The Second Language Research Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) is pleased to announce the Critical Language Education Seed Research Grant Program. This grant is designed to support doctoral students and early career scholars in the field of language education in conducting critical research that seeks to understand and/or address inequality. By funding innovative and impactful projects, this grant aims to advance critical scholarship that not only contributes to theories but also has the potential to transform language education practices and policies, creating more equitable learning environments for all language learners.

Submission Deadline: Application for the 2025 competition is closed. Details for the 2026 competition will be released at the AERA 2026 Annual Conference. 

For full guidelines and eligibility requirements, please see the Grant Program Guidelines and submit your application through the Application Form.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the CLE Seed Research Grant Co-Chairs, Dr. Kevin Wong (kevin.wong@pepperdine.edu) or Dr. Kongji Qin (kongji.qin@nyu.edu).

2025 Award Winners

• Early Career Scholar Awardees
  • Dr. Xinyue Lu, Assistant Professor of Second Language Acquisition, Howard University; Project title: "Patterns of Investment in World Language Learning: African American Students’ Experiences at an HBCU"
  • Dr. Minh Nghia-Nguyen, University of Massachusetts Boston; Project title: “Thinking with Restories in Early College Classrooms: A LACE Pedagogy”
• Graduate Student Awardees
  • Jaclyn Bovee, Oregon State University; Project title: "What is “access to linguistic inclusion”? A case study of Oregon’s HB 2056"
  • Basak Cermikli Ayvaz, Vanderbilt University; Project title: "Tracing Multilingual Pre-service Teachers’ Language Teacher Identity: Critical Orientations, Productive Tensions, and Sociopolitical Place"
  • Laura Meinzen, University of Colorado Boulder Project title: "Codesigning with Teachers for Critical Language Awareness in Cross-cultural YPAR with Multilingual, Transnational Youth"