Deborah Palmer

Deborah Palmer is a

• Professor and Chair in Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy at the University of Colorado Boulder
• Faculty Associate with the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education
• Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Ethnic Studies and CLASP Program

Educational Background:

• Ph.D. in Education (Language, Literacy & Culture, 2004, UC Berkeley)
• M.A. in Education (Language, Literacy & Culture, 2000, UC Berkeley)
• B.A. in Anthropology with Humanities Honors (1991, Stanford)
• California Multiple Subject K-12 Teaching Credential (1992, Mills College)

Research Interests focus on

• Critical analysis of bilingual education policy and politics
• Equity in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs
• Teacher preparation for linguistically diverse contexts
• Language ideologies and power dynamics in schools
• Intersection of language, race, and identity in educational settings

Recent Publications include co-edited volumes

• Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education (2023, Routledge)
• Gentrification and Bilingual Education (2023, Lexington)
• Teacher Leadership for Social Change in Bilingual Education (2018, Multilingual Matters)

and over 20 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics ranging from translanguaging to anti-Black racism in DLBE.

Current Research Projects include

• Caminos hacia el bilingüismo: High school student-led research on multilingual youth advocacy
• Transformative Inquiry: Teacher action research for CLD Master's students
• Critical Consciousness in DLBE: Multi-year ethnography on equitable bilingual education

Teaching spans

• Undergraduate & Master's courses on bilingual methods, family engagement, and CLD research
• Doctoral seminars on qualitative methods and language-power dynamics