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Idalia Nuñez, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching

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Bio

Dr. Idalia Nuñez is an Associate Professor in Literacy Education. Her interests include: exploring Spanish-English biliteracies and translanguaging; cultural and linguistic equity in educational settings; and bilingual/ESL pre-and in-service teacher education, identity, and agency. Her research focuses on recognizing the everyday cultural and linguistic resources of students of color, specifically from Latinx communities. Her work is guided by a sociocultural perspective that acknowledges the cultural contributions and knowledge that students, families, and communities of color bring into schools that can leverage academic learning. Furthermore, her research is grounded on the premise that an understanding of these everyday practices can inform and advance curricular and instructional developments that counter subtractive schooling approaches that continue to marginalize students and communities of color. Her work has been published in journals such as Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Reading Research Quarterly, Language Arts, Research in the Teaching of English, among others. She has also received the 2023 Early Career Scholar Award from AERA Language and Social Processes SIG.

 

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction, Specialization in Bilingual-Bicultural Education, The University of Texas at Austin, 2018
  • M.A., Education, Specialization in Reading and Literacy, University of Texas San Antonio, 2013
  • B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, Specialization in Bilingual Education, University of Texas Pan American, 2009

Honors and Awards

  • Campus Distinguished Promotion Award
    • Year Awarded: 2024
    • Organization: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Early Career Scholar Award
    • Year Awarded: 2023
    • Organization: American Educational Research Association (AERA), Division K, Teaching and Teacher Education
  • Early Career Scholar Award
    • Year Awarded: 2023
    • Organization: American Educational Research Association (AERA), Language and Social Processes Special Interest Group (SIG)
  • Cambio Center Faculty Fellow
    • Year Awarded: 2022
    • Organization: University of Missouri Cambio Center: Research and Outreach on Latinos and Changing Communities
  • New Leadership Academy Fellow
    • Year Awarded: 2022
    • Organization: The University of Utah
  • More Just World Award
    • Year Awarded: 2021
    • Organization: Journal of Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
  • Best Paper Award
    • Year Awarded: 2020
    • Organization: Literacy Research Association (LRA) 70th Annual Conference
  • STAR Fellow
    • Year Awarded: 2019-2022
    • Organization: Literacy Research Association
  • Outstanding Dissertation Award (3rd place)
    • Year Awarded: 2019
    • Organization: AERA Bilingual Education Research SIG
  • Outstanding Dissertation Award (2nd place)
    • Year Awarded: 2019
    • Organization: AERA Latina/o/x Research Issues SIG
  • Outstanding Dissertation Award (2nd place)
    • Year Awarded: 2019
    • Organization: National Association of Bilingual Education
  • Frederick Eby Research Award in Humanistic Studies in Education
    • Year Awarded: 2018
    • Organization: University of Texas at Austin
  • Graduate School Fellowship
    • Year Awarded: 2018
    • Organization: University of Texas at Austin

Grants, Patents and Clinical Trials

  • Grant: Through Young Children’s Perspectives, Practices, and Approaches: An Examination of Initial Ideology Formations and Investments in Biliteracy
    • Role: PI 
    • Duration: 2023-2024
    • Total Dollars: $20,000
  • Grant: Our Lives, Our Dreams, Our Voces: Leveraging Community-Based Collaborations to Increase Representation of Latina/x Girls’ Narratives in Museums
    • Role: PI
    • Duration: 2022-2025
    • Total Dollars: $75,000
  • Grant: Our Lives, Our Dreams, Our Voces: Leveraging Community-Based Collaborations to Increase Representation of Latina/x Girls’ Narratives in Museums
    • Role: Co-PI 
    • Duration: 2021-2024
    • Total Dollars: $25,000

