Areas of Expertise

Professional Development

Dr. James-Wilson has developed and facilitated professional learning experiences for over 31 years in the form of university teacher education courses, short learning series, and personalized and small group coaching. Intensive summer learning opportunities, such as the Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy (CRRP) Summer Institute and the First Nations, Métis and Inuit Collaborative Inquiry Summer Institute have provided teachers, school counselors and social workers with over 30 hours within which to explore their own identities, adjust units to make them more culturally relevant and responsive, and to deepen their relationships with their colleagues.

Since 2005, Dr. James-Wilson has also worked with entire school staffs in public, charter and private schools through multi-year contracts focused on the theory and practice of culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, educational equity, and the diversity of their school community. Between 2014 and 2016, she co-facilitated the Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy: Building Capacity Across the Province initiative in partnership with the Centre for Urban Schooling at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education-University of Toronto (OISE/UT) which engaged superintendents, directors, principals, and equity officers in the implementation of equity policy across the Ontario, Canada.

Through [Dr. James-Wilson’s] expert guidance, East’s vision for CRRP was clearly articulated, our guiding framework established, and we have made tremendous progress enhancing the relevance and responsiveness of our curriculum. — J. Rees, Chief Academic Officer

Dr. James-Wilson facilitated teachers’ planning of activities and projects to help students understand their own identities and equip them to become young activists. — Dr. L. Wing, Charter School Principal

Arts Integration: The ArtID Approach

The ArtID Approach to arts integration uses visual, literary and performing arts in the exploration of questions related to identity development, and is informed by Dr. James-Wilson’s extensive background in urban education, professional learning and curriculum development. ArtID Residencies are facilitated over the course of five to twenty-five days. Before the start of a residency, Dr. James-Wilson visits each site to conduct observations and to participate in activities that help provide a sense of the community, including its strengths and challenges. Lessons are written, modeled and co-taught before teachers work independently with their students. At the end of the teaching cycle, Dr. James-Wilson meets with teachers to problem-solve any challenges encountered during their work together. All lessons are perpetually “in progress,” and so after the residency, teachers are encouraged to continue to refine the lessons so that they become increasingly more relevant to their students, and responsive to their unique identities.

In the United States, ArtID Residencies  have included the development, or redesigning of, middle and secondary school curriculum to increase the degree to which it is culturally relevant and responsive.  The Collective Composition Music & Visual Arts Residency is a partnership between Dr. James-Wilson and The Archipelago Project  where youth move beyond their comfort zones and use the arts as a way to learn about, and grapple with, social justice issues through the creation of original art and music compositions.

In Kenya, East Africa, residencies have supported elementary teachers in both public and private schools and university teacher educators to implement the national arts curriculum which was introduced  as part of an effort to decolonize the educational system in that country. In the Caribbean, residencies have involved the integration of drama and visual arts into the English language arts curriculum. Canadian residencies in Northern Ontario have helped a Catholic School District address the trauma caused by residential schools which were created by churches and the Canadian government in an attempt to assimilate Native children into Canadian society, and to disconnect them from their Indigenous culture, spirituality and language. Finally, in Mexico City, residencies focus on integrating the arts into a community-based Saturday program for youth which is focused on youth empowerment and social emotional development.

ArtID International, Inc. is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization established in 2019 to provided underserved schools and communities, like the ones mentioned above, with arts-based teaching, professional development, materials, and art-making experiences free of charge. In addition to art residencies and professional development, donations also support the exhibition of art and live performances, community engagement initiatives, and the entrepreneurial projects of the schools and communities with which Dr. James-Wilson has developed partnerships.

Integrating the arts into the curriculum in meaningful ways has encouraged our students to think critically and has helped teachers to reflect on their current instructional practices in order to create lessons with cultural relevance. — M. Silas-Lee, Elementary School Principal

This project has been transformed from copies of worksheets to the actual production of a book, none of which would have been possible without her help and support. — Q. Mitchell, Secondary School Social Studies Teacher

Teacher Leadership

Over the course of her career, Dr. James-Wilson has developed and directed nine urban teacher leadership programs. This work has engaged aspiring principals, grade level chairs, school-wide data teams, and cohorts of early childhood educators, and has included collaborations with teacher education programs in colleges on the Northeast  and in the Midwest.

As an assistant professor at the University of Rochester, Dr. James-Wilson became the founding director of the Urban Teaching and Leadership (UTL) Program which she based on her doctoral dissertation and launched in 2005. This graduate level teacher certification program was informed by her social justice-focused framework that integrated coursework, fieldwork, and community service into the training of new teachers committed to working within the urban context. Through her collaboration with the Rochester City School District, the UTL Program was augmented to include the Urban Teaching and Leadership Academy (UTLA) for in-service teachers.  Between 2006 and 2018, UTLA served as the model of three other district-wide, equity-focused leadership programs for teachers, administrators and school-wide data teams that Dr. James-Wilson designed and facilitated in the Northeast, Midwest and in Southern Ontario.

