.*, & Titus, S. (2023). Ancient Religious Mothers Art Gallery. St. Norbert College Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/exhibit/ancient-mothers-art-gallery/.

Southworth, E.M. (2020). Pictures speak louder: Portraying early Middle Eastern religious women as “white” and “passive” in textbook imagery. In A. Hawkman & S. Shear (Eds.), Marking the Invisible: Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies Education (pp. 385-424). Information Age Publishing.

Southworth, E.M., Kempen, J., & Zielinski, M. (2018). Whose story is it, now? Re-examining women’s visibility in 21st century secondary world history textbooks. Teaching Social Studies, 19(2), 44-57.

Southworth, E.M. (2018). On the male fringes: How early religious women remain marginalized in world history textbooks. Social Studies Education Review (SSER) of the Georgia Council for the Social Studies (Summer 2018), 7(2), 15-38.