Rich Milner

H. Richard “Rich” Milner, IV, (1974–) is a scholar of teacher education focusing on preparation of teachers for urban settings. He holds the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College in the Department of Teaching and Learning, where he additionally holds secondary appointments in both the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organization and in the Department of Sociology at the College of Arts and Sciences. Milner studies teacher education as a preparation for urban settings, microlevel policies that influence student opportunity, and the social context of schools and classrooms. Milner has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters and is the author of two award-winning texts, Start Where You Are (But Don’t Stop There) and Rac(e)ing to Class. His influential frameworks include the Opportunity Gap explanatory framework (a counterargument to Achievement Gap research) and the Researcher Positionality Framework. His survey tool, the Teachers Race Talk Survey, has been used since its development in 2016 to capture teacher-reported preparation, perceptions, incorporation, and resistance to race talk in classroom settings. His emerging conceptual framework, Disruptive Movement, seeks to center issues of race and culture in both research and teaching practice and to interrogate, unwind, and ultimately replace practices that advance Whiteness with emancipatory policies and humanizing practice.