Josh Diem joined the University of Miami in 2004 after receiving his Ph.D.in education from the University of North Carolina. Diem’s research interests primarily focus on qualitative research methods and theories, and social theory praxis. Some of his particular research interests include race/racism in public schools, education for social justice, immigration, community-based research, multicultural education, gender and sexuality, homelessness and education, urban education, and popular culture and youth identity formation.

Dr. Diem’s teaching focuses on providing students a framework that allows them to take a critical examination of the historical, cultural and political underpinnings of public schooling in the United States. He wants his students to understand how and why schools currently look the way they do, whose interests they do and do not serve, and how we can work for changes that make schools more just and equitable systems. He teaches courses in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education and Qualitative Research Methods. In the Spring of 2010 he will begin teaching a course on Popular Culture and Education.

Currently Dr. Diem is primarily engaged in two research and service projects. The Immigrant Children Affirmative Network (ICAN) is a faculty-student collaboration serving undocumented unaccompanied immigrant youth housed in Miami-area shelters. Services include the provision of weekly positive youth development groups, staff development trainings, and coordinating special events. The ICAN program is a member of The Immigrant Children’s Legal And Service Partnership (ICLASP), formed in 2006 to protect the human rights and promote the physical and psychological well-being of unaccompanied immigrant youth in South Florida shelters. The program, which brings together findings from the empirical literature in youth development and insights from theoretical writings on individual empowerment, uses visual art as stimulus for group conversations and activities, resulting in the children creating individual and group narratives.

Dr. Diem’s second main project is a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) collaborative that seeks to understand and address cancer health disparities in the Little Haiti area of Miami. CBPR is a methodology that engages community members in the research process to ensure that study findings are culturally relevant and amenable to change.

Prior to completing his Ph.D. in education, Diem was a social worker. He received his B.S.W. from the University of Texas and his M.S.W. from the University of North Carolina. His social work experiences focused primarily on issues related to poverty, low-income housing, and homelessness. He spent time in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina as a practitioner, activist, lobbyist, and program administrator.