Research

Being in-between - Dissertation project 

This is a qualitative case study of secondary, upper-level classes that feature a mix heritage and second language learners in the Midwest. The study seeks to explain the phenomenon of language border construction between teachers and students and students’ linguistic identity making processes. I draw on Gloria Anzaldua’s seminal conceptualizations of in-betweenness, or nepantla, as a space for embracing the tensions, ambiguities, and possibilities that emerge in binary views of linguistic and cultural difference (Anzaldúa, 1987/2021). In other words, while linguistic border-making might characterize typical SWL classrooms, this study examines the extent to which speakers of Spanish as a home language contribute to this co-construction—by reinforcing, challenging, and/or resisting this border-making—and the consequences of this co-construction on their own linguistic identity-making in and beyond the classroom.

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Project RESPECT 

Serving as recruitment coordinator and research assistant for WIDA's most recent project funded by a U.S. Department of Education National Professional Development Grant. The program, Project RESPECT seeks to increase capacity of rural K–8 teachers to provide effective and equitable literacy instruction for multilingual learners, with the goal of improving student engagement and language and literacy development in rural districts in Wisconsin.  My role has been to co-develop research protocols; contribute to survey design; collect qualitative data including classroom observations, teacher interviews, and multilingual family focus groups; develop a codebook; code and analyze data; present emergent data at national conferences; co-write a final report for organizational decision-makers at WIDA