Nelson Flores

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Associate Professor

Educational Linguistics Division

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Education

Ph.D. (Urban Education) The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2012
M.A. (Teaching English as a Second Language) Lehman College, 2007
B.A. (Political Science & Education) Swarthmore College, 2003

Areas of Expertise

Bilingual education
Language education policy
Latinx education
Race and racialization
Raciolinguistic ideologies

Programs

Educational Linguistics Ph.D.

Educational Linguistics Ed.D.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) M.S.Ed.

Intercultural Communication M.S.Ed.

School Leadership M.S.Ed.

More Information

Dr. Flores’s blog

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Biography

Nelson Flores studies the intersection of language and race in education. This includes tracing the racist roots of contemporary language educational research, policy, and practice, documenting the ways that they continue to harm racialized bilingual students, and conceptualizing anti-racist alternatives. His work has been featured by NPR, Education Week, and the LA Times.

Professional Biography

Nelson Flores is an associate professor in educational linguistics and affiliated faculty with the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies. He is also the Director of the Ph.D. program in educational linguistics, the faculty advisor for the Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, the chair of the Penn Faculty Senate Committee on Faculty Development, Diversity and Equity and co-chair of the Penn GSE Subcommittee on Faculty and Student Diversity.

Dr. Flores has collaborated on several research projects focused on the education of racialized bilingual students in U.S. schools, including a study of students officially categorized as “Long Term English Learners” and a study of successful high schools serving large numbers of Latinx students. He also served as project director for the CUNY–New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals, a New York State Education Department initiative seeking to improve the educational outcomes of emergent bilingual students through an intensive seminar series for school leaders, combined with onsite support by CUNY faculty. He also oversaw the Philadelphia Bilingual Education Project that studied the history of bilingual education in Philadelphia while supporting the district in its expansion of dual language education through the providing of teacher professional development and program support. Most recently, he was a research associate with The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), where he studied the historical development of and contemporary implementation of standards-based reform for students officially classified as English Learners.

Dr. Flores was the recipient of the 2022 AERA Early Career Award, 2020 Graduate Center of the City University of New York Graduate of the Last Decade, the 2019 James Alatis Prize for Research on Language Planning and Policy in Educational Contexts, 2017 AERA Bilingual Education SIG Early Career Award, and a 2017 Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Flores examines the historical and contemporary manifestation of raciolinguistic ideologies that frame the language practices of racialized communities as inherently deficient and in need of remediation. He does this through undertaking raciolinguistic genealogies which situate the emergence of these raciolinguistic ideologies within European colonialism and traces the durability of these colonial logics across time and into the present. He has used this genealogical approach to reveal the ways that these colonial logics have historically and continue to inform US language education policy and practice as well as the ideological assumptions that have historically and continue to shape the field of educational linguistics.

Dr. Flores is currently focused on situating contemporary classification and reclassification processes for students officially classified as English Learners within broader colonial histories that continue to frame many racialized bilingual students as lacking proficiency in any language. He is also focused on how foundational concepts of the field of educational linguistics are complicit in producing these harmful policies and practices. He is currently working on a book project that brings all these elements together tentatively titled Becoming the System: A Raciolinguistic Genealogy of Bilingual Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era, which uses bilingual education as a point of entry for analyzing the reconfiguration of race in the post-Civil Rights era in ways that worked to maintain the white supremacist status quo.

Publications

Featured

Bilingualism for All?: Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Dual Language Education in the United States

The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society

Selected Publications

Flores, N. & McAuliffe, L. (2022). “In other schools you can plan it that way”: A raciolinguistic perspective on dual language education. International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 25, 1349-1362.

Flores, N., Phuong, J. & Venegas, K. (2020). “Technically an EL”: The production of raciolinguistic categories in a dual language school. TESOL Quarterly, 54, 629-651.

Flores, N. (2020). From academic language to language architecture: Challenging raciolinguistic ideologies in research and practice. Theory into Practice, 59, 22-31

Flores, N., Tseng, A. & Subtirelu, N. (eds.) (2020). Bilingualism for all? Raciolinguistic perspectives on dual language education in the United States. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Flores, N. and Chaparro, S. (2018). What counts as language education policy? Developing a materialist anti-racist approach to language activism. Language Policy, 17, 365-384.

Rosa, J. and Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46, 621-647.

Flores, N. (2016). A tale of two visions: Hegemonic whiteness and bilingual education. Educational Policy, 30, 13-38.

Flores, N. and Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85, 149-171.

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Penn GSE faculty, students in San Diego for leading international conference on education research

Eighty-seven Penn GSE faculty, staff and students are presenting at AERA 22, the world’s largest gathering of education researchers. The conference runs through April 26 in San Diego, CA.

