Manka Varghese

Manka Varghese is Professor and Chair of Teaching, Learning & Curriculum at the University of Washington's College of Education. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania (2000) and specializes in multilingual teacher education, equity studies, and immigrant student pathways. Her research integrates critical frameworks like raciolinguistics and sociocultural theory to examine intersections of language, race, and power in educational contexts.

Her research focuses on:

• Teacher identity development in multilingual settings
• Critical analysis of Whiteness in teacher education
• College access barriers for immigrant emergent bilinguals
• Policy enactment in bilingual classrooms
• Race-based caucusing in professional development

She employs qualitative methods and community-centered approaches to challenge structural inequities.

Her publications demonstrate a consistent focus on deconstructing power dynamics in education through lenses of racial justice, agency-structure dialectics, and identity negotiation. Recent works critically examine how core teaching practices may marginalize justice-oriented pedagogies and how dual-language programs intersect with global education trends.

Grants & Leadership:
Varghese leads multiple federal initiatives including:

• $2.5M McDonnell Foundation grant for asset-based discourse in multilingual classrooms (Co-PI, 2020-2025)
• $2.39M Department of Education grant for bilingual teacher preparation (PI, 2017-2022)
• $400k IES partnership analyzing math/science pathways for English learners (PI, 2017-2020)

She teaches graduate courses in sociolinguistics, critical theory, and multilingual acquisition while directing study abroad programs on immigration and schooling.