Lori Delale-O’Connor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy. Additionally, she is serving as an Interim Co-Director of the school’s Center for Urban Education.
She currently teaches courses in qualitative methods, urban education, and the social contexts of education. Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s research focuses on examining the connections between families, communities, and education across spaces with a particular focus on fostering equity and justice for children and youth in urbanized educational systems.
Dr. Delale-O’Connor earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University where she was also a certificate fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences — a pre-doctoral training program funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. She also holds an M.Ed. in secondary education from Boston College, where she was a Donovan Urban Scholar and taught secondary social studies in the Boston Public Schools. Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s research has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education, among other outlets. She is also co-author of the 2019 book, “These Kids Are Out of Control”: Why We Must Reimagine “Classroom Management” for Equity (Sage Publications).
Dr. Delale-O’Connor’s work has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Prior to joining the School of Education, Dr. Delale-O’Connor was a research scientist at Child Trends, a non-profit research center focused on improving the well-being of children across the lifespan.
Iriti, J., Delale-O’Connor, L., Sherer, J.Z., Stol, T., Davis, D., Matthis, C., Lowry, D., & Legg, A.S. (2024). Adapting Improvement Science Tools and Routines to Build Racial Equity in Out-of-School Time STEM Spaces. Frontiers in Education Special Issue: Situating Equity at the Center of Continuous Improvement in Education, Volume 9
https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1434813,
+ Shared first authorship
Delale-O’Connor, L., Allen, A., Ball, M., Boone, D., Gonda, R., Iriti, J., & Slinskey Legg, A. (2021). Broadening equity through recruitment: Pre-college STEM program recruitment in literature and practice. Connected Science Learning. https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-november-december-2021/broadening-equity
Huguley, J., Delale-O’Connor, L., Wang, M-T., & *Parr, A. (2021). African American parents’ educational engagement in urban schools: Contextualized strategies for student success in adolescence. Educational Researcher, 50(1): 6-16. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x20943199
+ Featured in the Marshall Memo (2/22/2021, Issue 875)
Delale-O’Connor, L., Huguley, J., *Parr, A., & Wang, M-T. (2020). Racialized compensatory cultivation: Centering race in parental educational engagement and enrichment. American Educational Research Journal, 57(5), 1912-1953. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219890575
Delale-O’Connor, L. & *Graham, D. L. (2019). Teachers’ talk about race and caregiver support: “You can NEVER be too sure about parents.” Urban Education, 54(4), 499-534. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918806941
Featured in Education Week https://www.edweek.org/leadership/are-parents-ok-with-talking-about-race-in-the-classroom-teachers-are-unsure/2018/11
Delale-O’Connor, L., Huguley, J., & Wang, M-T. (2025). Black caregivers’ educational strategies to avoid and disrupt potential pathways toward criminal (In)justice. In Bennett, J.Z., McGuire, C.L., Delale-O’Connor, L., Dancy, T.E., and Vaught, S. (Eds) (submitted & forthcoming, 2025). Black freedom struggle in urban Appalachia. University of Kentucky Press.
Bennett, J.Z., McGuire, C.L., Delale-O’Connor, L., Dancy, T.E., and Vaught, S. (Eds) (2025). Black freedom struggle in urban Appalachia. University of Kentucky Press.
Delale-O’Connor, L., & Milner, IV, H. R. (2016). Disrupting dangerous narratives in early childhood education. In Being black is not a risk factor: Statistics and strengths-based solutions in the state of Pennsylvania (pp. 4-7). Black Childhood Development Institute. https://www.nbcdi.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/Being%20Black%20is%20Not%20a%20Risk%20Factor%20Statistics%20and%20Strengths-Based%20Solutions%20in%20the%20State%20of%20Pennsylvania.pdf
