NEPC Topic Experts on Multilingual and/or Multicultural Education

Dr. Arias is former Vice President and Chief Development Officer for the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. Currently she is a Senior Research Scientist for CAL. Arias is an emeritus Professor at Arizona State University with expertise in policy issues for Latinx students including bilingual education and school desegregation.

Email Beatriz Arias at: barias@cal.org

Alfredo J. Artiles is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University. His scholarship examines the dual nature of disability as an object of protection and a tool of stratification. He aims to understand how responses to disability intersections with race, social class, gender and language advance or hinder educational opportunities for disparate groups of students.

Dr. Artiles received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Göteborgs (Sweden) and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). He is the Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) and Director of the Research Institute at Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity. Dr. Artiles is the editor of the book series Disability, Culture, & Equity published (Teachers College Press). He has served on three consensus panels of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and was a Commissioner on the Obama White House Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Artiles has received mentoring awards from The Spencer Foundation, AERA, and Arizona State University. Dr. Artiles is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and Fellow of AERA and the Learning Policy Institute.

Email Alfredo Artiles at: aartiles@stanford.edu

Leonard Baca is professor emeritus of education and former director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education (www.colorado.edu/education/BUENO) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Baca is a member of several professional organizations including the National Association of Bilingual Education, Teachers of English as a Second Language, the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Association for Multicultural Education and the American Educational Research Association. He served on the editorial boards of several journals including the Bilingual Research Journal, Multicultural Perspectives, and Remedial and Special Education.

Email Leonard Baca at: leonard.baca@colorado.edu

E-mail Antonia Darder at antonia.darder@lmu.edu

Jaime L. Del Razo is an Assistant Professor of Education at Vassar College. He is interested in researching and writing about issues that confront the continual and accepted forms of oppression that marginalized communities endure in overt and subtle forms in the United States with the goal of changing these conditions forever. Though this research agenda intersects a variety of topics, his current lines of inquiry include (1) Access & Equity for Undocumented Students; (2) Race & Racism; (3) Class & Classism; and (4) Militarization of Schools & Veteran Students. Jaime holds a PhD in Education from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.

Email Jaime Del Razo at: jdelrazo@vassar.edu

Kathy Escamilla is a Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Escamilla's research centers on educational issues related to Spanish-speaking language minority students in U.S. schools. She is specifically interested in issues related to the development of bilingualism and biliteracy in early elementary grades for this Spanish speaking population. Dr. Escamilla has served two terms as the president of the National Association for Bilingual Education. She is a co-editor of the Bilingual Research Journal, and has served as the chair of the Bilingual SIG for the American Education Research Association.

Email Kathy Escamilla at: kathy.escamilla@colorado.edu

Patricia Gándara is a Research Professor at the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. Her professional interests in graduate teaching include education policy/education reform, social context of learning, learning and assessment, and educational equity/bilingual and multicultural education. She is currently the co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles. She was President of the Sociology of Education Association in 1995 and Chair of the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute in 1995. She has also been Chair of the Program Committee for Division G and Chair of the Hispanic SIG of the American Educational Research Association.

Email Patricia Gándara at: pcgandara@gmail.com

Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles

Dr. Mileidis Gort is Associate Dean of Students and Professor of Bilingual Education and Biliteracy at CU Boulder. She brings an interdisciplinary orientation to her research and teaching. Her primary research efforts focus on emergent bilingualism and biliteracy in early childhood, and to bring that knowledge to pre K-12 teacher education and practice in order to create culturally- and linguistically-responsive learning contexts for emergent bilingual learners. Her scholarship converges at two interrelated lines of research: (a) the language and literacy processes of young, Spanish-English emergent bilingual children, and (b) instructional practices and educational policies that support the dual language, biliteracy, and academic development of emergent bilingual children.

