Raquel Farmer-Hinton, PhD

Dr. Raquel Farmer-Hinton is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Community Studies. She is a scholar of urban education, and, for over 20 years, she has conducted research on urban policies, schools, and communities.

As a scholar, Dr. Farmer-Hinton has a core interest in the historical and contemporary racialized policies and practices that intentionally limit Black and Brown students and communities in the quest for educational equity. Importantly, she has forged a research agenda that challenges what we have come to accept about Black and Brown students and an agenda that generates expanded possibilities by centering the lived experiences of Black and Brown communities.

Noteworthy projects include investigations related to a) college-going cultures in high schools, b) social capital toward college planning for high school students, c) best practices used in non-selective college preparatory schools, and d) the role of promise scholarship programs toward college planning.

Raised and educated in East St. Louis, Illinois, Dr. Farmer-Hinton has also worked with three fellow scholars, also reared in East St. Louis, on a response to Kozol’s (1991) Savage Inequalities utilizing Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth model (SUNY Press, 2023; Urban Education, 2022; Teachers College Record, 2013).

Since becoming a faculty member, she has authored or co-authored publications using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Further, Dr. Farmer-Hinton has received research awards and/or served as the principal investigator on grants from the American Educational Research Association, Educational Testing Service, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Wisconsin Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

As a professor, Dr. Farmer-Hinton teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on research methods, sociology of education, urban education, and cultural foundations of education (online and face-to-face). At UWM, she coordinates the Alternative Education Certificate Program. Additionally, for 9 years, she served on the Steering Committee of The UChicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (including three years as the Co-Chair of the Steering Committee).

Dr. Farmer-Hinton received her BS in Psychology, and her MS and PhD in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She previously held positions as a Spencer Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, and a research associate at Westat in Rockville, Maryland.

Selected Publications

Farmer-Hinton, R., & Closson, P. (2023). Reimagining education away from the merry-go-round. Educational Studies, 59(2), 206-220. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2023.2181809

Patton, L. D., Rivers, I. D., Farmer-Hinton, R. L., & Lewis, J. D. (Eds.). (2023). Reauthoring savage inequalities: Narratives of community cultural wealth in urban educational environments. State University of New York Press. https://sunypress.edu/Books/R/Reauthoring-Savage-Inequalities

Rivers, I. D., D. Patton, L., Farmer-Hinton, R., & Lewis, J. D. (2022). That wasn’t my reality: Counter-narratives of educational success as East St. Louis’ educators “reimagine” savage inequalities. Urban Education, 57(3), 335-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920987283

Farmer-Hinton, R., & Kellogg, B. T. (2022). Incentives and existing stratification: Social capital, college planning, and a promise scholarship program. Teachers College Record, 124(2), 60-84. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221086427

Farmer-Hinton, R. & Rifelj, K. (2018). Clearing clogs in the pipeline: College readiness for all in Chicago and Milwaukee. In B. Smerdon, K. Kim, and C. Alfed (Eds.) College and Career Readiness and Success: What Do We Know and How Do We Measure It? Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Career-and-College-Readiness-and-Success-for-All-Students

Harris, D., Farmer-Hinton, R., Kim, D., Diamond, J., Blakely-Reavis, T., Rifelj, K., Lustick, H. & Carl, B. (2018). The promise of free college (and its potential pitfalls): Evidence on the design, implementation, and effects of “free college” and performance-based college aid from a randomized control trial. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GS_9202018_Free-College.pdf

Bryan, J., Farmer-Hinton, R., Rawls, A., and Woods, C. (2017). Social capital and college-going culture in high schools: The effects of college expectations and college talk on students’ postsecondary attendance. Professional School Counseling, 21(1), 95-107. https://doi.org/10.5330/1096-2409-21.1.95

Farmer-Hinton, R., Lewis, J.D., Patton, L.D., and Rivers, I. D. (2013). Dear Mr. Kozol…Four African American women scholars and the re-authoring of Savage Inequalities. Teachers College Record, 115(5), 1-38 https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811311500501

Farmer-Hinton, R. (2011). On being college prep: Examining the implementation of a "college for all" mission in an urban charter school. The Urban Review, 43(5), 567-596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-010-0168-4

Farmer-Hinton, R. (2008). Social capital and college planning: Students of color using school networks for support and guidance. Education and Urban Society, 41(1), 127-157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124508321373

Farmer-Hinton, R. (2006). On becoming college prep: Examining the challenges staff members face in executing a school’s mission. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1214-1240. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00691.x

Farmer-Hinton, R. (2002). The Chicago context: Understanding the consequences of urban processes on school capacity. The Journal of Negro Education, 71(4), 313-330. https://doi.org/10.2307/3211183