Sonia Nieto

University of Massachusetts Amherst | UMass Amherst · Language, LIteracy, and Culture

In this personal reflection, Sonia Nieto recounts the lessons she learned about language and literacy from learning to speak Spanish and then English; to reading and writing; and the impact of these lessons on her identity, teaching, research, and life; and, more broadly, on the fields of education and literacy.

Sonia Nieto wrote this essay in response to the topic “Even Laureates Were Beginners Once: Lessons Learned Along the Way,” which was the title of the Laureate Panel she moderated at the Kappa Delta Pi Convocation in October 2017.

As an educator whose work has focused on equity and social justice, I have long struggled with a conundrum: how to reconcile meritocracy – an idea at the very heart of U.S. thinking – with the reality of inequality and injustice. I’ve spent my professional life – whether teaching, mentoring, researching, or writing – trying to make sense of these c...

In this article, Sonia Nieto reflects on the heretofore known history of multicultural education since its beginnings in the early 1970s, with a focus in the United States. She then reviews what has been missing from this rendering and suggests what it might mean, in the current sociopolitical context, to imagine new possibilities for the field, in...

What is the significance of culture as a foundation of bilingual and multilingual education? In this chapter, we address the significance of culture in bilingual education both in the United States and globally. First, we discuss the meaning of culture drawing from diverse perspectives in anthropology and sociology. We then present a historical ove...

This chapter focuses on the intersections among language, literacy, and culture, and what these intersections have meant for me personally, and what they can mean for students who have been marginalized, neglected, or made invisible by traditional understandings of the role of education.

Laureate Sonia Nieto looks back at Brown v. Board of Education (1954)1. Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).View all references, what it meant, what it still means, and what has been learned.

There was a time when becoming a teacher was more hopeful, more noble, and more rewarding than it is now. There was a time when teachers were respected as professionals, when they were not forced to slavishly follow the senseless mandates of politicians and policymakers who knew nothing about education. There was a time when teachers had some auton...

Multicultural education has always been concerned with furthering social justice and providing children with a relevant and rigorous education. This concern involves an understanding and appreciation of diversity, the examination of power structures and relationships, a close look at the ideological underpinnings in the construction of knowledge, a...

Teachers' attitudes, beliefs, values, and dispositions have a powerful influence on why teachers teach and why they remain in the profession in spite of difficult conditions that test their resolve. Conditions at the school and district levels and attitudes and actions on the part of teachers themselves are also crucial. School districts should pro...

In this article, I address how teachers in urban and suburban U.S. schools with multicultural and multilingual student populations demonstrate leadership both within their classrooms and schools as well as outside of them. Based on research with U.S. public school teachers in two projects (Nieto What keeps teachers going? New York: Teachers College...

The purpose of this article is to explore the meaning and significance of mentoring for Latinas/os in nursing. Based on qualitative, in-depth phenomenological interviews, the primary purpose of the study was to understand the experiences of Latina nursing students in order to identify conditions that affect their educational experiences. Seventeen...

En: Cuadernos de pedagogía Barcelona 2007, n. 374, diciembre ; p. 44-47 Siete docentes de institutos públicos de Boston participan en un grupo de investigación que pretende saber por qué y cómo siguen los docentes, durante tantos años, en el aula a pesar de los numerosos obstáculos, tanto individuales, institucionales y sociales, que día a día se a...

Including abstract,bibl. What does it take to become effective teachers of students of culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and racially diverse backgrounds? Based on research with teachers over the past several years, this paper discusses what it means to teach students of diverse backgrounds with heart, courage and conviction, and the implicat...

Incl. bibl. references Nieto writes about the narrowing and betrayal of the promises of education in the recent past, particularly on issues of equity concerning race, gender, ethnicity, class, and language differences. To consider the broad trends of the past seventy-five years, she chooses to focus on desegregation, bilingual education, and multi...

Sonia Nieto’s chapter points to the significant phenomenon of growing cultural diversity and the challenges it presents for educational change. Reviewing the evidence on ways of learning and what counts as learning in diverse cultures, and on the strong association between various levels of cultural diversity and poverty, Nieto argues that beyond t...

In this revision of her best-selling text, author Sonia Nieto explores the meaning, necessity, and benefits of multicultural education for students of all backgrounds. The text looks at how personal, social, political, cultural, and educational factors affect the success or failure of students in today's classroom. Expanding upon the popular case-s...

A small group of Boston Public School teachers met for a year to explore the question of what keeps teachers going, a question that bears asking because of the precarious situation of public education today. In this article, I describe the work of the What Keeps Teachers Going? inquiry group as a way to challenge current notions of what it means to...

