Kevin Russel Magill, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Graduate Program Director
Dr. Kevin R. Magill is an associate professor of curriculum and teaching and director of graduate programs for the Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the Baylor University School of Education.
In his research, Dr. Magill examines the social relations of production in teaching and learning and its impact on the ideology and ontology of social studies/civics teachers and teacher education candidates. He is interested in how teachers live/work in intellectual solidarity with students and local communities, how they employ critical humanism, and how/why education results in personal and social transformation. He has authored work demonstrating how teachers come to understand relational and structural power dynamics and how they impact the actualization of critical theory/pedagogy and cultural knowledge in teaching/learning. Dr. Magill has demonstrated how historical interpretations of race, gender, sexuality, and other social constructions exist as an integral aspect of the ideological state apparatus, ensuring their function as class constructs that further social ideology and ontology as hegemonic educational perspectives and practices.
His research findings have been published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Teacher College Record, Theory and Research in Social Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, the Journal for Critical Educational Policy Studies, and other journals. Dr. Magill has published two books on complexifying history education with Dr. Tony Talbert and one about understanding education beyond neoliberal ideology with Dr. Arturo Rodriguez. His forthcoming book with Dr. Rodriguez, Structures of American Education, details what the public often misses when engaging in civic activity, how this impacts the way they understand human relations, and how this situates how and why they participate, informing the way teachers teach. The book provides ideas and empirical teaching examples for transforming the structures that regulate education and social life.
Dr. Magill currently serves as Editor of the Journal for Social Studies and History Education (JSSHE). He is on the Editorial Advisory Boards for Critical Education (CE) and the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS).
Dr. Magill has taught undergraduate coursework in secondary teacher education, social studies/civics, social/cultural theory/practice, and multicultural education. He has taught graduate coursework related to social studies/civics education, critical theory, social analysis, ideology/ontology, and qualitative research methods. Before his appointment at Baylor, Dr. Magill taught middle and high school social studies, English language arts, and opportunity/intervention in Northern California.
The Texas National Association of Multicultural Educators awarded him the Patricia Lark Research Award in 2023. Dr. Magill is the research lead for the iEngage Summer Civics Institute, which won the 2022 Sandra Day O'Connor Award for the Advancement of Civic Education. He was awarded the John Laska Dissertation Award for Research on Teaching from The American Association for Teaching and Curriculum in 2019.
Kevin earned his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin. Before his doctoral work, he earned a master's degree in education from the University of California, Davis, and a master's degree in public administration from California State University, Stanislaus.
Degrees
Ph.D.
2017 | The University of Texas at Austin
M.A. Education
2011 | University of California, Davis
M.P.A. Public Administration
2010 | California State University, Stanislaus
Awards & Honors
- John Laska Dissertation Award in Teaching - 2019 | American Association for Curriculum and Teaching