• FD 200 Awardee, nominated for embodying the legacy of Frederick Douglass by American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center and the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives. Library of Congress, February 2019
  • Guardian Announcement page (Educators)

Rebekka Boysen-Taylor is the Director of Field Placement and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. In this role, she places education students in practicum and student teaching classrooms within and beyond the state of Idaho and offers teacher education courses including those related to social studies methods and culturally responsive teaching. She is a former Teach for America Corps member, veteran middle school teacher, curriculum writer, and educational researcher residing in rural northern Idaho with her family. Rebekka serves as the Senior Curriculum Advisor for the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives in Rochester, NY where she offers educational outreach in line with the organization’s mission to promote racial equity, prevent modern day human trafficking, and share the legacies of Anna Murray Douglass and Frederick Douglass.
 
Regardless of the age group, Rebekka’s work begins with culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy focusing on relationships between students, families, educators, and community members. She has experience teaching PreK-8 and higher education students in diverse settings which include a small rural public charter school, large urban public schools, community outreach programs, and higher education. Rebekka previously served as the Assistant Program Manager for the Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP) at the University of Idaho where she supported Indigenous scholars pursuing teacher certification and placement in predominately Indigenous-serving schools. Her current research focuses on social studies/history education/teacher preparation, critical historical inquiry, youth identity, and using Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as pedagogy.
 
Rebekka holds a B.S. in Geography from Portland State University, Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development (CLAD) K-8 teaching certificate from California State University Los Angeles, M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Idaho, and Ph.D. in Education from the University of Idaho.

• Boysen-Taylor, R. and Anthony-Stevens, V. (2024) Co-teaching for racial equity in the rural west. In Tschida, C., Fogerty, E., Stapleton, J., Cuthrell, K., Lys, D., Bullock, A., & Washut Heck, T. (2024). Co-teaching in teacher education: Centering equity. Teachers College Press.
• Boysen-Taylor, R. (2023). Race, Place, and Youth Identity: Critical Ethnographic Participatory Action Research on Youth Perceptions of Race and Racism in the Rural West (Doctoral dissertation, University of Idaho).
• Anthony-Stevens, V., Boysen-Taylor, R., & Doucette, B. (2022). "Race Is Not Really a Thing": Race Talk Dilemmas in Predominantly White Classrooms. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 38(3).
• Anthony-Stevens, V., Moss, I., Jacobson, A., Boysen-Taylor, R., & Campbell-Daniels, S. (2022). Grounded in Relationships of Support: Indigenous Teacher Mentorship in the Rural West. The Rural Educator, 43(1), 88-104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.35608/ruraled.v43i1.1209