91ºÚÁÏ

Abigail Dym is an Assistant Professor of Education at 91ºÚÁÏ and a political scientist specializing in the politics of education. Shaped by more than a dozen years of teaching at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, she approaches her work as praxis—theory, reflection, and action that iteratively shape each other—and cares deeply about her role as an educator for all students. 

Abigail is an empirical mixed-methods scholar dedicated to building mutually beneficial community partnerships. She studies how civic education policy produces citizens, broadly defined, and draws on political science (political socialization, policy feedback) and education scholarship (civic and democratic education, curriculum theory). Her book project examines how traditional civics content and pedagogy shape students' political self-conception and practices, and whether local curricular content may better move young people towards authentic and sustained civic action. Additional projects examine teachers as “street-level bureaucrats,” teacher political disclosure and neutrality in the classroom, and how civics curricula are implemented and scaled. Her work has appeared in Teaching and Teacher Education, Democracy & Education, Social Education, Political Science Quarterly, Motivation and Emotion, and several handbooks and chapters related to civic education. She holds a joint-PhD in political science and education policy from the University of Pennsylvania (2024).

Current civic work includes service on the board of Generation Citizen New England, youth voter registration advocacy, and engagement in local school politics and policies. Abigail is an avid sourdough bread baker and (very) novice mandolin player, and she lives in Midcoast Maine with her family.