Dissertation Award Part Deux

Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, an elementary education professor at Utah State University, received the 2004 American Educational Research Association Outstanding Dissertation Award for Division B Curriculum Studies. This marks the second time in a month that a Utah State professor has won a dissertation award. Lawrence Culver, assistant professor of history, won the 2005 Rachel Carson Prize for the best dissertation in environmental history. His award was presented March 16 in Houston.

 

The division B dissertation award is given to scholars conducting research about the nature and improvement of curriculum practice and theory at local, state, regional, national and international levels.

 

“Dr. Gallagher-Geurtsen’s dissertation makes important contributions to the fields of curriculum studies and qualitative inquiry in education,” said Nancy Lesko, dissertation chair at Columbia University.

 

Gallagher-Geurtsen’s dissertation, Radical Hybrid Literacy Practices of one Teacher in a Classroom of Learners of Second Languages, focuses on the results of a one-year research study, conducted in an urban elementary bilingual classroom, that examined how radical hybrid literacy practices helped a bilingual teacher in a classroom of second-language learners.

 

“Radical hybrid literacy practices are classroom teaching and curriculum that respond to and respect the shifting identities that multilingual and multicultural youth have in different contexts,” Gallagher-Geurtsen said.

 

Gallagher-Geurtsen said the teacher-designed curriculum recognizes the multiple and shifting identities of the students, making school a place where the students can shift between languages without assigning a superior status to one aspect of identity or another, Gallagher-Geurtsen said.

 

“I hope that my work can be useful to teachers and teacher educators in their work with multicultural and multilingual students so, in the long-term, we can begin to provide a more equitable education for all youth in schools,” she said.

 

Gallagher-Geurtsen received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California and her master’s and doctorate in education from Columbia University.

 

She received the 2003-2004 Mortar Board National Senior Honor Society Top Professor Award from Utah State University and the department of curriculum and teaching academic scholarship from Teachers College at Columbia University, in 2002.

 

Gallagher-Geurtsen will accept the Dissertation Award at the American Education Research Association in Montreal in April.