John Lawrence Puckett
Graduate Group Affiliations
Contact information
University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Education
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Graduate School of Education
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: (215) 898-7389
Fax: (215) 898-4399
Fax: (215) 898-4399
Email:
johnp@gse.upenn.edu
johnp@gse.upenn.edu
Education:
B.A. (German)
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, 1970.
M.A. (Education)
University of Georgia, Athens, 1980.
Ph.D. (Education)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986.
Permanent linkB.A. (German)
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, 1970.
M.A. (Education)
University of Georgia, Athens, 1980.
Ph.D. (Education)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986.
Description of Research Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Civic education and community schooling
University-community relations
The American research university
The American high school
American education history
Professional Biography
Dr. Puckett’s background includes six years of teaching and administrative work in public and private secondary schools in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Penn in 1987, Dr. Puckett was director of research and development for REAL Enterprises, a non-profit organization that helped catalyze school-based economic development projects nationwide. He served as associate dean of the Graduate School of Education from 1998 to 2004 and again in 2006-07. He currently chairs the School’s Policy, Measurement, and Evaluation Division.
Since coming to Penn, he has been actively involved in building University partnerships with West Philadelphia schools; from 1987 to 1991, he worked with Ira Harkavy to develop the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Community Partnerships, now called the Netter Center. More recently, he has taught in-service courses related to Netter Center projects in West Philadelphia. In conjunction with the Netter Center and the School of Arts and Sciences’s Urban Studies Program, he teaches academically-based community service seminars that focus on school- and neighborhood-improvement projects in West Philadephia. He has also co-authored a number of journal articles and book chapters with Arts and Sciences faculty affiliated with the Netter Center, advancing the development of university-assisted community schools and academically-based community service.
Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Puckett is the author of Foxfire Reconsidered: A Twenty-Year Experiment in Progressive Education (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), co-author of Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education As If Citizenship Mattered (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), and co-author of Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007). He is currently co-authoring a book on the history of the University of Pennsylvania since World War II, giving particular attention to Penn’s complex relationship with West Philadelphia. He serves on various university, community, public school, and citywide advisory boards and task forces; his current project is a three-year community-organizing effort to build a new West Philadelphia High School. In 1991–92, Dr. Puckett was designated a Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education postdoctoral fellow; his study centered on the history of the community school idea from 1886 to the present. In 1996–97, he was designated a Fulbright Scholar to Germany, where he lectured in American Studies at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität in Magdeburg. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow of the Netter Center.
Selected Publications
Puckett, J. L., Benson, L., & Harkavy, I.: Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.Puckett, J. L., & Johanek, M. C.: Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education as if Citizenship Mattered Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.
Puckett, J. L., & Johanek, M. C.: Accounting for citizenship: Are our expectations for civic education too modest? Education Week 2004.
Puckett, J. L.: The state of civic education: Preparing citizens in an era of accountability. Institutions of Democracy: The Public Schools. M. Lazerson & S. Fuhrman (eds.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Puckett, J. L., Benson, L., & Harkavy, I.: An implementation revolution as a strategy for fulfilling the democratic promise of university-community partnerships: Penn-West Philadelphia as an experiment in progress.” Special issue of Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29(1): 24-45, 2000.
Puckett, J. L., & Forgey, E.: History as public work. Service Learning and the Disciplines: Current Developments in Historical Scholarship. I. Harkavy & A. Donovan (eds.). Washington, D.C.: American Association of Higher Education, 2000.
Puckett, J. L., Harkavy, I., & Romer, D.: Action research as an approach for improving service, teaching and research. Special issue of Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning Page: 113-18, Fall 2000.
Puckett, J. L., & Harkavy, I.: University-assisted community schools and strategic academically-based community service. Reforming Education from the Bottom to the Top. Evans Clinchy (eds.). Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, Page: 150-170, 1999.
Puckett, J. L., & Harkavy, I.: The action research tradition in American social science: Toward a strategy for revitalizing the social sciences, the university and the American city. Action, Research: From Practice to Writing in an International Action Research Development Program. D. Greenwood (eds.). Philadelphia: John Benjamins, Page: 147-167, 1999.
Puckett, J. L., & Harkavy, I.: Lessons from Hull House for the contemporary urban university. Social Service Review 68(3): 299-321, 1994.