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Lisa A. Mazzei

Professor of Education Studies
Alumni Faculty Professor of Education
Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education, Educational Foundations
mazzei@uoregon.edu
Phone: 541-346-1534
Office: 124F Lokey Education Bldg
Research Interests: qualitative research methodology, curriculum theory, study of racial identity/awareness among white teachers and implications for curriculum
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Biography

Professor Mazzei began her career at Ohio Dominican University where she spent 10 years teaching and advising pre-service teacher candidates. After receiving tenure, she spent three years as a Research Fellow in the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), Manchester, England. During her tenure at MMU she was the director of the Master of Research Program, worked on funded research projects, and supervised graduate students. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Oregon, she taught qualitative methodology and feminist theory at Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA) in the Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies. 

Professor Mazzei joined the faculty at the University of Oregon in 2012. She teaches Curriculum Theory at both the Undergraduate and Doctoral levels. She is also Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Philosophy.

Professor Mazzei is known for her work in the field of qualitative methodology where she has published three books (one award winning) and numerous articles and book chapters. She is a methodological innovator in posthuman inquiry and her work is widely read and cited across disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology, business, and medicine.

Education

Ph.D., 1996, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Major: Educational Policy and Leadership

M.A., 1984,The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Major: Adult Education

B.A., 1983, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
Magna Cum Laude
Major: Marketing and Distributive Education

Research

Professor Mazzei’s research interests bring philosophical concepts to bear on thinking about what constitutes inquiry. Under the influence of Derrida’s theory of deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of desire as production, she has produced a body of work that interrogates why silences persist in racialized discourses and how to account for them as data in qualitative analysis. Her collaborative writing with Alecia Jackson situates thinking with theory as a new analytic for qualitative inquiry. Her current methodological work engages a rethinking of the subject, voice, and experience in the new.

Publications

Books:

Jackson, A.Y. & Mazzei, L.A. (2023). Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., London: Routledge

Jackson, A.Y. & Mazzei, L.A. (2012). Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Viewing Data Across Multiple Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Jackson, A.Y. & Mazzei, L.A. (Eds.). (2009). Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging Conventional, Interpretive, and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research. London: Routledge.

Mazzei, L.A. (2007). Inhabited Silence in Qualitative Research: Putting poststructural theory to work. New York: Peter Lang.

Select articles:

Mazzei, L.A. (2017). Following the contour of concepts toward a minor inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(9), 675-685.

Mazzei, L.A. (2016). Voice without a subject. Cultural Studies->Critical Methodologies, 16 (2), 151-161.

Mazzei, L.A. (2014). Beyond an easy sense: A diffractive analysis. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 742-746.

Mazzei, L.A. (2013). A Voice without Organs: Interviewing practices in posthumanist research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(6)

Honors and Awards

The Graduate School Excellence Award for Graduate Mentors, (May 2016), University of Oregon Graduate School.

2013 AESA Critics Choice Book Award for Jackson, A.Y. & Mazzei, L.A. (2012). Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Viewing Data Across Multiple Perspectives. London: Routledge. 

Exemplary Faculty Award, (April 2011). Gonzaga University, Spokane,Washington.