Publications

  • Nuñez, I. (Forthcoming, 2025). Dreaming of un mejor futuro: Learning about critical multimodal practices for sobrevivencia. Language Arts.
  • Nuñez, I., Xu, S., & Li, Q. (Forthcoming, 2025). Transnational and Indigenous Latinx children's art-based bilingual writings: A placemaking-justice pedagogy. Language Arts.
  • Zhang, J. & Nuñez, I. (2024). Our Language, Our Story: Translanguaging for Critical Biliteracies in a Chinese American Children’s Literature Classroom. Bilingual Research Journal.
  • Nuñez, I. & Garcia, S. (Guest Editors of Special Issue, 2024). Rising from the Margins: Critical Research on the Language and Literacy Practices of Transnational and/or Indigenous Latine/x Families. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education.
  • Nuñez, I. (2023). Toward border‐crossing biliteracies: Pláticas of midwest transnational Latinx families reading and (re) writing the world. Reading Research Quarterly.
  • Nuñez, I., Zhang, J., Hernandez, D., & Becerra, M. (2023). “They are. Bilingual.”: Manifestations of bilanguaging love in a dual language bilingual classroom. Bilingual Research Journal.
  • Gonzalez Ybarra & Nuñez, I. (2023). Zines from the Borderlands: Latinx Pre-service Teacher Multimodal Critical Reflections. ImageText.
  • Nuñez, I. (2022). Collective (re)constructions of linguistic surveillance at home: Transfronterizx families as cultural and linguistic guardians. Equity and Excellence in Education, 54(3), 238-251.
  • Nuñez, I. & Garcia-Mateus, S. (2021) Ruptures of Possibility: Mexican Origin Mothers as Critical Border Pedagogues. Association of Mexican American Education Journal, 15 (3), 107-125.
  • Literacy Futurism Collective & Nuñez, I. (2021). We believe in collective magic: Re-claiming the future of literacy research. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice.
  • Nuñez, I. (2021). “Because we have to speak English at school”: Transfronterizx children translanguaging identity to cross the academic border. Research in the Teaching of English, 56(1), 10-32.
  • Nuñez, I. (2021). “Siento que el inglés está tumbando mi español”: A Latina transfronteriza child’s embodied critical language awareness. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.
  • Nuñez, I. (2021). Testimonios of momentos: Reading and trusting my embodied epistemology. Educational Studies, 57(3), 310-321.
  • Espinoza, K. Nuñez, I., Degollado, D. (2021). “This is what my kids see every day”: Bilingual pre-service teachers embracing funds of knowledge through border thinking pedagogy. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 20(1), 4-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1864204 
  • Nuñez, I. & Urrieta, L. (2020). Transfronterizo children’s literacies of surveillance and the cultural production of border crossing identities on the U.S.-Mexico border. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 52(1), 21-41.
  • Nuñez, I., Villarreal, D., DeJulio, S., Harvey, R.V. & Cardenas Curiel, L. (2020). Sustaining bilingual-biliterate identities: Latinx preservice teachers’ narrative representations of bilingualism and biliteracy across time and space. Journal of Teacher Education, 72(4), 419-430.
  • Nuñez, I. (2019). “Le hacemos la lucha”: Learning from madres mexicanas multimodal approaches to raising bilingual, biliterate children. Language Arts, 97(1), 7-16.
  • Nuñez, I. & Espinoza, K. (2019). Bilingual pre-service teachers’ initial experiences: Language ideologies in practice. Journal of Latinos and Education. 18(3), 228-242.
  • Worthy, J., Nuñez, I. & Espinoza, K. (2016). Wow, I get to choose now! Bilingualism and biliteracy development from childhood to young adulthood. Bilingual Research Journal, 39(1), 20-34.
  • Nuñez, I. & Palmer, D. (2016). Who will be bilingual?: A critical discourse analysis of a Spanish-English bilingual pair. Critical Inquiry of Language Studies,14(4), 294-319.
  • Espinoza, K. & Nuñez, I. (2016). Bridging identity and practice: Enseñando para hacer justicia. Journal of Bilingual Education Research and Instruction, 18(1), 93-105.