Jeremy Jimenez

Originally from Jersey City, New Jersey, I received both my B.A. degree in History/Psychology and M.Ed. degree in Social Studies Education from Rutgers University. My experiences growing up in an urban, low income community, coupled with a few key teacher role models (including my parents), motivated me to pursue a career in education.

I previously taught Ancient and U.S. History, Contemporary World Issues, and I.B. Economics at a variety of middle and high schools across the world for roughly a decade, including urban and suburban schools in New Jersey, two international schools in Venezuela, and as a guest lecturer to dozens of schools across Norway as a Fulbright Roving Scholar.

My current research focuses on examining how historical narratives foster empathy towards marginalized individuals and communities by examining hundreds of cross-national social studies textbooks as well as how U.S. high school students develop their historical thinking and information literacy when they are tasked to author their own digital history textbooks. 

The ICE program provides a balance of breadth and depth. The core classes examine education in many different settings (domestic and international, elementary through tertiary, etc.) and through a variety of disciplinary lenses, such as sociology, economics, and political science. Besides the core classes, the course of study is not limited to the School of Education and its affiliated disciplines; rather, students are at liberty to take courses across the University. For example, throughout my years at Stanford, I have taken classes based in over a dozen different disciplinary frameworks. As such, students are given considerable flexibility to pursue their thesis and dissertation topics, geographic region(s), and disciplinary frameworks of most interest to them.

While many education programs in the United States tend to be very "U.S. centric" in their orientation, the Stanford ICE program exposes its students to a diverse field of study, from large-scale, cross-national quantitative research, to more in-depth case studies using qualitative methods. The ICE-affiliated professors consistently provide insightful commentary, offering international perspectives from both the academic realm as well as the world of public policy. They are readily available for personal consultation and inspire their students to be the best researchers and communicators possible by encouraging them to consider and pursue research agendas and methodologies unfamiliar to them while supporting them in whatever areas of focus upon which their students decide.

Another particularly strong highlight of the program are the other students. The sum total of their academic, as well as life, experiences from across the world contribute greatly to each other’s’ ongoing learning outside of the classroom. Whether one seeks to learn more about gender equality in Latin America, higher education investment in Sub-Saharan Africa, or curriculum portrayals of marginalized communities in Eastern Europe, students find a wealth of expertise within and across cohorts.

During the past few years, I have been given the opportunity (as well as resources) to participate in a service learning project at the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota; conduct a month-long research study at the International Textbook Institute in Braunschweig, Germany; enroll in a year-long seminar immersed in diverse institutions of higher education as part of my DARE (Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence) fellowship from the Stanford Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education; teach my own sections of Professor Ramirez's Education seminars; secure funding from a Stanford Media X grant to provide high school students with over a dozen laptops in order to collect data for my dissertation; and co-teach a graduate level seminar at San Quentin Prison.

In short, the ICE program has been particularly conducive to my personal and academic growth, and I am confident it is preparing me for the next stage of my academic career. Do not hesitate to contact me at ximenez@stanford.edu