Andre Branch

A tenured Associate Professor at San Diego State University, André José Branch earned the Ph.D. at the University of Washington (Seattle), the M.Ed. at North Carolina State University (Raleigh), and the B.A. at The King’s College (Briarcliff, New York). He has also studied at the Institute of Holy Land Studies, Jerusalem, Israel, and at Oxford, England. Having taught all grades (K-12) in the United States, and secondary school in Nigeria, West Africa, Branch presently conducts research in Ethnic Identity Development. He is interested in the intersection of ethnicity, race, and education in public schools, and investigates how teacher educators can prepare pre-service teachers to use the ethnicity that children bring to school to teach subject matter content. Branch has created the four-dimensional model of Ethnic Identity Exploration in Education to assist teacher educators and classroom teachers as they guide students in using established curricula to facilitate ethnic identity exploration. A conference speaker and workshop leader in valuing human diversity, Branch is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). With the mission of inspiring middle school students of color to achieve academic excellence, and to become leaders in the profession of their choice anywhere in the world, Branch directs S.W.A.G. (Students With Academic Goals), a Career Breakfast Mentoring Program that connects middle school students with individuals in various career paths. Branch created and presently directs the GOLD (Guatemala Opportunities in Learning Across Distances) study abroad program, which takes SDSU (San Diego State University) students to Guatemala over spring break to teach elementary and school students math, science, literacy, and the English language.