Bio

Michael Massey received his MSW with a concentration in Administration, Policy, and Planning Practice in 2017 and his PhD in Social Work in 2019 from Virginia Commonwealth University.  Before becoming a social worker, he worked as an educator for 20 years, fifteen of which were as a middle and high school counselor.  Massey’s research interests include the school-to-prison pipeline, critical race theory (CRT) applications to policy and practice, and bridging micro/macro practice.  For his dissertation, entitled Critical Race Examination of Educator Perceptions of Discipline and School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, he thematically analyzed educator interviews at one high school in the preliminary stages of implementing School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS), a preventive disciplinary framework. Using a CRT analytical lens to center issues of race and racism, findings revealed that while educators promoted positive and preventative discipline, they also described a school in which discipline is one thread in a complex web of Whiteness. These findings suggest that SWPBIS has the potential to support alternatives to punitive discipline, but faces multiple barriers in addressing racial disciplinary disproportionality.

Full CV