Janie Ward is an associate professor at Simmons College, where she is chair of the Africana Studies department. She is also co-director, along with Wendy Luttrell, of Project ASSERT, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As a researcher, her work focuses on adolescent development, particularly the racial identity and moral development of African American girls and boys. She is author of The Skin We're In: Teaching our Children to be Emotionally Strong, Socially Smart and Spiritually Connected, Free Press, 2000, and Gender and Teaching, with Francis Maher, Lawrence Erlbaum Publications, 2001. She also co-edited Souls Looking Back: Life Stories of Growing Up Black, Routledge, 1999. She has written numerous book chapters and articles and made many media guest appearances. She holds a doctorate in human development and psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied with Carol Gilligan.
Project ASSERT (Assessing Strengths and Supporting Effective Resistance in Teaching) Project ASSERT is a five-year research and curriculum development project based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Its aim is to create curricular materials that provide guidance and assistance to adults around gender, race, and class dynamics that impact their work with youth. Specifically, it is designed to provide guidance for adults in listening to and talking with young people about how to identify, name, and resist injurious cultural constructions and biases—of gender, race, and class.
