College of Education and Human Development

School of Social Work

Ceema Samimi

  • Pronouns: they, them, theirs

  • Assistant Professor

  • Office Hours

    by appointment

Ceema Samimi

Areas of interest

Youth power, voice, and engagement; anti-racist research; abolition; Restorative and transformative justice; School-to-prison nexus; community-engaged research and CPAR/YPAR; quantCrit; critical race theory & racial justice; youth homelessness; education and schools; nonprofit industrial complex

Degrees

Ph.D., University of Denver 
MPA, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
MSSW, Columbia University

Biography

My research is broadly grounded in the idea of youth power - young people's ability to shape the communities and world they live in. As such, my work examines the intersections of service organizations, societal systems, criminalization, and race, and how these intersections impact young people. I believe that institutions such as the U.S. education system are responsible for uplifting the power of young people and that the school-to-prison pipeline is one of the most egregious displays of youth disempowerment.

My goal as an academic is to do research that is not only useful to the community, but that transforms systems (such as the educational system) into loving environments that contribute to what hooks calls "homeplace" (hooks, 1990). I use critical race theory as my primary framework in order to center race and power in my analysis. I want my work to be useful not only to those most impacted but to those who make decisions about how that impact happens. 

Google Scholar

Publications

Samimi, C., Han, T. M., Navvab, A., Sedivy, J. A., & Anyon, Y. (2023). Restorative practices and exclusionary school discipline: an integrative review. Contemporary Justice Review, 1-20.

Samimi, C., Jefferson, N., Flanagan, S., & Anyon, Y. (2023). Intersections of Disproportion: A Critical Quantitative Examination of Dis/ability and Gender in Black Students’ School Discipline Outcomes. The Urban Review, 1-20.

Wiley, K., Anyon, Y., Samimi, C., Trujillo, M. (2021) Sent out or sent home: understanding racial disparities across suspension types from critical race theory and quantcrit perspectives, Race Ethnicity and Education, DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2021.2019000

Samimi, C., DeHererra, C. (2020). Picando piedras: picking at the rocks of social justice under the nonprofit industrial complex. Journal of Progressive Human Services

Young, D. A., Garcia-Olp, M. C., & Samimi, C. (2020). Dismantling Gringismo in Education. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 9(1).

Samimi, C. & Sliva, S. M. (2019). It’s Symbiotic: Exploring the facilitators and outcomes of a successful community-university research partnership. Journal of Social Service Research.

Sliva, S. M., & Samimi, C. (2018). Social Work and Prison Labor: A Restorative Model. Social Work. 63(2), 153-160

Samimi, J. (2010). Funding America’s nonprofits: the nonprofit industrial complex's hold on social justice. Columbia Social Work Review. 10(1), 17-25 https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8QC0DC7

Presentations

Joseph, A., Bookster, B., Samimi, C., Toidc, J., & Fernandez, C. (2021, January). Restoring What? Critical Social Work at the Nexus of Discipline and Justice in Schools. Society for Social Work Research. Virtual.

Anyon, Y., Trujillo, M., Samimi, C. Disparities by Race and Disability across Discipline Outcomes: Multilevel Correlates of In- and Out-of-School Suspension. (2021, January). Poster presented at the Society for Social Work and Research. Virtual.

Joseph, A., Samimi, C., Stuart McQueen, S. (2020, November). Restorative Schools, Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline Panel presentation at the Council on Social Work Education Annual Professional Meeting. Virtual.

Samimi, C. (2020, January). Predicting Punishment: Using Propensity Score Matching to Predict Who Receives Restorative Practices. Paper presented as part of symposia School Discipline Disparities and Just Discipline Futures: Examining and Disrupting Systematic Exclusion at the Society for Social Work and Research. Washington, D.C.

Samimi, C. & Deherrera, C. (2019, April). Social Justice or Conscious Laundering: How Activists Navigate the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. Paper presentation at the 6th Annual Global Well-Being and Social Change Conference at Millersville University. Lancaster, PA

Samimi, C., Navvab, A., Han, T., Sedivy, J. &Anyon, Y. (2019, January). Restorative Practices and Exclusionary School Discipline: A Systematic Review. Paper presented at the Society for Social Work and Research. San Francisco, CA.