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John Raible Professor Emeritus

Ed.D., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Department of Teacher Education & Curriculum Studies: Language, Literacy, & Culture
M.Ed., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Bilingual/ESL/Multicultural Education
B.A., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Elementary Education

Dr. John Raible joined the Department of Teaching, Learning & Teacher Education in 2006. He has served the College as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion since 2020. He received promotion to the rank of Full Professor in 2021. He is also on the affiliated faculty of the Women’s & Gender Studies program and the Institute for Ethnic Studies at UNL.

In addition to working as a teacher educator and researcher, Dr. Raible has worked with adoption agencies, social workers, clinicians, adoptees, and parents to support families formed through transracial adoption and foster care. He has been recognized in public from his media appearances, for instance, on the 1990s TV talk shows hosted by Sally Jesse Raphael and Joan Rivers, and for the documentary, Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption. Over the years, John has been interviewed by Essence magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and BBC Radio's World Service for his expertise on transracial adoption and multicultural families. He has been invited to present at numerous conferences to share his unique perspective on anti-racism, transracial identities, and interracial family dynamics, often as the featured keynote speaker.

Prior to his move to higher education, Dr. Raible taught in K-12 public schools for 15 years as a classroom teacher. As a multicultural education/bilingual/ESL major, John completed his student-teaching practicum at an elementary school in the Pueblo village of Pojoaque in northern New Mexico. John's first teaching job after college was working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Navajo Nation near Chaco Canyon. He then worked for the autonomous Ramah Navajo School Board in Pine Hill, not far from Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.

In 1985, John relocated to Compton, California to teach in an urban school district, working with African American and Latinx immigrant students in designated ESL classrooms. After five years, John was recruited to bring his multicultural education skills to the college town of Ithaca, New York. In Ithaca, John taught in both elementary and secondary (Social Studies) classrooms. He served for several years as the Assistant to the Principal for Minority Student Affairs at Ithaca High School. Throughout his eight-year stint in the predominantly White school district, John was a vocal advocate for anti-racism, equity, and inclusion. He developed a reputation as a professional development facilitator around anti-bias practices and policies, and as a multicultural educator-activist in support of community efforts for bias-free schools.

Dr. Raible has worked as a multicultural education consultant for numerous school districts, film projects, colleges, universities, and adoption agencies on issues of family diversity, transracial and international adoption, and multicultural education. His Checklist for Allies Against Racism is still popular after 20 years of use by anti-racism educators.

Travel-study courses for UNL students

'INDIAN EDUCATION FOR ALL'

1-week travel-study trip to Wyoming & Montana, June 2019

Funded in part through a Spencer Foundation grant,"Elevating Indigenous Knowledge in Education Research"

CULTURE AND EDUCATION IN BELIZE

Spring Break week in Belize, Central America, 2018 & 2017

CULTURAL SURVIVAL IN PINE RIDGE

1-week travel-study trips to the Oglala Lakota Reservation (Great Sioux Nation), South Dakota, 2013 & 2014

Selected presentations (invited)

Build Bridges, Not Walls: Courageous Conversations Across Campus. WASC Academic Resource Conference. Garden Grove, CA, 2019 (with Dr. Sarah Thomas)

Managing Difficult Conversations with Students. Annual Academic Advising Association Conference, UNL, with Dr. Lory Dance & Dr. Rose Holz, 2019 (panelist)

Service-Learning and Civic Engagement. Teaching & Learning Symposium, sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Peer Review of Teaching Project, UNL, 2015 (panelist)

Transforming the Triple Whammy of Oppression: Adultism, Racism, and Adoptism American Adoption Congress Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA, 2014 (keynote)

Working Together As Allies for Social Justice (keynote), annual conference of Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN). Grand Rapids, MI, 2013 (keynote),

Race and Culture ARE Special Needs, The Changing Face of Adoption Conference, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Appleton, WI, 2013 (keynote)

Transracial Adoption: What Works and What Doesn’t Work, conference sponsored by Vista Del Mar Child & Family Services, Los Angeles, CA, 2011 (keynote)

Professional Highlights


Honors and Recognition
Recipient, 2017 Multicultural Educator of the Year, National Association for Multicultural EducationAppointed to the affiliated faculty, Institute for Ethnic Studies, 2016Recipient, 2010 Friend of the Children Award, North American Council on Adoptable ChildrenAppointed to the affiliated faculty, Women’s & Gender Studies Program, 2008