The Cultural-Historical Research Special Interest Group (SIG #30) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) is a diverse group of researchers who approach learning, development and social change from a cultural-historical, socio-cultural and/or activity theoretic perspective. Common themes of research and conversation draw on Vygotsky, Luria, Leont’ev, Bakhtin, Mead (among others).
Drawing on these perspectives, members also engage with frameworks that are inclusive of, but not limited to critical, feminist, digital studies, and arts-based approaches to explore sociocultural, educational, pedagogical, and sociopolitical questions at the intersection of theory and practice.
Co-Chairs: Patricia Martínez-Álvarez, Teachers College, Columbia University & Monica Lemos, Independent Researcher
Co-Program Chairs: Megan Elaine Lynch, University of North Florida & Jaakko A. Hilppö, University of Helsinki
Secretary/Treasurer: Minhye Sun, California State University - Dominguez Hills
Website/Communications Chair: Aireale J. Rodgers, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Click the link below to read the call for submissions to the 2024 AERA Annual Meeting, from Program Co-Chairs Patricia Martínez-Álvarez and Monica Lemos.
Patricia Martínez-Álvarez Associate Professor of Bilingual/Bicultural Education Teachers College, Columbia University pmartinez@tc.columbia.edu
Patricia Martínez-Álvarez, PhD, is an associate professor in the program in Bilingual/Bicultural Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Employing cultural historical and critical disability theories, Dr. Martínez-Álvarez's research exposes the educational inequities that bilingual children with a disability experience in schools and prepares teachers for enacting inclusive education in bilingual programs. She is an Early Career AERA awardee from the Bilingual Education Research SIG and a recipient of the 2017 Early Career Reviewer Award from the Bilingual Research Journal and the 2023 Reviewer Award from the Research in the Teaching of English journal. Dr. Martínez-Álvarez is the co-chair of the AERA Cultural-Historical research SIG, an Associate Editor for the Teachers College Record, and an editor of the Exceptional Children journal. She has multiple publications, including her 2022 book Teacher Education for Inclusive Bilingual Contexts with Routledge and her 2023 book Teaching Emergent Bilingual Students With Dis/Abilities with the Teachers College Press. Visit Patricia’s Faculty Page
Selected Publications
Martínez-Álvarez, P. (2023). Teaching emergent bilingual students with dis/abilities: Humanizing pedagogies to engage learners and eliminate labels. In A. J. Artiles (series ed.), Disability, Culture and Equity book series. Teachers College Press. https://www.tcpress.com/teaching-emergent-bilingual-students-with-dis/abilities-9780807768105?page_id=1655
Martínez-Álvarez, P. (2022). Teacher education for inclusive bilingual contexts: Collective reflection to support emergent bilinguals with and without disabilities. In Routledge Research in Teacher Education book series. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003112259
Monica Lemos Cognition, Learning, Instruction & Communication Escola Castanheiras/University of Helsinki monica.lemos@gmail.com
Monica lemos, PhD, has recently defended the PhD expanding educational activities beyond school walls, which comprised a formative intervention in creative chain of activities and the study of a secondary students' social movement to improve educational management in São Paulo. Dr. lemos research experience comprises her participation in the language and activities in educational contexts (lace) research group since the beginning of the 2000's, group in which she has been taking part as a researcher in different projects. In addition, she also contributes to the research group at (working accidents), who is involved in formative interventions to prevent working accidents and improve workers wellbeing using the framework of the change laboratory. Dr. Lemos contributes to the Mind Culture and Activity- An International Journal and Cultural Praxis collective and she is the current co-chair of the AERA Cultural-historical Research SIG.
