About

Dr. Maria Coady is the Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Education at North Carolina State University and a Professor of Multilingual Education. Her work focuses on multilingual learners, rural communities, and the preparation of educators who work with multilingual learners. She has a background as a Professor of ESOL and Bilingual Education at the University of Florida and holds a PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she studied bilingualism and bilingual education. Her research examines multilingualism, bilingualism, rural education, bilingual education, teacher and leader education, and language policies, using frameworks of critical place-conscious education, systemic equality, and equity. Dr. Coady has received funding from various sources including the US Department of Education, Ford Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and WT Grant Foundation. She has also consulted for the US Department of Justice and Office for Civil Rights regarding multilingual students and families. Internationally, she has prepared educators in countries such as China, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. Her scholarly contributions include several books on multilingual education and rural communities, with a forthcoming book on spaces of hope for rural multilingual learners in educational movements.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Pedagogy
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Political Science
• Geography
• Social psychology
• Psychoanalysis
• Art
• Public relations
• Literature
• Mathematics education
• Linguistics

Selected publications

• Why Place Matters in Educational Equity for Rural English Learners: A Call for Remedy

  2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Trends influencing the future of rural education research in the United States

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-04-15 · 2 citations

  book-chapter

  This chapter considers recent trends influencing the future of rural education research in the United States. In response, various entities have established agendas, funding priorities, meetings, and educational centers. These actions signal an investment from the greater field of educational research to upend inequities within rural spaces. The chapter provides a discussion of race and rurality, shifting linguistic and demographic territories, and educator preparation in rural spaces as an entry point for examining intersecting spaces and interpreting trends influencing the future of rural education research.

  PublisherDOI

• Refugee-background students in the context of multilingual policies and practices: An introduction

  Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices · 2024-05-09 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  This special issue examines and interrogates multilingual policies and practices surrounding the education of refugee-background students (RBSs) worldwide.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Introduction to the Special Topics Issue on Rural Multilingual Education

  The Rural Educator · 2024-10-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Coral Way “Experiment”: Building an Archive to Unravel the Beginnings of the First Publicly Funded Spanish-English Dual Language Program in the United States

  US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal · 2023-09-13

  article

  Over the past twenty years, there has been tremendous growth in the number and diversity of bilingual education programs in which two languages are used as mediums of instruction for learning academic content across two (or more) distinct groups of language users, such as English and Spanish. Today these programs are often referred to as “dual language” (DL), as well as two-way bilingual, or DL immersion (DLI) programs. However, little has been written about the first publicly funded DL program in the United States, Coral Way Elementary School, located in Miami, Florida, which opened as a bilingual program on September 3, 1963. This article describes the processes involved in documenting and building a new digital archive that records and preserves the origin, context, background efforts, and the stories of educators and students who participated in the Coral Way bilingual program between 1960 and 1968. The archive includes oral histories, photographs, and archival documents that were used to chronicle the school’s origins, funding, curricula, personnel, and ultimately the success of the DL program. This work demonstrates how scholars and project teams can use archival data to document and make historical events accessible to scholars, educators, and public audiences.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2023-03-02

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Trekking Across Some Rough Terrain: Rural Teacher Education for Multilingual Students

