Catharine Biddle

Director, School of Educational Leadership, Higher Education and Human Development
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership
catharine.biddle@maine.edu
207.581.2450

333 Merrill Hall
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469-574

Bio: Dr. Biddle’s research focuses on ways in which rural schools and communities respond to social and economic change in the 21st century. She is particularly interested in how schools can more effectively leverage partnerships with external organizations or groups to address issues of social inequality and how non-traditional leaders—such as youth, parents and other community members—may lead or serve as partners in these efforts. Her interests are driven by her professional background in community development that leverages schools. Prior to joining the faculty at UMaine, she spent five years as a research affiliate with the Center on Rural Education and Communities at the Pennsylvania State University and two years as the managing editor of the Journal of Research in Rural Education. Dr. Biddle also served as the executive director of the Nanubhai Education Foundation, an international education nonprofit working in rural India, and as an out of school time educator for the national nonprofit organization Citizen Schools. She is currently program chair for the American Educational Research Association’s rural education special interest group.

Education
Ph.D., 2015, The Pennsylvania State University

Courses taught at UMaine

EHD 500: Social Contexts of Education
EAD 560: Functions and Theories of Educational Leadership
EAD 563: Individual Leadership: Problems, Paradoxes and Possibilities
EAD 565: Inquiry and Evaluation in Schools
EHD 590: Rural School and Community Leadership
EHD 654: Educational Policy Formation and Analysis
EHD 657: Doctoral Practicum in Research Methods

Sample publications

Brown, S.P. & Biddle, C. (2023). Testing a teacher costs to caring resilience model to identify burnout mediators. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104078
Biddle, C. (2022). “‘We’ll probably all be in trouble for hugging a kid’: Rural teacher radicalism in addressing adverse childhood experiences.” The Rural Educator, 43(4), 43-57.
Biddle, C., Mette, I., & Mercado, A. (2018). Partnering with schools for community development: Power imbalances in rural community collaboratives addressing childhood adversity. Community Development.
Biddle, C., Mette, I., Brown, L. Tappan, M., Ray, B. & Strickland, S. (2018). “Addressing rural, wicked problems through collaboration: Critical reflections on a school-university-community design process.” In R.M. Reardon & J. Leonard (Eds), Making a positive impact in rural places: Change agency in school-university-community collaboration in education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Biddle, C. & Azano, A. (2016). Constructing and reconstructing the “rural school problem”: Rurality and rural education research over the past century. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 298-325.
Mette, I., Biddle, C., Mackenzie, S.V. & Harris-Smedberg, K. (2016). Poverty, privilege and political dynamics of rural school reform: Unraveling leadership in invisible America. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 19(3), 62-84.
Biddle, C. & Schafft. K.A. (2016). “Educational and ethical dilemmas for STEM education in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Gasfield Communities“. In R. Duschl & A. Bismack (Eds), Reconceptualizing STEM education: The central role of practices. Routledge.
Biddle, C. & Schafft, K.A. (2015). Axiology and anomaly: Pragmatism, valuation and the “transformative paradigm”. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 9(4), 320-334.
Biddle, C. & Mitra, D. (2015). Implementing middle school youth-adult partnerships: A study of two programs focused on social change. Middle Grades Review, 1(2), 1-18.
Schafft, K. & Biddle, C. (2015). Opportunity, ambivalence and the purpose of schooling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region. Human Organization, 74(1), 74-85.
Schafft, K. & Biddle, C. (2014). The school and community impacts of hydraulic fracturing within Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region and dilemmas for educational leadership. Peabody Journal of Education, 89(5), 670-682.
Schafft, K.A. & Biddle, C. (2013). Place and purpose in public education: School mission statements and educational (dis)embeddedness. American Journal of Education, 120(5), 55-76.

Professional website: catbiddle.wordpress.com