Theresa’s (Ph.D., UCLA, 1991) research agenda undertakes the examination of the nexus of language, literacy and culture in multilingual settings for diasporic populations. Her expertise in ethnographic, narrative inquiry and discourse analytic research has been employed to examine Latine* teacher development in multilingual and heritage language education; the connections between race, identity and language learning, and research on policy and planning for multilingual education (dual language curriculum design, testing, assessment and evaluation). Theresa’s scholarship draws on critical sociocultural theories working with various national co-researchers who have been her students, with teachers and teacher research-colleagues and with international research mentors working with underserved communities in Paraguay, Colombia, Japan and Canada. Her transformative research agenda has emerged from working with teachers and other researchers to attend to the social inequities that plague second language learners from underserved linguistically and culturally diverse communities, immigrant learners, and teachers who serve these learners and their communities. While Latine* populations are central to her research commitments, Theresa acknowledges the personal and political are also intertwined in these pursuits, as these issues are also an integral part of her own familial commitments. She is committed to struggling against oppressive social dynamics that impede multilingual and multicultural learners from fulling realizing their true potentials in schools and society.
Her publications can be found in journals those address research as well as those that address praxis: Journal of Latinos and Education,Teaching, and Research; Critical Inquiry in Language Studies Journal; Languages and Linguistics ; Journal of Urban Learning; Journal of Practitioner Research, to name a few. In addition her scholarship can also be located in published texts such as “Language Teachers as Allies: Transformative Practices for Teaching DREAMers and Undocumented Students” (Teachers College Press); Culturally Responsive Pedagogy(Springer Nature,Palgrave),Race, culture, and identities in second language education: Exploring critically engaged practice(Routledge), among others.
Latine* I use this term as it maintains the Spanish linguistic feature that uses “e” as the neutral morphology for adjectives.