Carlos J. Ovando

Biography

Carlos J. Ovando (Ph.D., Indiana University) is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and former Advisor, Initiative of the Americas, Office of the Vice President for University School Partnerships & College of Education, Office of the Dean, Arizona State University. He has also served as Associate Dean for Teacher Education and Director for the Division of Curriculum and Instruction. Prior to joining the faculty at Arizona State University, he served as chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University, Bloomington, and also served as the director of the Bilingual Education Program there. He received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and International Comparative Education from Indiana University. A former high school Spanish teacher, his research, teaching, and service focus on factors that contribute to the academic achievement of language minority students and ethnically diverse groups. He has served as guest editor of two special issues of Educational Research Quarterly, and contributed to the first and second editions of the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. In addition, he has published in the following venues: Educational Researcher, Peabody Journal of Education, Bilingual Research Journal, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, Kappan Delta Pi Record, World Yearbook 2003: Language Education (Kogan Page/Thompson), Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Race Ethnicity and Education, and the Harvard Educational Review. His books include: (with Virginia P. Collier and Mary Carol Combs) Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts, 4th ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2006); (with Peter McLaren) The Politics of Multiculturalism and Bilingual Education: Teachers and Students Caught in the Cross Fire (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and (with Colleen Larson) The Color of Bureaucracy: The Politics of Equity in Multicultural School Communities (Wadsworth, 2001).

Professor Ovando has given presentations in Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, England, Guam, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Spain, and the United States. He has been a professor of Education at Indiana University at Bloomington, Oregon State University, the University of Alaska at Anchorage, and the University of Southern California. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos) and the University of Washington, Seattle. He has worked with Chicanos, Mexican Nationals, Athabascan Indians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Southwestern Indians, Chamorros, Costa Ricans, and Nicaraguans. He is the recipient of two Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards from the School of Education at Indiana University. Also, in 2007 he was nominated for the Distinguished Latino Alumni Award at Indiana University. He has served as a Discipline Peer Review Committee member for the Fulbright Specialists Program as well as on the selection committee for the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ)(former member), the Bilingual Research Journal, the International Multicultural Research Journal, and the Journal of Latinos and Education. He gave the R. Freeman Butts Lecture at the 2006 American Educational Studies Association Conference.

In partnership with the Paulo Freire Institute at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Professor Ovando is currently involved with a research initiative examining how globalization has affected educational reform in K-12, higher education, and adult education systems in several countries in Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. To date, nations selected are the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, South Africa, and Holland. During 2005-2006 he served as a national consultant to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) to promote the acquisition of English from pre-school to the high school level. Indicative of his growing international research interests, Professor Ovando is scheduled to conduct three research studies during his Sabbatical Leave (Fall 2007):

(1) Undocumented Nicaraguan Students Living with Single Mothers in Costa Rica: Nine Years Later (longitudinal study of undocumented Nicaraguan students who lived with their mothers in Costa Rica in 1998; currently under IRB review);

(2) A Follow-Up Qualitative Study of the 2005 and 2006 CASS/ASU Program Cycles: Strengthening Early Education of Indigenous Children in Rural Mexico (the outcome in rural indigenous communities of a CASS/ASU program which in 2005 and 2006 prepared in the United States two carefully selected cohorts of indigenous leaders from rural southern Mexico; currently under IRB review);

(3) Escuela Primaria Henry Ford No. 150, Iguala, Guerrero, México: Perceptions of School Quality, Inclusion, and Hope in a Highly Marginalized Mexican Community (examine the impact that a Ford Foundation-funded elementary school has had on the life of a marginalized community in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico.)

Born in Nicaragua, Carlos Ovando immigrated to the United States in his pre teen years and has therefore experienced first-hand many of the academic, sociocultural, and emotional issues that confront language minority students in the United States. He is a naturalized citizen of the United States.

October 10, 2007

Arizona State University College of Education

Last Update: September, 2007
Comments: carlos.ovando@asu.edu