Melissa F. Weiner

Melissa F. Weiner serves as Professor of Sociology in the Sociology & Anthropology Department at College of the Holy Cross, specializing in critical race and decolonial scholarship examining white supremacist mechanisms of racism and colonialism across the United States and Dutch Kingdom. Her research critically analyzes educational systems, historical slavery legacies, and transnational racial formations.

Her academic foundation includes:

• BA in Sociology and BS in Journalism from Boston University (2000)
• Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (2006)

Weiner's research centers on the intersections of race, colonialism, and education, with particular focus on Dutch primary schooling and US educational justice movements. She employs critical discourse analysis and historical sociology to expose how textbooks and classroom practices perpetuate racial hierarchies while advancing decolonial frameworks through works like Smash the Pillars: Decoloniality and the Imaginary of Color in the Dutch Kingdom (2018).

Analysis of her fifteen most recent publications reveals consistent thematic threads: Dutch colonial amnesia in education (2014-2018), transnational slavery studies (2022-2023), and contemporary critiques of racial erasure in academic discourse (2023). Her methodology bridges historical analysis with ethnographic classroom observation, demonstrating how racial neoliberalism operates through seemingly neutral educational structures across national contexts.