Overview

My research interests encompass the areas of multicultural education, Latino education, ethnography, educational anthropology and cultural studies. I am a former Spanish bilingual elementary school teacher and adult educator. Currently as a teacher educator and researcher, I am engaged with the question of how culture, race, gender, socio-economic status and language intersect to shape youths` and parents` experiences in and out of school. I have been interested in documenting the knowledge, values, beliefs and resources of diverse families and communities in order to learn, among other things, how educators may create bridges between the many different sites of teaching and learning. My overall focus on issues of equity, social justice and diversity in education have informed three current research projects. They include a qualitative study of how diverse families and youths experience inclusion and exclusion in a college town school district, an ongoing study of how immigrant Latino parents navigate parenting, schooling and sites of adult learning in new Latino destinations, and a conceptual project involving the question of how to think through educational problems with the knowledge and theories emanating from communities of color. Specifically, I am engaged in perceiving issues of identity, pedagogy and research methodology in education through U.S. women of color and latina/o cultural studies perspectives. My objectives are two-fold: 1) to conduct research that is local and collaborative towards efforts for inclusive, culturally responsive and socially just education, and 2) to expand theoretical and conceptual lenses in multicultural and Latina/o education to include diverse sites of theory-making.

Instruction Focus

Dr. Villenas` main areas are educational anthropology, ethnography, multicultural education, issues of school inequality, the study of race, culture, gender and language in K-12, higher education and adult educational settings, Latino education, and cultural studies and women of color feminist thought in Education. She teaches some of these areas as specific courses, but each of her courses is influenced by the above perspectives, theories and qualitative methodology. She is interested in exploring the role of diversity in classroom settings and in educational reform.

Additional Links

• Department of Education
• Link to CALS Research portal
• Link to CALS Impact statements

Honors, Awards and Appointments

• AESA's (American Educational Studies Association) 2006 Critic's Choice Award for book Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life (co-edited with D. Delgado Bernal, C.A. Elenes and F. Godinez). - 2006
• School of Education Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence in teaching, The University of North Carolina - 2002
• The National Research Council Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship - 2001-2002
• Spencer Foundation Disseration Fellowship - 1995-1996

Selected Publications

• Murillo Jr. E., Villenas, S., Trinidad Galvan, T., Martinez, C., Munoz, J. & Machado-Casas, M. (Eds.) (in press, 2010). Handbook of Latinos and Education: Theory, Research and Practice. NY: Routledge.
• Villenas, S. (2008). Diaspora and the Anthropology of Latino Education: Challenges, Affinities and Intersections. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 38(4).
• Delgado Bernal, D., Elenes, C.A., Godinez, F., & Villenas, S. (Eds.) (2006). Chicana/Latina education in every day life: Feminista perspectives on pedagogy and epistemology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Villenas, S. (2006). Latina Feminist Postcolonialities: Perspectives on Un/tracking Educational Actors' Interventions. The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(5), pp. 659-672.
• Villenas, S. (2005). Between the telling and the told: Latina mothers negotiating education in new borderlands. In J. Phillion, M.F. He, and M. Connelly (Eds.), Narrative and experience in multicultural education (pp. 71-91). Thousan Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Villenas, S. & Foley, D. (2002). Chicano/Latino critical ethnography of education: Cultural productions from la frontera. In R. Valencia (Ed.) Chicano school failure and success: Past, present and future, 2nd edition (pp. 195-226). New York and London: Routledge and Falmer.
• Villenas, S. (2002). Reinventing edcacion in new Lation communities: Pedagogies of change and continuity in North Carolina. In S. Wortham, E., Murillo Jr., and E. Hamann (Eds.) Education in the new Latino Diaspora: Policy and the politics of identity (pp. 17-35). Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.
• Villenas, S. & Moreno, M. (2001). To valerse por si misma between race, capitalism, and patriarchy: Latina mother/daughter pedagogies in North Carolina. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(5), pp. 595-602.
• Villenas, S. (2001). Latina mothers and small-town racisms: Creating narratives of dignity and moral education in North Carolina. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 32(1), pp. 3-28.
• Villenas, S. (2000). This ethnography called my back: Writings of the exotic gaze, "othering" Latina, and recuperating Xicanisma. In E. St. Pierre & W. Pillow (Eds.), Working the ruins: Poststructural feminist theory and methods in education (pp. 74-95). New York: Routledge.
• Richardson, T., & Villenas, S. (2000). Other encounters: Dances with whiteness in multicultural education. Educational Theory, 50(2), pp. 255-273.
• Villenas, S., & Deyhile, D. (1999). Critical race theory and ethnographies challenging the stereotypes: Latino families, schooling, reilience and resistance. Curriculum Inquiry. 29(4), pp. 413-445.
• Parker, L., Deyhile, D., & Villenas, S. (Eds.) (1999). Race is...race isn`t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Villenas, S. (1996). The colonizer/colonized Chicana ethnographer: Identity, marginalization, and co-optation in the field. Harvard Educational Review, 66(4), pp. 711-731.

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