April 22, 2022

Leveling the playing field in dual-language programs

Penn GSE's Nelson Flores advocates for dismantling hierarchies between racialized and elite bilingualism in schools.

January 25, 2019

How monolingual teachers can support bilingual students

Speaking on WHYY's Radio Times, Nelson Flores said that all educators can place value on language diversity in their classrooms.

November 1, 2018

Flores: Segregation, not language background, likely explains proficiency gap for Spanish-speaking English learners

Nelson Flores told WHYY’s Newsworks there is more to English-proficiency test scores than cultural heritage.

August 11, 2017

Flores: Philadelphia once a national leader in bilingual education

Nelson Flores explains to The Notebook how federal policies challenged the city’s robust bilingual programs.

January 4, 2017

In the Media

Race on campus: What does ‘Latinx’ mean?

Nelson Flores said that instead of debating whether or not an institution should use the word “Latinx,” people should try to understand why the word is used.

The Chronicle of Higher Education | March 16, 2021

A question of identity: Examining use of the term ‘Latinx’

Nelson Flores said shifts in language often start with a small group of marginalized people, rather than with majority rule. “I think the relevant question for me isn’t whether people should be using the term. It’s how people who use the term Latinx are trying to differentiate themselves from people who use the term Hispanic and people who use the term Latino,” he said. “Why do they feel like those terms don’t really reflect the political identities they’re trying to articulate through the term Latinx?”

Diverse: Issues in Higher Education | October 6, 2020

A Chalkbeat roundtable: What New York City is still learning from its teacher strikes of 1968

Nelson Flores writes about the professionalization of bilingual education and the unrealistic assumption that schools can alone reverse the effects of poverty and segregation.

Chalkbeat | October 18, 2018

Harness potential of low-income students by valuing what they already know

Nelson Flores discusses the importance of learning about and valuing the linguistic diversity and rich linguistic practices of students from low-income backgrounds.

Houston Chronicle | June 7, 2018

Philly's Spanish-speaking students lag in English language achievement

Nelson Flores discusses how isolated, high poverty schools and neighborhoods are contributing to the gap in English language reading and writing proficiency among Latino students.

NewsWorks | August 11, 2017

Playing the Spanish Card

In this podcast, Nelson Flores says Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine's fluency in Spanish appeals more to white liberals than Latino voters.

Slate | August 8, 2016

The New Bilingualism

Nelson Flores says bilingual education, once opposed in America's recent past, is "now... framed as something that's good for all children—something that can help people get jobs as part of the global economy."

The Atlantic | August 4, 2016

More States and Districts Embrace Biliteracy

“We don’t have data to determine whether the seal of biliteracy is something that people actually take seriously,” says Nelson Flores.

Education Week | October 6, 2015

Why Bilingual Kids Have an Edge Over the Rest of Us

Nelson Flores on the way bilingual 1st-graders understand language.

National Journal | July 15, 2015

Awards & Honors

Nelson Flores has been awarded a $50,000 Spencer Conference Grant to bring together researchers and practitioners to develop a research and policy agenda that works to counteract anti-Blackness in language education. The co-PIs on the project are Dr. Uju Anya from Penn State and Dr. Tia Madkins from University of Texas-Austin.

Posted on November 12, 2019

Nelson Flores, with Sofia Chaparro of the University of Colorado Denver, was awarded the James E. Alatis Prize for Research on Language Policy and Planning in Educational Contexts for the paper, "What counts as language education policy? Developing a materialist anti-racist approach to language activism." The Alatis Prize is awarded annually by TIRF — The International Research Foundation for English Language Education in recognition of an outstanding publication in the field.

Posted on December 5, 2018

Nelson Flores has received a $70,000 grant from the National Academy of Education for the project, “Radical Neoliberalism: Bilingual Education in the School District of Philadelphia.” The project examines efforts of Latino community activists to institutionalize bilingual education in the 1970s, and the vision of contemporary bilingual education activists as they open bilingual charter schools.

Posted on August 31, 2017

Nelson Flores is the winner of the 2017 AERA Early Career Award in Bilingual Education Research. The award recognizes an individual in the early stages of his or her career whose work stands out for its excellence in moving the field forward. The selection committee also considered each candidate’s potential for continued prominence in bilingual education, and recognized Dr. Flores's potential to add new knowledge to the field. The award will be presented at the 2017 AERA BER SIG business meeting in San Antonio.

Posted on February 17, 2017

Journal Editorial Boards

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics

Editorial Board

Critical Multilingualism Studies

Editorial Board Member

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

Editorial Board Member

Language in Society

Editorial Board Member

Language Policy

Editorial Board Member