Research Interests
Ann M. Ishimaru
As the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair of Diversity Studies and Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy, Dr. Ishimaru's scholarship in P-12 educational organizations and leadership centers on developing the collective leadership of youth, families, communities, and educators in pursuit of dignity, justice and wellbeing in educational systems. Her body of work unfolds from two key premises. First, leadership plays a crucial role in transforming the longstanding racial injustices reproduced by US public schooling policies, practices and everyday interactions. Second, we arrive at better understandings and solutions to systemic inequities when those most affected by these problems influence key processes and decisions.
Dr. Ishimaru aims to cultivate equitable collaborations between systems-based leaders, community-based leaders, and racially minoritized youth and families. As a community-based researcher, Faculty Research Director of the Leadership for Learning EdD program and Director of the Just Educational Leadership Institute, she seeks to contribute knowledge about the leadership practices, organizational conditions, and systems change processes for realizing cross-racial solidarities and liberatory, community-determined educational futures. In 2020, she published Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations with Families & Communities, and in 2025, published Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change, with Dr. Decoteau Irby, both by Teachers College Press.
Multimedia
Dr. Ishimaru is a Principal Investigator or Co-PI on the following research projects:
- The Early Literacy Collaborative is a Research-Community-Practice Partnership (RCPP) between the UW COE and Seattle Public Schools focused on co-designing family-school transformative agency and identity-affirming critical literacies of 2-4th grade Black youth to catalyze systemic racial equity.
- Measures that Matter is a Spencer-funded Transformative Vision project that partners with districts to learn from and center minoritized families and communities in developing and using data to transform systems.
Prior Research Projects:
- The Equity Leadership Project (with Dr. Decoteau Irby and Dr. Terrance Green) is a collaborative research effort to understand and support district and school leaders in making public school systems racially equitable.
- The Family Leadership Design Collaborative (with Dr. Megan Bang) is a national-level participatory design-based research project aimed at re-centering nondominant families in racial equity efforts through the synthesis and co-design of research, measures, and practice to transform education.
- The UW Equitable Parent-School Collaboration Research Project (EPSC, with Dr. Joe Lott) was a multi-year research effort to understand, measure, and support district and community-based efforts to authentically engage families and communities in improving student learning and success within a collective impact initiative in South Seattle/South King County.
2022 UCEA William J. Davis Award for Most Outstanding Article of the Year, Educational Administration Quarterly
2021 AERA Outstanding Reviewer, Educational Researcher
2017 Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research Award, American Educational Research Association (AERA)
2016 Jack A. Culbertson Award, University Council of Educational Administration
2015 Early career award for significant contributions to educational administration
2015 Finalist, University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award
Ishimaru, A.M. & Rodriguez, S. (2025). Supporting families and communities in children’s academic thriving and well-being in the wake of the pandemic. National Academy of Education. https://naeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Supporting-Families-and-Communities-in-Childrens-Academic-Thriving-and-Well-Being-in-the-Wake-of-the-COVID-19-Pandemic.pdf
Ishimaru, A. M., & Elmi, R. (2024). “Showing Up for Each Other”: Designing community and living solidarities with families. The Educational Forum, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2024.2386891.
Ishimaru, A.M., Bang, M., Montaño Nolan, C., Rajendran, A., Chase Chen, J. (2023). Expanding theories of educational change in family & community-led designs. Journal of Family Diversity in Education, 5(2). https://www.familydiversityeducation.com/index.php/fdec/article/view/179/166Ishimaru, A.M., Irby, D. & Green, T. (2022). The paradox of organizational double jeopardy: PreK-12 equity directors in racialized and gendered educational systems. The Urban Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-022-00653-2
Ishimaru, A.M, Barajas-López, F., Sun, M., Scarlett, K. & Anderson, A. (2022). Transforming the role of RPPs in remaking educational systems. Educational Researcher. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X221098077
Ishimaru. A.M. & Bang, M. (2022). Designing with families for just futures in the Family Leadership Design Collaborative. Journal of Family Diversity in Education, 4(2), 130-140. https://doi.org/10.53956/jfde.2022.171
Irby, D., Green, T. & Ishimaru, A.M. (2022). PK-12 district leadership for equity: An exploration of director role configurations and vulnerabilities. American Journal of Education, 128(3), 417-453. https://doi.org/10.1086/719120
Ishimaru, A.M. & Galloway, M.K. (2020). Hearts and minds first: Institutional logics in pursuit of educational equity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 57(3), 470-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x20947459
Galloway, M. & Ishimaru, A.M. (2019). Leading equity teams: The role of formal leaders in building organizational capacity for equity. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 25(2), 107-125. https://doi.org/10.1080/10824669.2019.1699413
Ishimaru, A.M., Lott, J., O’Reilly-Diaz, K. & Torres, K. (2019). Families in the driver’s seat: Catalyzing parental transformative agency in equitable collaboration. Teachers College Record, 121(11), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811912101108
Ishimaru, A.M., Montaño Nolan, C., Rajendran, A., & Bang, M. (2018). Community design circles: Co-designing justice and wellbeing in family-community-research partnerships. Journal of Family Diversity in Education, 3(2), 38-63. https://doi.org/10.53956/jfde.2018.133
Ishimaru, A.M. (2018). Re-imagining turnaround: Family & community leadership in school improvement for educational justice. Journal of Educational Administration, 56(5), 546-561, https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2018-0013
Ishimaru, A.M. & Takahashi, S. (2017). Disrupting racialized institutional scripts: Towards parent-teacher transformative agency for educational justice. Peabody Journal of Education, 92(3), 343-362. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2017.1324660
Ishimaru, A.M. (2017). From family engagement to equitable collaboration. Educational Policy, 33(2), 350-385. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904817691841
Galloway, M., & Ishimaru, A.M. (2017). Equitable leadership on the ground: Converging on high-leverage practices. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 25(2). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.25.2205
Ishimaru, A.M., Torres, K., Salvador, J., Lott, J., Williams, D., & Tran, C. (2016). Reinforcing deficit, journeying towards equity: Cultural brokering in family engagement initiatives. American Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 850-882. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216657178
