Ernest Morrell is an associate professor in the Urban Schooling division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS) and Associate Director for Youth Research at the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) at the University of California at Los Angeles. For more than a decade he has worked with adolescents, drawing on their involvement with popular culture to promote academic literacy development. Morrell is also interested in the applications of critical pedagogy in urban education and working with teens as critical researchers. Morrell is the author of three books, Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding Connections for Lifelong Learning (Christopher-Gordon) and Becoming Critical Researchers: Literacy and Empowerment for Urban Youth (Peter Lang), and Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation (Routledge) due out in Fall 2007. In addition to these books, Morrell has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and national and international conference presentations Morrell’s research has been sponsored and awarded on several occasions including receiving the outstanding dissertation award from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education and being awarded a postdoctoral research grant from the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Morrell has been invited to give numerous keynote addresses on his work on popular culture and literacy achievement for urban adolescents to postsecondary institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, DePaul University, Barnard University, Simmons University, Columbia University, and New York University; research organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English Assembly for Research, the National Reading Conference, the Black Education Alliance of Massachusetts, the Michigan Reading Association, and the Michigan Council of teachers of English, private foundations such as the HOPE Foundation, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation; and local school districts and schools throughout the nation, including work with Boston Public School teachers through the Boston Plan for Excellence in Education. Morrell is currently involved in a research project examining the applications of critical pedagogy in several classrooms across Los Angeles. He is also involved in a summer seminar where urban teens conduct research project in local neighborhoods and schools.

Morrell previously taught English for six years at Oakland High school in Northern California where he was nominated five times for “Who’s Who Among America’s High School Teachers” and was recognized by the Oakland Unified School District, Oakland Community Organizations, US Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and the California State Senate for his service to the Oakland Public Schools. Morrell received his doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of California at Berkeley.