Mavis Sanders

Mavis G. Sanders is a senior principal researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, where she focuses on education policy, equity, and reform.

Education Sanders received a Bachelor's in Urban Studies with a concentration in political science and teaching certification in social studies from Barnard College in 1987. She received a Master's in Sociology from Stanford University in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences, Policy, and Educational Practice from Stanford in 1995.

Career From 1987 through 1989 Sanders taught social studies and English in Papua New Guinea in the Peace Corps.

Sanders was faculty at Johns Hopkins University and a research scientist at Hopkins' Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk. She was director of Hopkins' Urban Education program and assistant director of the National Network of Partnership Schools. In 2011, she received Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award.

She was also a professor of education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and from 2017 to 2021 was inaugural director of UMBC’s Sherman Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities.

In 2021 she moved to Washington DC research institute Child Trends as a senior research scholar.

Reception In 2003 Pamela S. Angelle reviewed Schooling Students Placed at Risk (2000) in the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk.

In reviewing Sanders' 2005 Building School-Community Partnerships (reprinted in 2015), Soo Hong, writing in the Harvard Educational Review, said educators would find her work "a refreshing change." Hong notes that Sanders "makes two important distinctions as she lays the groundwork for her book: that community is not constrained by the geographical boundaries of neighborhoods, and that parental involvement — a part of community involvement — is not the focus of her book" and that the book challenges educators to work in ways that "move beyond a mere focus on parental involvement" and offers multiple concrete actionable ways to do so. Hrabowski, F. & Sanders, M. (2015, Winter). Strengthening Diversity in the Teaching Force: One University’s Perspective. Thought & Action (The NEA Higher Education Journal), 32, 101-116.