Dr. Derrick Brooms

Dr. Derrick Brooms is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies and a Fellow in the Center for the Study of Social Justice at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; he also serves as a youth worker and is an award-winning educator and scholar. In addition, Derrick is an Early Career Scholar in the Scholars Network on Masculinity and the Well-Being of African Men and is a Research & Faculty Affiliate with Project MALES (Mentoring to Achieve Latino Educational Success). His research and activism primarily focus on educational equity, race and racism, diversity and inclusion, and identity and representation. His education research primarily centers on Black men and boys’ pathways to and through college as well as on their engagement on campus and identity development. He also examines the collegiate experiences of Black and Latino men in addition to Black boys’ and men’s lived experiences and representations in the media.

His research has been published in a range of education, sociology, and cultural studies journals, he has published numerous book chapters from his research on education and teaching, and he has contributed his writing to outlets such as Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Derrick is the author of several books, including Stakes is High: Trials, Lessons, and Triumphs in Young Black Men’s Educational Journeys (2021), Being Black, Being Male on Campus: Understanding and Confronting Black Male Collegiate Experiences (2017), and he is co-author of Empowering Men of Color on Campus: Building Student Community in Higher Education (2018). Derrick has been acknowledged with an Emerging Scholar Award (2015), a Community Spirit Award (2016), a Presidential Exemplary Multicultural Teaching Award (2017), an Outstanding Faculty-Undergrad Research Collaboration Award (2018), and the Jacqueline Johnson Jackson Early Career Scholar Award from the Association of Black Sociologists (2019).