In the present article, you will read three different voices and their perspectives on the "What Keeps Teachers Going in Spite of Everything?" project that took place in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Sonia Nieto, a university researcher who initiated the project, provides the introduction and explanations for what evolved. Stephen Gordon and Junia Ye...

We must address the deeply ingrained inequities of today's schools by asking difficult questions related to equity and access. I still recall the question that my friend Maddie, also an educator, asked me a number of years ago when I was describing an initiative to bring a multicultural program to a particular urban school district. A supporter of...

In this paper, we present the case of two countries, the United States and Spain, whose educational systems are grappling with questions of di!erence and social justice. We describe some of the conditions in each country that led to the development of multicultural/intercultural education as a philosophical framework for teacher preparation and we...

Incl. abstracts and bibl. references What do we know about education and diversity and how do we know it? This two-part question guided the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel that was sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington and the Common Destiny Alliance at the University of Maryland. This article i...

Explores the promise of public education, especially through the work of excellent teachers in urban schools, and the inherent limits placed on education by social and educational sociopolitical contexts. Shares lessons learned as a teacher, reviewing research on what sustains teachers (e.g., teacher autobiographies, fundamental belief in students'...

In this paper, we present the case of two countries, the United States and Spain, whose educational systems are grappling with questions of difference and social justice. We describe some of the conditions in each country that led to the development of multicultural/intercultural education as a philosophical framework for teacher preparation and we...

This article explores what it means for teacher education programs to place diversity front and center. Using a social justice perspective on teacher education, the author argues that schools and colleges of education need to radically transform their policies and practices if they are to become places where teachers and prospective teachers learn...

This collection of papers presents scholarly writings and personal reflections on Puerto Rican students in American schools. Following "Introduction and Overview" (Sonia Nieto), there are 12 chapters in five parts. Part 1, "Historical and Sociopolitical Context," includes: (1) "Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools: A Brief History" (Sonia Nieto);...

This book focuses on ways teachers can modify their teaching in order to increase the academic achievement of students from the racial and ethnic groups that are experiencing massive failure in U.S. schools, and consequently in society. Modifying instruction to improve the academic achievement of African American and Latino students will benefit al...

Educators must recognize five realities before meaningful affirmative actions can occur. Affirming diversity is about social justice. Nonwhite and poor students bear the brunt of structural inequality. Diversity is a valuable resource. Effective teaching entails respecting who they are. Affirming diversity means becoming a multicultural person. Res...

Puerto Rican communities have been a reality in many northeastern urban centers for over a century. Schools and classrooms have, felt their presence through the Puerto Rican children attending school. The education of Puerto Ricans in U.S. schools has been documented for about seventy years, but in spite of numerous commissions, research reports, a...

En este trabajo ofrecemos una perspectiva derivada de lo que está sucediendo en dos países, los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y España, en la Unión Europea, cuyos sistemas educativos, cada uno en función de sus características y problemas específicos, intentan dar respuesta a las grandes cuestiones planteadas. Pensamos que en las sociedades cuyas...

As subjects of numerous studies and research reports since the 1930s, Puerto Ricans in U.S. mainland schools have been portrayed as problems, as losers or disadvantaged, and as potentially at risk. This chapter documents the difficult educational history of Puerto Ricans, who have been in U.S.-controlled schools even in Puerto Rico since 1898, to u...

For the most part, discussions about developing strategies to solve educational problems lack the perspectives of one of the very groups they most affect — students, especially those students who are categorized as "problems" and are most oppressed by traditional educational structures and procedures. In this article, Sonia Nieto uses interviews to...

A study was done to examine the reasons why Puerto Rican youth from the Holyoke (Massachusetts) Public School System drop out of high school and the effect of dropping out of school on the Latino community. The study was conducted using data provided by the Holyoke School Department and drawn from Students' cumulative folders and school district an...

E&E reviews books, special journal issues, films, television specials, etc. related to educational equity and excellence. While reviews are solicited, proposals are welcome.

It is proposed that the role of teachers in bilingual education curriculum development is essential. The assumption is that pre-packaged curricula, programs, and materials cannot be effective because student and community needs differ from one situation to the other. Therefore, those persons involved in each situation should be the ones to develop...

Multicultural education, intercultural education, nonracial education, antiracist education, culturally responsive pedagogy, ethnic studies, peace studies, global education, social justice education, bilingual education, mother tongue education, integration – these and more are the terms used to describe different aspects of diversity education aro...

Traducción de: What Keeps Teachers Going?

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Massachusetts, 1979. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-242). Microfiche. s

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Massachusetts, 1979.