Email Mileidis Gort at: mileidis.gort@colorado.edu

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro (https://www.kevinkumashiro.com) is the founding chair of the national network, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE).  He is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate.  Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the Schools of Education at the University of San Francisco and Hofstra University, and is the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice, and most recently, Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. His recent awards include the 2016 Social Justice in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Francesca López, PhD is the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy at Penn State University, College of Education, Curriculum and Instruction Department. Her research focuses on the ways educational settings promote achievement for marginalized youth.  It has been funded by the American Educational Research Association Grants Program, the Division 15 American Psychological Association Early Career Award, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Email Francesca López at: falopez@psu.edu

Ruth M. López, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice at The University of Arizona College of Education. She earned B.A.s in Mexican American Studies and Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin, and PhD in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was previously a Senior Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. Prior to earning her PhD, she was a college outreach counselor in Houston through the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at UT-Austin, and a program coordinator of the Colorado Diversity Initiative at CU-Boulder. Dr. López’s research addresses the social and political contexts that students of color navigate across K-12 schools. Her work examines 1) the intersections of education and immigration policies, 2) college access for Latinx and undocumented students, 3) the experiences of Latinas at Hispanic Serving Institutions. Dr. López’s commitment to educational equity and college access is informed by her multiple identities as the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico, first-generation college student/graduate, and mother scholar.

Email Ruth López at: ruthlopez@arizona.edu

H. Richard Milner IV (also known as Rich) is Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education and Professor of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. His research, teaching, and policy interests concern urban education, teacher education, African American literature, and the social context of education. Professor Milner’s research examines practices and policies that support teacher effectiveness in urban schools. Professor Milner is President of the American Educational Research Association, the largest educational research organization in the world. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Professor Milner’s work has appeared in numerous journals, and he has published seven books. His most recent are: Start where you are but don’t stay there: Understanding diversity, opportunity gaps, and teaching in today’s classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2010 and 2020, Second Edition), Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools and classrooms (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and These kids are out of control: Why we must reimagine classroom management for equity (Corwin Press, 2018).   

Email Rich Milner at: rich.milner@vanderbilt.edu

Deborah Palmer is a Professor in the program in Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder.. A former two-way dual language bilingual teacher in California, she conducts qualitative research using ethnography and discourse analysis in linguistically diverse settings. Her interests include bilingual education policy and politics; critical additive bilingual education; teacher preparation for linguistically/culturally diverse teaching contexts; language, power and identity; and bilingual teacher leadership. In particular, Dr. Palmer examines issues of race and class in bilingual settings, and the impact of critical awareness of teachers for mitigating hegemonic discourses. She explores various ways to open equitable spaces/opportunities for learning for linguistically diverse children in school. She is interested in how bilingual children can be positioned or position themselves in academically powerful ways within a classroom.

Recent publications include:

Palmer, D., & Henderson, K. (2016) Dual language tracking and teacher discourses on emergent bilingual students. International Multilingual Research Journal, 10(1), 17-30.

Palmer, D. & Martínez, R. (2016) Developing biliteracy: What do teachers really need to know about language? Research Commentary, Language Arts 93(5), 379-385.

Fitzsimmons-Doolan, S., Palmer, D. & Henderson, K. (2015). Language ideologies and district-wide dual language program implementation. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

Beth C. Rubin, Ph.D. is professor of education at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. In her work, she uses a critical, sociocultural approach to investigate how young people develop, both as learners and as citizens, amid the interwoven contexts of classroom, school, and community, with particular attention to the ways that these settings are shaped by historical and structural inequalities. Her work appears in a variety of journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, the Harvard Educational Review, Curriculum Inquiry, Equity and Excellence in Education, the Urban Review, and others. Her most recent book is Making Citizens: Transforming Civic Learning for Diverse Social Studies Classrooms (Routledge, 2012).

Email Beth Rubin at: beth.rubin@gse.rutgers.edu

Ron Scapp is the founding director of the Graduate Program of Urban and Multicultural Education at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx where he is professor of humanities and teacher education. He is currently the director of program development at the College, and is President of the National Association for Ethnic Studies. He is also serving as a member of the International Committee for Kappa Delta Pi and a member of United Federation of Teachers policy board for the NYC Teachers Center.  He has written on a variety of topics—from popular culture to education, from social and political philosophy to art criticism. 

His recent books include, Managing to Be Different: Educational Leadership as Critical Practice (Routledge) and Living With Class: Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Material Culture, co-edited with Brian Seitz (Palgrave Macmillan). He has collaborated with others on different projects, most notably with cultural critic and author bell hooks [sic]. He is currently working on a book about education and the culture of reform and is co-editor with Kenneth J. Saltman of the Routledge series, Positions: Education, Politics and Culture. He is editor of the journal Ethnic Studies Review, and is a founding member of Group Thought, a philosophy collective based in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Email Ron Scapp at: ron.scapp@mountsaintvincent.edu

Christine Sleeter is Professor Emerita in the College of Education at California State University Monterey Bay, where she was a founding faculty member. Her research focuses on anti-racist multicultural education, the impact of ethnic studies on students, and the preparation of teachers for racially and ethnically diverse schools.

