John L. Rury is professor of education and (by courtesy) history at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses on the history of American education and related policy questions. He has served as editor of the American Educational Research Journal and was elected president of the History of Education Society (1998) and vice president of the American Educational Research Association (for Division F, 1997–1999).
Professor Rury is a social historian whose writing has focused on gender, race, and social inequality in education, with an emphasis on the twentieth century. His books include Urban Education in the United States (2005), Education and Social Change (2002, 2005, 2009), Education and Women’s Work (1991), Seeds of Crisis: Public Schooling in Milwaukee Since 1920 (1993), and Rethinking the History of American Education (2008). His work has appeared in History of Education Quarterly, Historical Methods, Social Science History, American Journal of Education, Review of Research in Education, Teachers College Record, The Journal of Negro Education, and Educational Policy, among other journals.