Assistant Professor, California Lutheran University
Ford Fellow. AERA Fellow. PEO International Scholar.
Current Research. How psychological processes and public policies affect educational outcomes in school discipline has been a central thread in the research questions I have investigated and continue to investigate. In current studies, I aim to produce a series of experimental and theoretical pieces. Experimental work in school discipline is nascent, but crucial to addressing discipline disparities. I aim to use critical theories to predict and test social stratification in school discipline outcomes across multiple unique online experiments that investigate the use of corporal punishment, restraint, seclusion, suspension, and special education designations. My theoretical pieces will posit a crisis of theory in school discipline scholarship and promote Critical Race Theory, Racial Threat Theory, TribQuit, Queer Criminology, and DisCrit as viable theories for advancing school discipline explanatia and progress. I have begun focusing on discipline disparities in various states. Posing critical questions about how restraint, seclusion, corporal punishment, in school removal, and suspension impact American Indian, Black American, disabled, gender expansive, cis gender girls and boys, and two spirits children. I aim to inform policy and the public by disseminating my research in open access, peer reviewed journals.
Dissertation Research. My dissertation research contributes to the theoretical development of Critical Race Theory and further advances its potential as a causal model for education policy analyses. Critical Race Theory is crucial to animating the promise of social science to protect and preserve all children’s humanity—not just some of them. My critical quantitative research tests the extent to which Critical Race Theory can explain how material and ideological forces of white supremacy (in school criminalization) disparately impact oppressed schoolchildren. As a Critical Race Theorist, I research disparities in public education by assessing the effectiveness of policies and programs on vulnerable youth. My multimethod dissertation studies alternately employ secondary analysis of large-scale state and national longitudinal datasets as well as designing and analyzing original experimental data.
As the start of an early career line of research on racial and social stratification in public schools in America, my Critical Quantitative dissertation prioritizes the historical and contemporary experiences of public school students in California who are Black, Indigenous, Latina/o/x, cis gender, and gender expansive. In this process, I leverage my lived experience as an Afro-Latina mother of three brown boys and a former poor and policed public school student from Los Angeles to critically contextualize the quantitative data I’ve sourced on these schoolchildren against the reality of my own schoolchildhood.
I do not believe in single-issue oppression. Instead, as a Critical Race Theorist and Critical Quantitative methodologist, my lived experience directs my research pursuits. Currently, the research projects I lead focus on neurologically and neurodevelopmentally atypical, Indigenous, and two-spirits children. With Critical Race Theory and Critical Quantitative methodology, I can and will test America’s public-school-promise-of-equal-opportunity against its disparate treatment of oppressed school children.
Doctoral Research Opportunities. I have had the privilege of working under the supervision and guidance of my dissertation directors: Drs. Lara Perez-Felkner and James Wright. My research collaborations with them explore how financial support can improve the academic success of college students experiencing food and housing insecurity as well as how bureaucratic representation can improve police and civilian interactions. These studies alternately employ secondary analysis of large-scale state and national longitudinal datasets and content analysis of internal institutional student data, original experimental data, observational survey data, and interview methodology.
Assistantships. During my tenure at Florida State University, it has been my great honor to work as a research assistant for the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs and the Office of Research.
2023 California Lutheran University's Hewlett Grant, $1,000
2023 Federation of American Scientists' Civil Rights Data Science Impact Fellow finalist, $160,000
2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Ford Dissertation Fellowship, $28,000
2022 American Education Research Association's Research Grant, $27,500
2022 American Education Research Association's Minority Dissertation Fellowship, $25,000
2022 International Philanthropic Education Organization's PEO Scholar Award, $20,000
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Wright, J., Gaozhao, D., Dukes, K., & Templeton, D. (2022). The power of protests: An experiment of Black Lives Matter protest presence and citizens’ perceptions of the police. Public Administration Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13498.
Holton, A., Perez-Felkner, L., & Templeton, D. (2022). How do institutional type and transfer affect contemporary college students' degree attainment. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2022.2156633.
Jenkins, L., Marks, L.R., Perez-Felkner, L., Verma, K., Templeton, D., Thomas, J. (revise & resubmit). [Title blinded for peer review]. International Journal of Bullying Prevention.
Templeton, D. (revise & resubmit). [Title blinded for peer review]. Educational Researcher.
Marks, L., Jenkins, L., Perez-Felkner, L., Verma, K., Templeton, D., & Thomas, J. (revise & resubmit). [Title blinded for peer review]. Race and Social Problems.
Templeton, D. (under review). [Title blinded for peer review]. American Educational Research Journal.
Templeton, D. (under review). [Title blinded for peer review]. American Educational Research Journal.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Perez-Felkner, L., Rodriguez, S., & Fluker, C. (Eds.) (In press; expected 2024). Latin* Students in Engineering: An Intentional Focus on a Growing Population. Rutgers University Press.
includes... Empirical Chapter 7: Perez-Felkner, L., Fluker, C., & Templeton, D. (in press). A critical mixed methods analysis of Latin* students in diverse contexts.
OTHER WORKS
Portis, D. (2016). Strong city. In Kushner, R. & 826 National (Eds). The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016 (The Best American Series ®). pp. 178–180. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Portis, D. (2015). Room to room. In Savo, S. & Nash, R. (Eds). Fourteen Hills, 21(2). pp. 20– 23. San Francisco State University Review.
Portis, D. (2014). Our reconstruction. Atherton Review. pp 12-38. Menlo Poetry Team.
Portis, D. (2015). Long Live the Queen; Scottie Doesn’t Play Excerpt. In Savo, S. & Nash, R. (Eds). Fourteen Hills, 21(2). pp. 20-31. San Francisco State University Review.