Email Christine Sleeter at: csleeter@gmail.com

Jamy Stillman is an Associate Professor of Education in the division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research explores the factors that shape teachers’ capacities to deliver equity-oriented, responsive instruction in high-poverty schools serving minoritized youth, especially Spanish-English bilingual students. Using qualitative methods, Jamy focuses primarily on two factors—education policy (e.g. high-stakes accountability policies and standards-based reform) and features of university teacher education—to generate understandings about pre-service and practicing teachers’ learning and work across contexts, and the implications of this work and learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students’ opportunities to learn. Jamy is also becoming increasingly interested in questions surrounding the preparation of urban teacher educators.

Email Jamy Stillman at: Jamy.Stillman@colorado.edu

Angela Valenzuela is a professor in both the Educational Policy and Planning Program Area within the Department of Educational Administration and the Cultural Studies in Education Program within the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin where she also serves as the director of the University of Texas Center for Education Policy.

A Stanford University graduate, her previous teaching positions were in Sociology at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1990-98), as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston (1998-99).  In 2007 as a Fulbright Scholar, she also taught in the College of Law at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico.

Valenzuela is also the author of Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring and Leaving Children Behind: How "Texas-style" Accountability Fails Latino Youth.

She also has a volume that is in press based on her national-level work as director of the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP) titled, Growing Critically Conscious Teachers for Latino/a Youth: A Grounded Social Justice Approach (NY: Teachers College Press).

Valenzuela's research and teaching interests are in the sociology of education, race and ethnic relations, education policy, school partnerships, urban education reform, and indigenous education.

Email Angela Valenzuela at: valenz@austin.utexas.edu

Dr. Terrence G. Wiley is President of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC, and he serves as Special Professor, Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership and Graduate School, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. He is also Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, where he served as Executive Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education and Director of the Division of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies. He has also been serving as a Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Languages for Renmin (Peoples’) University of China’s International Programs.

Professor Wiley’s teaching and research have focused on educational and applied linguistics, concentrating on educational language policies; language diversity and immigrant integration; teaching English as a second and international language; bilingualism, literacy and biliteracy studies; and bilingual, heritage and community language education. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Education with an emphasis in Linguistics, has two Master’s degrees, in Linguistics and Asian Studies, and a B.A. in History. He has won numerous awards for scholarship, teaching, and service.

Professor Wiley’s scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in the Modern Language Journal, the TESOL Quarterly, Language in Society, the International Journal of Sociology of Language, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, the Bilingual Research Journal, Educational Policy, and Teachers College Record.

Among his books are: Handbook of Heritage, Community, and Native American Languages: Research, Policy, and Practice (co-editor, Routledge, 2014). The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the United States (co-editor, 2009, Multilingual Matters), Literacy and Language Diversity in the United States, 2nd Ed (author, 2005, Center for Applied Linguistics), Ebonics in the Urban Education Debate, 2nd Ed (co-editor, 2005, Multilingual Matters), Professor Wiley has also published numerous chapters in volumes published by Cambridge and Oxford university presses, Blackwell, Taylor and Francis, Routledge, Sage, John Wiley & Sons, Lawrence Erlbaum, John Benjamins, Mouton, UNESCO, the University of Hawaii Press, and Professor Wiley's editorial service includes co-founding and co-editing the Journal of Language, Identity and Education (Routledge, Taylor & Francis), and the International Multilingual Research Journal (Routledge, Taylor & Francis), guest co-editing the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and Bilingual Research Journal, and AERA’s Review of Research in Education (in press, 2014). He has also served on numerous editorial boards, including the TESOL Quarterly, the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language Planning, and Language Policy,

Professor Wiley’s research collaborations have included projects with UCLA’s National Heritage Language Resource Center; ASU’s Confucius Institute in partnership with Sichuan University; and UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, and he serves as Fellow with the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In addition to his work in China, Professor Wiley and has done visiting professorships and lectured at universities in Africa, East and South Asia, Europe and the UK, North, South, and Central America, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also organizer of the international Language Policy Research Network of AILA (Association Internationale de la Linguistique Appliquée).

Professor Wiley is the 2014 recipient of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award.

Email Terrence G. Wiley at: twiley@CAL.org