Jessica G. Rigby
· Associate ProfessorVerifiedUniversity of Washington · Education
Active 2009–2025
About
Dr. Jessica G. Rigby is an Associate Professor in Education Policy, Organizations, & Leadership (EdPOL) at the University of Washington College of Education and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Systems Leadership for Math Improvement project. Her research employs lenses from organizational sociology to explore the role of school and district leaders in policy implementation, classroom instruction, teacher practice improvement, equity focus, and the influence of informal social networks. Dr. Rigby's current work specifically examines the organizational structures and learning needs that support school and district leaders' efforts toward school improvement, with a particular emphasis on antiracist, ambitious mathematics education. She holds a Bachelor's degree in History with High Honors from Oberlin College, a Master's degree in Education Policy from Stanford University, and a PhD in Policy, Organizations, Measurement, and Evaluation from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Rigby worked in schools as a middle and high school English and history teacher, leader, and researcher.
Research topics
- Computer Science
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Social Science
- Pedagogy
- Sociology
- Public relations
- Social psychology
- Mathematics
- Business
- Process management
- Programming language
- Mathematics education
- Gender studies
Selected publications
Families Leading Toward Racially Just and Ambitious Mathematics Teaching and Learning
2025-01-01
article1st authorCorresponding2024-01-01
article1st authorCorresponding2024-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingZenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-03-29 · 1 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingThis is the accepted manuscript version of the work published in its final form as Rigby J G., & Forman S. (2023). Leading for justice, leading for learning: Conceptualizing urban school leadership for antiracist mathematics teaching and learning. <em>Urban Education</em>, 004208592311629. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859231162907 Deposited by shareyourpaper.org and openaccessbutton.org. We've taken reasonable steps to ensure this content doesn't violate copyright. However, if you think it does you can request a takedown by emailing help@openaccessbutton.org.
Urban Education · 2023-03-29 · 4 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingUrban school leaders can support mathematics instruction that acknowledges and sustains students’ racialized and cultured ways of knowing and being. Yet, leadership for racial justice is often discussed separately from instructional improvement. In this conceptual inquiry, we investigate how leadership can integrate antiracist practices into teaching and learning. We synthesize justice-focused leadership and antiracist mathematics literatures to present a framework of interconnected leadership practices and elaborate on this vision through an example drawn from our collaboration with practitioners. This manuscript and framework provide precise descriptions of leadership actions to support practitioners and researchers seeking to support antiracist, ambitious mathematics instruction.
Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting · 2022-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingProceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting · 2022-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingSchool Leaders’ Use of Social-Emotional Learning to Disrupt Whiteness
Educational Administration Quarterly · 2021 · 23 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Sociology
- Sociology
- Political Science
Purpose: This article examines how school leaders connect Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) with anti-racist practices. Current literature has yet to explain how leaders support race conscious approaches to SEL that promote marginalized students’ well-being, particularly with White teachers who often resist learning about race and Whiteness. Research Approach: We conducted a qualitative study of three leaders in one district in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. The first data collection and analysis phase drew from interviews, observations, and artifacts from a larger study to identify anti-racist SEL intersections and the leaders associated with these intersections. In the second phase, we conducted additional interviews with three leaders and performed a critical frame analysis to characterize the frames used by leaders to shape what SEL means and who it serves. Findings: We describe three anti-racist SEL intersections in which leaders made explicit connections between SEL and broader anti-racist goals within their work with White teachers. We found that leaders framed SEL strategically to address White teachers’ emotions, and as tools teachers might use to understand and address students’ racialized classroom experiences Implications: Findings provide illustrative examples of leadership that connects anti-racist practice with SEL and explore how leaders’ novel understanding of SEL and anti-racism undergirds this leadership approach.
A View From the Field: The Process of Improving Equitable Systems Leadership
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting · 2020 · 3 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Computer Science
- Computer Science
- Process management
Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education · 2020 · 8 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Computer Science
- Political Science
- Mathematics education
Background/Context When new, rigorous standards are adopted, teachers often need to learn new content and new ways of teaching while concurrently attending to accountability demands. Both formal and informal school structures potentially enable this new learning, and school leaders likely influence the nature of these structures. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study We examine teachers’ learning opportunities in one school by asking the following research questions: (1) What is the nature of changes in teachers’ formal learning opportunities, as seen by changes in teachers’ workgroup conversations about mathematics instruction? (2) In what ways do school leaders shape the nature of instructional conversations, and thus formal learning opportunities, in teacher workgroups? (3) What is the nature of changes in teachers’ informal opportunities to learn, as seen by shifts in informal advice networks? Research Design This is a longitudinal case study using mixed methods: qualitative analysis of audio-recorded teacher workgroup meetings and quantitative analysis of informal social networks. Data Collection and Analysis This analysis is a part of a larger eight-year longitudinal study, the Middle-school Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST). Data used in this analysis were collected over a three-year period in one middle school that was working to improve mathematics instruction by focusing on teaching mathematics conceptually and building procedural fluency. Data used in this analysis include audio-recorded teacher workgroup meetings, informal social network surveys, interview transcripts, and student-level standardized test scores. Findings/Results We found that formally, school leaders shifted teachers’ workgroup conversations away from instructional matters to those of standardized tests. Informally, teachers stopped going to each other for instructional advice. Triangulating interview data confirmed that over time, pressure that teachers felt to do well on the standardized tests shifted their attention away from a conceptual approach to instruction and toward an emphasis on test preparation. Conclusions/Recommendations Our findings suggest that school leaders must be involved in new learning about standards and instruction to appropriately support teachers’ learning opportunities.
Recent grants
Frequent coauthors
- 6 shared
Stephanie Forman
University of Washington
- 4 shared
Katie J. Kuhl
University of Washington
- 4 shared
Rebecca Corriell
Seattle University
- 3 shared
I‐Chien Chen
Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital
- 2 shared
Rebecca M. Lewis
University of California, San Francisco
- 2 shared
Adrian Larbi-Cherif
Global Strategy Group
- 2 shared
Greta Kirschenbaum
- 2 shared
Paul Cobb
Vanderbilt University
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