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What is one thing you wish people knew about your work?

My work centers on seeking effective and culturally sustaining pathways to advance educational equity and improve the schooling experiences of Latinx students and their families. 

(My research encompasses two main strands of inquiry: 1) I examine biliteracy development in young bilingual students and effective pedagogical practices that support Latinx bilingual students’ learning and schooling experiences, and 2) I examine relationships between Latinx families and schools, and culturally sustaining approaches toward family-school partnerships in communities that serve Latinx families from immigrant backgrounds.) 

The detrimental deficit perspectives that surround Latinx students and families have been well documented and often position socio-economic, cultural and linguistic differences as problems and hindrances to students’ development and academic outcomes. Deficit ideologies manifest across educational domains, from policies and assessments to curriculum and pedagogy. A primary goal of my work is to contribute to shifting these deficit perspectives and ideologies toward strength-based ones that see children’s language, culture, families and identities as important assets for learning and schooling environments. 

I want people to know that integrating children’s identities, experiences, lives and families as part of classroom learning and the school environment is not a separate difficult endeavor and that these integrations can be simple and unified with current practices. These may be the smallest shifts, gestures and interactions, but make a world of difference for culturally and linguistically diverse student and families.

What is one recent accomplishment you are most proud of?

Being a Crown Faculty Fellow! The opportunity to work with distinguished scholars I admire deeply, the relationships of support, mentorship and collegiality, and sharing and having the opportunity to work toward the values and mission of the Crown Institute fills my heart with gratitude and strengthens my commitment to do the work that matters and that can transform the experiences of children, families and educators. Always with heart!¡Siempre con corazón!

Please describe why you are passionate about your area of study

My professional trajectory and research interests are rooted and influenced by my own personal experiences of immigrating from Mexico to the U.S. when I was eleven. The challenges faced in school became my strong drive and commitment to work toward improving the educational experiences of students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This path unifies my experiences, first as a young immigrant and bilingual student, then as a bilingual teacher in a border community for eleven years, and now as a researcher and teacher educator working toward educational equity. I believe that my mission and research in culturally and linguistically diverse education must have a transformative intention to benefit students and result in policy and pragmatic changes that will yield higher quality education for our students who need it the most.

For this reason, equity and social justice take a key role as an orientation and guiding principles in my research.

I see equity as recognizing how interactions, relationships, and institutions systemically serve diverse communities differently, marginalizing, reproducing deficit views and limiting opportunities for students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. In terms of equity, I take a criticalist¹ stance as a researcher, which acknowledges these systemic inequities and therefore I’m not neutral as I approach issues and settings when conducting research. In this sense, equity guides my selection of topics, issues, sites and communities where I want to conduct research. For example, I seek research-practice partnerships with organizations that serve historically marginalized Spanish-speaking Latinx communities from immigrant backgrounds. 

I view social justice as taking action to confront and disrupt these systemic inequities and challenge dominant ideologies. In terms of social justice, I take a transformative² stance because I am concerned with positive social change, particularly in issues of power, culture, and language. While equity guides my selection of issues and settings, it is social justice that guides the theories I use and how I would like the findings of my work to be used. That is, to benefit and have a positive impact on culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families in schools. For example, I integrate equity-oriented and strength-based theories in my work, such as critical race theory, culturally sustaining pedagogy and funds of knowledge, through a research approach that values partnership, reciprocity and theory-to-practice connections.

¹ Carspecken, P. F. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. Routledge.

 ²Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage Publications.

What brought you into this profession or area of scholarship?

During my process of adapting to a new country, new school and new language. I had negative experiences and challenges that devalued my identity, background, culture and language. To share a few examples: 

My 6th grade teacher lowered her glasses and returned my paper, annoyingly saying “no, no, no, I asked you to write about Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for? Didn’t you have any turkey?” This was my first year in the U.S. after moving from Mexico. I had followed my teacher’s instructions of writing about my Thanksgiving break and wrote about our usual weekend. We cleaned the house, rented movies and my mom made pozole (on Sunday, not Thursday). These were not the “right answers” my teacher was looking for, and I didn’t know these “right answers.” With each step back to my seat holding my paper, I knew and felt that everything I had shared was wrong. I was wrong and did not belong. I had to now write about a turkey I didn’t eat.

My ESL teacher asked all students caught speaking Spanish in the classroom to put a quarter in a jar with the label “charity.” I wondered who was this charity person that was taking my quarters? Every morning I made sure my backpack had my notebooks, pencils, books and a few quarters because surely, I would be caught speaking my own language. Spanish became a classroom black market commodity we were all strategic about using while not being caught. Especially so we could instead buy a popsicle afterschool with the saved quarters of the day!

I once walked into my high school counselor’s office holding three bright colorful brochures of universities I was interested in. When I asked my high school counselor if she could help me understand the application process and see if I could graduate a year early. She said, “oh honey, why don’t you try vocational school instead? I’m sure you’d love cosmetology. Maybe then you can consider the community college.” I walked out of her office and threw my brochures in the trash can outside. I did go on to graduate a year early and enrolled in my local university to become a bilingual teacher. And years later, I had the opportunity to take that brochure out of that trash can and attend CU ��«����Ƶ as a Miramontes Scholar to complete my PhD. When I graduated I wrote her an invitation to my graduation and signed it with all my labels at the time… and added PhD at the end: Sincerely, Adriana Alvarez, “at risk, free lunch, LEP (limited English proficient), single-parent home, PhD.” She had retired and did not send it, but wrote it in general for all the counselors and teachers who are often gatekeepers and have the chance to open opportunities and encourage students.

All of these experiences resulted in my complete silence in classes and I tried to hide everything about myself, including my language, culture and family, even my lunch. It would be many years until I reclaimed these integral aspects of my identity. In this personal process, I discovered my interest culturally and linguistically diverse education. I felt an urgency to convey to other children like myself that their languages and cultures are not to be hidden or wrong, but valued and cherished.I became a bilingual teacher for 11 years in the same school district in which I was a student with the purpose and mission to convey this message and empower students and families to unapologetically embrace these beautiful aspects of who they are. During my 11 years as K-2 bilingual teacher near the U.S.-Mexico border, I was very fortunate to build meaningful relationships with students, their families, colleagues, and our school community. Building relationships became a central aspect of my teaching philosophy.