Dr. Lemos works as a Pedagogical Coordinator in São Paulo, Brazil. linkedin
Selected publications
Lemos, M. & Cunha Júnior, F. (2018) Facebook in Brazilian schools: Mobilizing to fight back, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 25:1, 53-67,doi: 10.1080/10749039.2017.1379823
Lemos, M. & Liberali, F. (2019) The creative chain of activities towards educational management transformation. International Journal of Educational Management. vol. 33 no. 7, 2019 pp. 1718-1732 Emerald Publishing Limited 0951-354x doi 10.1108/ijem-08-2017-0219
Jaako HilppöLecturer, Faculty of Educational SciencesUniversity of Helsinki jaakko.hilppo@helsinki.fi
Dr. Jaakko Hilppö currently holds a university lecturership at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. His research focuses on children’s projects as manifestations of their agency and sites for their learning from a cultural-historical activity theory perspective. This work directly builds on his previous research on children’s sense of agency and doing co-participatory research with children. He has also studied compassion in children's peer interactions and cultures of compassion in early childhood and care contexts (University of Helsinki) as well as children’s learning and interest development within the FUSE Studio model, an innovative STEAM learning infrastructure (Northwestern University). He has also studied the national and international spread of the FUSE Studio model.
Megan E. Lynch is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of North Florida in the College of Education and Human Services, where she engages in (critical) practitioner inquiry in collaboration with faculty, teacher candidates, and school partners in both UNF’s Professional Development Schools and partner schools and the Urban Education Scholars Program. She is a Co-Principal Investigator on Project PREP: Partnering to Renew the Educator Pipeline. Dr. Lynch earned her doctorate in curriculum and instruction, emphasis in supervision, from The Pennsylvania State University. Megan’s research draws on sociocultural and critical theories to better understand and shape the development of socially just pedagogy and political activism alongside preservice and in-service teachers and P-12 students within school-university partnerships. She prioritizes a Freireian praxis approach situated within the concrete, practical educational realities of co-research participants and co-researchers and their socio-political environment. Megan has publications in the Journal of Educational Supervision, Science and Children, and The Pennsylvania Teacher Educator. She is the lead associate editor for the journal School-University Partnerships.
Lynch, M. E., Bose, F. N., & Lee, M. (2022). Teacher candidates working with digital technologies to support multilingual students in asset-based ways. The Pennsylvania Teacher Educator.
Lynch, M. E. (2021). Supervision to deepen student teachers’ understanding of social justice: The role of responsive mediation. Journal of Educational Supervision, 4(2). p. 80-100. https://doi.org/10.31045/jes.4.2.5
Minhye Son Assistant Professor of Teacher Education California State University, Dominguez Hills mson@csudh.edu
Minhye Son, EdD, is an assistant professor in the Teacher Education Division at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). Grounded in sociocultural theories and critical frameworks, her scholarly interests focus on the intersections of language and power in the areas of teacher education and bilingual/multicultural education. At CSUDH, she has the privilege of serving future teachers to support their practice in developing critical and humanizing pedagogy informed by anti-racist and decolonizing approaches with an asset and strength-based lens. Her work can be found in Teaching and Teacher Education and Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education. Dr. Son received her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and she is a proud Korean-English bilingual, transnational/transcultural mother-scholar, carrying multiple cultural-historical identities.
Kim, E., & Son, M. † (2023). What is visible and invisible: The portrayal of dual language programs on school websites. Language and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2023.2223165
Aireale J. RodgersAssistant Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy AnalysisUniversity of Wisconsin-Madisonarodgers4@wisc.edu
Dr. Aireale J. Rodgers is an Anna Julia Cooper Fellow and incoming Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Drawing on frameworks from critical race studies and the learning sciences, Dr. Rodgers’ scholarship seeks to illuminate how people’s everyday (mis)understandings about race and racism shape learning across various higher education ecologies. Currently, she uses qualitative techniques to study faculty development programs, graduate student socialization processes, and classroom teaching and learning to better understand how educators can facilitate learning that advances critical race consciousness for faculty and students in postsecondary institutions.
Selected Publications Rodgers, A. J., & Liera, R. (2023). When Race Becomes Capital: Diversity, Faculty Hiring, and the Entrenchment of Racial Capitalism in Higher Education. Educational Researcher, 0013189X231175359.
Rodgers, A. J. (2022). Embedding Equity in the Design and Implementation of Digital Courseware. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 54(4), 18-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2022.2078150.