Omari Jackson

Biography

Dr. Omari Jackson is an educational sociologist and associate professor in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Professional Development at Towson University. He is a Public Scholarship Fellow at TU as well as an adjunct researcher at The RAND Corporation. Dr. Jackson has participated in professional fellowships with the American Evaluation Association, Pardee RAND Graduate School, University of Maryland’s Intersectional Qualitative Research Methods Institute and Rutgers University’s ELEVATE. His greatest career accomplishment was serving as a Fulbright-Hays fellow in Senegal.  

Dr. Jackson’s scholarly interest in the Black middle-class began as an undergraduate student, when he learned of classmates’ middle-class experiences that differed from his. During his undergraduate studies, he learned about varying social and cultural capitals as well as relative privilege. Though he was considered privileged in inner-city Detroit, as a first-generation college student with working class parents, he was not considered privileged in college. He began pondering the reasons he attended college as many of his neighborhood peers with similar financial standing did not pursue higher education. This broadened his understanding of social class, as a multidimensional variable that is composed of more than financial contributions. In Dr. Jackson’s case, his parents emphasized college, and he attended a college preparatory school. These two components were social and cultural influences.

He has a wealth of experience working with minoritized populations, in terms of recruitment, retention and post-secondary success. Aside from his work as a professor, he is a proud Christian, husband, father, Detroit native, Michigan alumnus, wellness coach/bodybuilder/fitness enthusiast/cycling instructor and brother of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Selected Publications

• Jackson, O. (2023). Persisting through Life as a Result of My Urban Education: The Making of a Black Male Professor. In L.D. Patton, I.D. Rivers, R.L. Farmer-Hinton & J.D. Lewis (Eds.), Reauthoring Savage Inequalities: Narratives of Community Cultural Wealth in Urban Educational Environments. State University of New York Press.
• Jackson, O. (2022). The Black Middle Class: Invisible Victims. In N. Pratt-Harris (Ed)., Why Black People Should Train the Police. Routledge.
• Jackson, O. (2022). WTH(eck): 88% of My Students Failed! (Commentary). Journal of Negro Education. 91(1), 1-7. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/862068 
• Omari Jackson. (2020). “A Generation Out of Apartheid: Intergenerational Educational Experiences among the South African Black Middle Class.” Issues in Race & Society. DOI: 10.34314/issuesspring2020.00010

Research

Dr. Jackson's research interests are parental socialization processes and education patterns among members of the Black middle class, in the U.S. and South Africa.

Honors and Awards

• Sandye Jean McIntyre International Award Nomination, Morgan State University
• Intersectional Qualitative Research Methods Institute Fellowship, University of Maryland
• ELEVATE Fellowship for Early Career Faculty Members, Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions
• Minority Serving Institution Fellowship, American Evaluation Association