Sofia A. Villenas

About

Sofia A. Villenas is an Associate Professor in the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Cornell University, with affiliations in the American Studies Program, Anthropology, and Latina/o Studies Program. Her academic interests include education, critical race studies, Latin@/x diaspora communities, women of color and decolonial feminisms, narrative, ethnography, and qualitative methodologies. Her scholarship explores how teaching and learning occur across home, school, and community contexts, emphasizing education as a practice of imagination, freedom, and social change. Formerly a bilingual elementary school teacher and adult English language instructor in Latino communities of Los Angeles, Villenas pursued her PhD at UNC-Chapel Hill, focusing on education in diverse Latino im/migrant destinations. Her research investigates how Latina mothers navigate parenting and schooling, and she continues to examine education, citizenship, and social movements in the United States. Her current projects include exploring the pedagogical force of social movement activities, such as protests and community forums, and Latinx cultural programming as sites of adult and cross-generational learning. Villenas draws on Latina/Chicana and women of Color feminist thought to understand transformative and resistant modes of teaching, learning, and social action. Her scholarly contributions include co-editing key texts on Latinos and education, and she has published extensively on topics…

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Library science
• Law
• Philosophy
• Engineering ethics
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Race Is...Race Isn't: Critical Race Theory And Qualitative Studies In Education

  2019-04-16 · 398 citations

  bookOpen accessSenior author

  * Introduction to Critical Race Theory and Educational Research and Praxis Daria Roithmayr * Just What Is Critical Race Theory and Whats It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education? Gloria Ladson-Billings * Critical Race Theory and Praxis: Chicano(a)/Latino(a) and Navajo Struggles for Dignity, Educational Equity, and Social Justice Sofia Villenas, Donna Deyhle, and Laurence Parker * Adelante!: Toward Social Justice and Empowerment in Chicana/o Communities and Chicana/o Studies Marc Pizarro * Researc…

  PublisherOA PDF

• Pedagogies from<i>Nepantla</i>:<i>Testimonio</i>, Chicana/Latina Feminisms and Teacher Education Classrooms

  Equity & Excellence in Education · 2012-07-01 · 97 citations

  articleSenior author

  This article describes a process of testimonial co-creation between two teacher educators. We created testimonios in dialogue to examine who we are, how we “know,” and how we teach as Chicana/Latina educators of prospective teachers in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). An active exploration of our lived experiences growing up as racialized, gendered, and classed Chicanas/Latinas reveal both “the theory of our practice and the practice of our theory” (Latina Feminist Group, 2001, p. 19). A…

  PublisherDOI

• The legacy of Derrick Bell and Latino/a education: a critical race testimonio

  Race Ethnicity and Education · 2013-09-01 · 68 citations

  articleSenior author

  In this article, we trace Bell’s influence in our lives from graduate students to teacher educators and engaged scholars, and note how we have always read Bell alongside and inseparable from Latino/a Studies and Latina/Chicana feminist thought. We highlight the powerful and fruitful tensions of these interconnections in addressing our curricular struggles and innovations, professional identities and scholarly trajectories. We address Bell’s theory of interest convergence to discuss the tensions…

  PublisherDOI

• Ethnographies<i>de Lucha</i>(of Struggle) in Latino Education: Toward Social Movement

  Anthropology & Education Quarterly · 2012-02-20 · 38 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In this article, I describe the fight back imperatives of Latino educational ethnography at a time when Latino children's education continues to be the battleground for nation and culture wars. I briefly trace the expansion of the field of Latino educational ethnography during the last two decades, and point to the possibilities for the future of Latino ethnographies de lucha as social movement. [Latino education, ethnography, agency, social movement]

  PublisherDOI

• Pedagogies of being with: Witnessing, <i>testimonio</i> , and critical love in everyday social movement

  International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education · 2019-02-06 · 33 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This conceptual article explores education and the relational in everyday social movement. I highlight a single, local community event—a Speak Out—and travel with scholarship on public pedagogy, witnessing, and Latina feminist theories of coalition to articulate pedagogies of ‘being with’ in community activism for racial justice. My interpretive vignettes of the Speak Out are part of a larger ethnographic study focusing on a segment of a rural/small city community that moved with intention to te…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Enrique G. Murillo

  California State University, San Bernardino

  10 shared

• Donna Deyhle

  5 shared

• Dolores Delgado Bernal

  Loyola Marymount University

  4 shared

• C. Alejandra Elenes

  3 shared

• Laurence Parker

  3 shared

• Francisca E. Godinez

  2 shared

• Jacob Stanfield

  2 shared

• Douglas E. Foley

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, School of Education

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Awards & honors

• Former president of the American Educational Studies Associa…
• Past president of the Council on Anthropology and Education…

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• Mildred Warnerh-50
• Julia Changh-28
• Kim Weedenh-28