Our first summer institute together was impactful on a personal level, as [Dr. James-Wilson] led a mixed group of staff members through artistic and analytical learning experiences that allowed us to delve deeply into our own cultural backgrounds. — D. Hart, Secondary School Literacy Teacher

 This was an incredible experience, one that I have learned from and grown from and that will continue to shape how I teach, and how I interact as a teacher leader. — S. Webster, Literacy Coach

Strategic Planning & Organizational Development 

Dr. James-Wilson’s strategic planning work has ranged from supporting an art center to develop its first strategic plan, to working with members of a religious organization in their effort to initiate, and participate in, activities that acknowledge and address issues of racism and racial inequity. In her work with an educational arts program advocating empathy, acceptance, and inclusion she helped to restructure the organizational leadership model to better utilize the skills set of their co-director, clarify roles and priorities, and to establish measurable goals and timelines for their work. She has also helped to restructure the board of a struggling youth development organization by delineating  their roles and responsibilities, helping to establish work expectations, and refining decision-making and internal reporting processes and networking activities.

 In her work in schools, Dr. James-Wilson  has supported teacher leaders to operate “academies” within their larger secondary schools to provide a “small school” experience to middle school students using a social studies integrated curriculum and experiential an learning approach. Finally, Parent Councils have also benefited from her services in their efforts to collaborate with school administration to establish goals and objectives, recruit new members, and receive  parent leadership training.

What seemed amorphous to us at first, transformed, with her help, into action items and new internal dialogue about our work ethic and the possibilities for our organization. — C. Arana, Artistic Director

In her role as facilitator, Dr. James-Wilson guided us through research on various design models, facilitated discussions around the sensitive issues we face in our school community, and kept us on track for the completion of the plan. — K. Lamb, Secondary School Principal

As a result of working with Dr. Sonia, our organization has gone through an immense growth spurt that, I am convinced, would not have happened without her sincere interest in facilitating the development of our organization’s mission… — D. Redding, Sangha Engagement Manager

Community Engagement 

Community engagement has taken many different forms within Dr. James-Wilson’s work. In some cases, the primary goals of this activities is to provide participants with physical or virtual access to people in both the local and global community who share their artistry and experiences, or are able to inspire through their ideas and convictions. At other times, community engagement is focused on creating space for participants’ voices, thoughts and opinions to be heard in ways that contribute to decision-making processes that impact their children or their livelihoods. For example, in school settings, Dr. James-Wilson has used portrait photography as a way to encourage families to offer advice for ways in which to build on their child’s heritage to enhance the learning experience.

Dr. James-Wilson’s most sustained community engagement activities have been conducted in collaboration with her sister, Laura James, who has been a professional Bronx-based artist for over 30 years, and is the founder and director of the Bronx Visual Artist Directory “BX200.com” In 2012, they facilitated focus groups with women who were from former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia, and members of Domestic Workers United (DWU) in New York City. DWU advocates for industry work standards, including better wages, improved working conditions, and the respect of employers, and was formed by and for these women. In their conversations, paintings from James’ ongoing work, The Nanny Series were used as an entry point from which women told their stories and recognized the commonalities across their unique experiences of coming to the United States in search of work and opportunities unavailable in their home countries.

The Nanny Series: A Postcolonial Reading, an exhibit of James’ painting and the commentary of DWU’s members, was first presented in 2012 at the International Sociological Association World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina for an audience of sociologists and educators. Later in 2015, the exhibit was hung at the Borough of Manhattan Community College gallery as part of the Women Wielding Words conference when many of the women involved in the focus group saw the work professionally displayed for the first time. In 2019, the exhibition (now with a number of new paintings added), included a panel discussion with members of DWU and Dr. James-Wilson talked about the ways in which gender, economics and colonial mindsets still limit opportunities for young women living in the Global South.

Dr. James-Wilson and Laura James have also spearheaded the The Coalition for the Revitalization of the Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) which includes professional artists, community leaders, educators, parents, and other concerned Bronx residents who want to see the Bronx River Art Center used to its full potential.

Dr. Sonia James-Wilson is a force of nature! She has the rare ability to bring multiple stakeholders together to achieve a common purpose… Her social class and race analysis as the framework for empowering communities is needed now more than ever as we build a more just world. — D. Peralta, Executive Managing Director

Program Evaluation

Dr. James-Wilson has evaluated school-based artists residence programs for arts centers in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and afterschool programs focused on music composition and performance, in Rochester, New York. The evaluation process always begins with several conversations where she and the client agree upon the learning objectives to be measured, methodology, and the development of data collection instruments. Her reports are known for their level of detail and emphasis on students’ voice and their impressions of the learning experience.

Dr. James-Wilson takes the time and extra special care to truly understand our programs and the communities we work in, which is reflected in the richness of the evaluation tools and cumulative report. Each year, the findings from the evaluation process inform our work moving forward, serving to strengthen our practice with regard to both support and training for teaching artists and our work in the classroom throughout Brooklyn. — K. Kaminsky, Director of Education