Portis, D. (2014). This is not my mother. In Monique Mero-Williams (Ed.). ekphrasis. pp. 5-23. San Francisco State University Review.
D. Templeton. (2023). Class dismissed: The effect of student population grants on (school) criminalization. American Education Research Association.
D. Templeton. (2023). Supremacy is so predictable: The effects of differential state aid and school personnel biases on (school) criminalization. American Education Research Association.
D. Templeton. (2022). Supremacy is so predictable: The effects of differential state aid on (school) criminalization. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
D. Templeton. (2022). Class dismissed: The effect of student population grants on (school) criminalization. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
D. Templeton. (2022). Supremacy is so predictable: The effects of differential state aid on (school) criminalization. 2022 Conference of Ford Fellows.
D. Templeton. (2022). The laying on of hands: The effects of discriminatory animus on (school) criminalization. Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management.
D. Templeton. (2022). Class dismissed: The effect of student population grants on (school) criminalization. Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management.
Marks, L.R., Jenkins, L., Verma, K., Perez-Felkner, L., Templeton, D., & Thomas, J. (2022). Examining predictors of bystander intervention to racial microaggressions in college students. Poster accepted for the annual American Psychological Association (APA) convention, Minneapolis, MN.
Wright, J., Gaozhao, D., Dukes, K, & Templeton, D. (2020). The Power of Protest: Protest and Citizens Evaluation of the Police. Virtual Paper Presentation and Panel. Public Administration Review (PAR) Symposium on Race and Gender. Dahlbacka, N. (Director). (2015, June 26). In This Chapel Filled with Light [Play].
D. Portis. Brown Bag Theater, San Francisco. Dahlbacka, N. (Director). (2014, June 28). Scottie Doesn’t Play [Play].
D. Portis. Brown Bag Theater, San Francisco.
I graduated summa cum laude with certificates in Teaching of Composition and Teaching of Post-Secondary Reading from San Francisco State University’s renowned Integrated Reading and Writing Program. In my thirteen years as an educator, I have taught at non-profits, prisons, minority-serving institutions, small liberal arts colleges, and predominately white-serving institutions (see select courses below).
COURSES TAUGHT | COURSES ASSISTED |
Research Tools Quantitative Methods Adult basic education I & II; Freshman composition reading; Freshman composition writing; Fundamentals of creative reading; Fundamentals of creative writing; General educational development test preparation I | Approaches to university writing A; Course design in composition and post-secondary reading; Craft of poetry; Diversity in higher education; Extemporaneous expository writing; Graduate seminar in teaching integrated reading and writing; Introduction to composition theory; Outcomes in assessment in higher education II |
It has been my privilege to work with and learn from students who belong to underrepresented groups, including those who are 1.5 generation learners, disabled, first-generation, imprisoned, living in poverty, neurologically atypical, racially minoritized, and English language learners. With my professional preparation and employment, I will thrive as a tenured research faculty member at any university committed to social justice. I have been trained and am fully qualified to teach a wide array of research methodology courses in both critical quantitative and qualitative paradigms.
I have a collaborative, apprenticeship style teaching philosophy. I prioritize comprehension (not memorization) and improvement (not perfection). As such, my grading system is collaborative. I cultivate collaborative learning environments further by 1) Respecting atypical/typical forms of student participation, 2) Co-developing individualized education programs, 3) Soliciting criticism of my pedagogy, and 4) Dedicating consistent class time to fun, community building exercises. I scaffold my assignments, fold in multiple revision opportunities, and provide ongoing formative and summative feedback. I strive to sell my students on the subject matter, actuate their prior knowledge, and bolster their self-efficacy.
I understand the barriers facing oppressed student groups in education (e.g., limited financial resources and nonprivileged capital). As such, I assign Open Education Resources and champion Open Science—both are socially just movements that advocate for access and free knowledge. Additionally, I dissolve boundaries between conventional disciplines and narratives by using critical, transdisciplinary theory and content. To highlight, I generate diversified reading lists that reflect critical, historical, and global contributions to the subject matter. In keeping with social justice orientations, I contextualize my materials for real-world application by teaching skills transferable to both academic and professional settings.
Throughout my career, I benefitted from rigorous and extensive training in education and public policy as well as related fields of experimental psychology and sociology. My transdisciplinary training and expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods enables me to speak comfortably across traditional academic boundaries and bridge collaboration across disciplines. My background as a racially minoritized researcher—with experience living and working in urban communities like Los Angeles—has been an asset for my ability to initiate research in public schools and disenfranchised communities, research that I would continue and build upon at my home institution.
With my professional preparation and employment, I thrive as a tenured research faculty member at a leading research university. I am fully trained to teach a wide array of methodology courses including Introduction to Inferential Statistics, General Linear Models, Introduction to Qualitative Research, Qualitative Data Analysis, Modern Causal Inference, Experimental and Quasi-experimental Research Designs, Experimental and Quasi-experimental Research Analysis, Critical Quantitative Research Methods, Critical Race Theory, Research Tools, Quantitative Methodology, Literature Review, and Proposal.
2023 Florida State University’s Sherrill W. Ragan’s Leadership & Service Award
2023 National Center for Education Statistics Data Institute, finalist
2022 Florida State University's Fellow
2022 Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness's Researcher of Color
Florida State University's Social Justice & Innovation Lab Dissertation Series Selection
2017 Florida State University's Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics in Higher Education Fellow
2016 Florida State University's Peer Leadership Award
Email: dtempleton at callutheran dot edu
Phone number: 661.305.3502