Teresa McCarty

Biography

I am a social-cultural anthropologist who lives and works in Tovaangar, the homelands of the Gabrielino-Tongva. As an educator and researcher, I honor the sovereignty of the Tongva people and my responsibility to learn from and with the Indigenous peoples of this place. At UCLA, I am the George F. Kneller Chair in Education and Anthropology, and Faculty in American Indian Studies. My research, teaching, and community-based work center on Indigenous education, critical sociocultural studies of language planning and policy, Indigenous and minoritized language reclamation, and the ethnography of education in and out of schools. I am currently principal investigator on a multiyear, multimethod, U.S.-wide study of Indigenous-language immersion schooling funded by the Spencer Foundation.

Publications

McCarty, T.L., & Brayboy, B. McK. J. (2021). Culturally responsive, sustaining, and revitalizing pedagogies: Perspectives from Native American education. In G. Ladson-Billings (Guest Ed.), Three decades of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogy. Special Issue, The Educational Forum, 85(4).

Ali, Arshad I., & McCarty, T.L. (Eds.). (2020).Critical Youth Research in Education—Methodologies of Praxis and Care. New York, NY: Routledge.

McCarty, T.L. (2020). The holistic benefits of education for Indigenous language revitalisation and reclamation (ELR2). Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.

McCarty, T.L., Nicholas, S.E., & Wigglesworth, G. (Eds.). (2019).A World of Indigenous Languages—Politics, Pedagogies, and Prospects for Language Reclamation.  Bristol,UK: Multilingual Matters.

Castagno, A.E., & McCarty, T.L. (Eds.). (2018). The Anthropology of Education Policy: Ethnographic Inquiries into Policy as Social Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

McCarty, T.L. (2018). Twelfth Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research: So that any child may succeed—Indigenous pathways toward justice and the promise of Brown. Educational Researcher, 47(5), 271-283.

McCarty, T.L. Nicholas, S.E., Chew, K., Diaz, N., Leonard, W., & White, L. (2018). Hear our languages, hear our voices—Storywork as theory and praxis in Indigenous-language reclamation.In P.J. Deloria et al. (Guest Eds.), Unfolding Futures: Indigenous Ways of Knowing for the Twenty-first Century. Special Issue, Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 147(2), 160-172.

McCarty, T. L., & Lee, T. S. (2014). Critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy and Indigenous education sovereignty. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 101-124.

McCarty, T. L. (Ed.). (2011). Ethnography and Language Policy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lomawaima, K.T., & McCarty, T.L. (2006). “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education.New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Education

Ph.D., Social-cultural Anthropology, Arizona State University

M.A., Social-cultural Anthropology, Arizona State University

B.A., Anthropology, The Ohio State University

Honors & Awards

2021-2022 – Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Stanford University

2019 – Elected to the National Academy of Education

2016 – Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Education, UCLA

2015 – AERA 12th Annual Brown Lecture in Educational Research, for “producing significant research related to equality in education”

2011-2012 – National Endowment for the Humanities Resident Scholar, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, NM

2010 – George and Louise Spindler Award, for “distinguished, exemplary, and inspirational contributions to educational anthropology,” Council on Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association

2009 – Elected Fellow, American Educational Research Association

2008-2009 – President, Council on Anthropology and Education

2007 – AERA Division B (Curriculum Studies) Outstanding Book Award, for “To Remain an Indian”—Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (with K. Tsianina Lomawaima)

2003 – Elected Fellow, Society for Applied Anthropology