BA, Hollins University
MSW, Radford University
PhD, Virginia Tech, Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies
Laura Boutwell serves as a Faculty Associate in Bridgewater State University's newly formed Institute for Social Justice. In this capacity, Dr. Boutwell helps to coordinate Friends and Mentors for Change, an intensive mentoring and academic success program for high school students. Dr. Boutwell's fifteen years of community-based engagement with LGBT youth, youth of color, and refugee and immigrant youth deeply informs her understanding of and commitment to social justice work.
Dr. Boutwell's research interests include refugee and immigrant youth, participatory action and arts-based research, mentoring, and girls' studies. Her current qualitative, participatory-action research explores identity construction and refugee resettlement with a group of African, Muslim youth researchers living in the South. She has presented this research at multiple regional and national conferences and has a forthcoming methodology chapter in an edited book about girls' studies. In addition to her own scholarship, Dr. Boutwell has co-presented with refugee youth and Bridgewater students at national and regional conferences and has mentored multiple social work students as they pursued their own scholarship. Dr. Boutwell is the Faculty Advisor for the Bridgewater chapter of the Student Immigrant Movement, a statewide, youth-led organization advancing the rights of immigrant youth.
Dr. Boutwell identifies as a scholar-activist and primarily teaches courses in diversity and macro practice social work. Research interests include refugee and immigrant youth, participatory action and arts-based research, mentoring, and girls' studies.