Bruce Fuller

Bruce Fuller, Ph.D., is a professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His current work focuses on the dilemmas around the radical decentering of public aims and institutions, including child care and public schools, as well as how different groups are served by this movement. Prior to becoming a full-time scholar, Mr. Fuller worked for a state legislature, a governor, then a sociologist at the World Bank. He taught at the Harvard School of Education before returning home to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over the past 25 years -- inside policy organizations and the university -- Fuller has explored how public initiatives attempt to advance children's learning and development. As a sociologist curious about the state and "theories of action" embedded in policy, much of his work examines the origins and practical features of educational and family policies. Fuller's empirical work also focuses on local organizations in terms of how schools, child-care organizations, and families respond to recurring waves of policy reform aimed at changing the behavior of residents found inside.

Mr. Fuller is finishing a book on the political and cultural dilemmas that swirl about the universal preschool movement. This cause, gaining strength in several states, offers an intriguing case of how the central state attempts to unify and standardize even grassroots organizations that serve a colorfully pluralistic array of families.

His other books are "Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization" (Harvard University Press, 2000), and "Government Confronts Culture" (Taylor & Francis, 1999). His previous work with Susan Holloway on early education in poor communities, appeared in Through My Own Eyes (Harvard, 1997). Fuller also explored the theme of how different kinds of families and children respond to state-led or market-oriented policies in a book with Richard Elmore, Who Chooses, Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice (Teachers College Press, Columbia, 1996).

He may be reached at b_fuller@berkeley.edu.