  Peabody Journal of Education · 2023-08-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACTAlthough the number of multilingual (ML) students continues to rise nationally, little scholarly attention has been paid to the education of rural ML students and families. There is critical need to better understand who rural ML students are and how to align their linguistic knowledge and strengths with appropriate instructional practices. This article examines the current state of research on rural teacher education for ML students. It addresses two areas of the 10 research priorities articulated by the National Rural Education Association’s (NREA) Research Agenda 2016–2021 and enhanced and extended in 2022–2027: building the capacity to meet the needs of diverse populations and teacher-leader preparation for rural schools. A search of four major research databases for work in this area revealed 27 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022. Three main research categories emerged from the review: (1) six studies on the beliefs and perceptions of teachers on their education and preparation for rural MLs; (2) eight studies related to rural teacher identity and MLs; and (3) 13 studies on teacher leadership, professional development, and collaboration and partnerships for rural MLs. Implications and recommendations for future rural research on ML students in the United States are provided. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 We retain the use of EL or ELL when used by the authors whose work appears in this review.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMaria R. CoadyMaria R. Coady, PhD is Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Educational Equity and a Professor of Multilingual Education at North Carolina State University. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she studied bilingualism and bilingual education. Dr. Coady examines multilingualism and bilingual education, rural education, teacher-leader preparation, and language policies. Her books include The Coral Way Bilingual Program (2020), Connecting School and the Multilingual Home: Theory and Practice for Rural Educators (2019), Why TESOL? (5th ed., with E. Ariza), and Early Language Learning Policies in the 21st Century (with S. Zein, 2021). Her new edited book (2023) is Educating Multilingual Students in Rural Schools: Illuminating Diversity in Rural Communities in the United States (with P. Golombek and N. Marichal). Dr. Coady consults with the U.S. Department of Justice on language rights. In 2020 she was awarded the AERA Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research award.Nidza V. MarichalNidza V. Marichal, PhD, is a Research Associate at the University of Florida. She received a BS from Yale University and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Florida. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Dr. Marichal spent 20 years teaching Spanish Language and Culture at the K–12 level where she learned that being authentic while building trusting relationships with students is central to advance and humanize the educational experience. Her work with secondary teachers in rural Florida illuminates both the impact of rurality on the education of English learners (ELs) and the importance of place-based instruction that meets the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Dr. Marichal continues to advance understandings of the unique lived experiences of Puerto Rican students in the United States. Her research topics include multilingual/bilingual education, teacher education for ELs, secondary and rural EL education, and the U.S. Puerto Rican experience.Huseyin UysalHuseyin Uysal, PhD is a visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Educational Studies at Knox College. Guided by constructivist and critical thought, his scholarship seeks to promote youth engagement and student voice and to support teachers who prepare to work in linguistically diverse contexts. Specific constructs that interest him include multilingual test-taker perspectives on assessment practices, social consequences of testing, English learner reclassification, and plurilingualism in public schools. His work has appeared in venues such as TESOL Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Linguistics and Education, and Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk. He is serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Education for Multilingualism and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Education, Language, and Ideology.

  PublisherDOI

• Conclusion

  2023-03-02

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Educating Multilingual Students in Rural Schools

  2023-01-31 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Illuminating issues of diversity at the intersection of rural education and multilingual learners (ML) in the United States, this edited volume brings forth new research that captures the importance of place and rurality in the work of educators who serve multilingual learners and their families. The six chapters in this book demonstrate that education for teachers, leaders and staff, professional development programs, and government-funded projects aimed to improve rural education need to begin with three interrelated, multifaceted principles. The first principle is the need to center place and rurality as essential factors that affect education for all educators, students, and families who live, work, and attend schools in rural communities. Second, educators must humanize multilingual students, their families, and their cultures in ways that go beyond merely acknowledging their presence – they must deeply see and understand the lives and (hi)stories of the multilingual students and families that they serve in their rural schools. Finally, the third principle involves identifying multilingual resources for ML students and their families. Given the persistent inequities in access to resources and opportunities that rural ML students and families face, this last principle requires careful planning, networking, and advocating in ways that can truly effectuate change. Contributors are: Jioanna Carjuzaa, Maria R. Coady, Paula Golombek, Shuzhan Li, Kristin Kline Liu, Nidza V. Marichal, Charity Funfe Tatah Mentan, Kym O’Donnell, Stephanie Oudghiri, Darrell Peterson, Sonja Phillips, Jenelle Reeves and Yi-Chen Wu.

  PublisherDOI

• Language Planning, Linguistic Imperialism, and English Language Teacher Education in Post-Soviet Poland: A Literature Review

  English language teaching · 2022-01-01 · 2 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nidza Marichal

  8 shared

• Aleksandra Ita Olszewska

  University of Oslo

  6 shared

• Mark Preston S. Lopez

  Benguet State University

  5 shared

• Candace Harper

  University of Florida

  4 shared

• Paula R. Golombek

  4 shared

• Deon Victoria Heffington

  University of Quintana Roo

  3 shared

• Ester J. de Jong

  3 shared

• Raisa Ankeny

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., School of Education

  University of Colorado Boulder

  2001

• M.Ed., Education

  Boston University

  1993

• B.S. International Finance, Minor Spanish

  University of New Hampshire

  1989

• Certificat de Langue Francaise

  Sorbonne Paris Cité

  1989

• Certificado de la historia del cono sur de américa latina

  Universidad de Belgrano

  1987

Awards & honors

• US Department of Education Title VII Fellow (1998-2001)
• Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at…