Biography
Dr. Nuñez has a specialization in Bilingual/ESL (English as a second language) Education. Her interests include: exploring Spanish-English translanguaging, bilingualism, and biliteracy; 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 Language Arts, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, and Journal of Latinos and Education. She has also received the 2023 Early Career Scholar Award from AERA Language and Social Processes SIG.
Research Interests
Dr. Nuñez’s research interests include: exploring translanguaging, bilingualism, and biliteracy; 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 which acknowledges the cultural contributions and knowledge that students, families, and communities of color bring into schools that can be used to leverage academic learning. 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.
Dr. Nuñez’s current research projects include:
(1) Exploring ways Latinx transnational bilingual children navigate spaces through translanguaging
(2) Exploring home and community language and literacy practices of Latinx transnational families on and beyond the U.S.-México borderlands
(3) Exploring the bilingual and biliterate identities of preservice teachers
Additional Campus Affiliations
Research Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Highlighted Publications
Degollado, E. D., Nuñez, I., & Romero, M. A. (2021). Border literacies: A critical literacy framework from Nepantla: A critical literacy framework from nepantla. In J. Z. Pandya, R. A. Mora, J. H. Alford, N. A. Golden, & R. S. de Roock (Eds.), The Handbook of Critical Literacies (pp. 456-464). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003023425-52
Nuñez, I., Villarreal, D. A., DeJulio, S., Harvey, R., & Cardenas Curiel, L. (2021). 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. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487120954360
The Literacy Futurisms Collective-in-the-Making, Abril-Gonzalez, P., Aguilera, E., Linares, R., Nightengale-Lee, B., Nuñez, I., Nyachae, T., Rusoja, A., & Templeton, T. (2021). “We Believe in Collective Magic”: Honoring the Past to Reclaim the Future(s) of Literacy Research. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 428-447. https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377211036475
Nuñez, I., & Urrieta, L. (2021). 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. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12360
Nuñez, I. (2022). ‘Siento que el inglés esta tumbando mi español’: A transfronteriza child’s embodied critical language awareness. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 25(7), 2608-2620. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2021.1942429
Nuñez, I. (2021). Testimonios of Momentos: Reading and Trusting my Embodied Epistemology. Educational Studies - AESA, 57(3), 310-321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2021.1892685
Espinoza, K., Nuñez, I., & Degollado, E. 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. (2019). “Le Hacemos La Lucha”: Learning from Madres Mexicanas’ Multimodal Approaches to Raising Bilingual, Biliterate Children. Language Arts, 97(1), 7-16.
McCarthey, S. J., Nuñez, I., & Lee, C. (2020). Translanguaging Across Contexts. In M. Dressman, & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The Handbook of Informal Language Learning (pp. 349-367). Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119472384.ch23
Nuñez, I., & Espinoza, K. (2019). Bilingual pre-service teachers’ initial experiences: Language ideologies in practice. Journal of Latinos and Education, 18(3), 228-242. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017.1386105
Recent Publications
Nuñez, I., & García, S. (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, 23(3), 333-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2024.2324461
Zhang, J., & Nuñez, I. (Accepted/In press). Learning from a community bilingual classroom: Toward a translanguaging literacies pedagogy with Chinese American bilinguals. Bilingual Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2024.2365827
García-Mateus, S., & Nuñez, I. (2023). Identity Construction and Students in DLBE Classrooms. In J. A. Freire, C. Alfaro, & E. de Jong (Eds.), The Handbook of Dual Language Bilingual Education (pp. 373-392). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003269076-34
Nuñez, I., Zhang, J., Hernandez Farias, D., & Becerra, M. E. (2023). “They are. Bilingual.”: Manifestations of bilanguaging love in a dual language bilingual classroom. Bilingual Research Journal, 46(1-2), 47-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2023.2189174
Nuñez, I. (2023). Toward Border-Crossing Biliteracies: Pláticas of Midwest Transnational Latinx Families Reading and (Re)writing the World. Reading Research Quarterly, 58(4), 475-494. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.512