Dorothy Aguilera

Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership

department: Education
program: Educational Leadership
office: 302 Rogers Hall
phone: 503-768-6086
email: aguilera@lclark.edu

Professional Biography

Dorothy Aguilera is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education and Counseling at Lewis & Clark College. Dorothy has worked as a consultant on national, state and local research and innovative program implementation projects with K-12 schools serving Tribal communities in rural and urban areas. Her research projects and interests include studies of school reform, culturally responsive education, and generally improving the educational experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. As a principle investigator and with research teams, she conducted numerous studies examining retention, school reform and culture on the Dine’ Nation, a 7-year national case study of school reform, student academic indicators and culture identity in 14 schools, two longitudinal studies of school/community based programs for urban American Indian children in the Southwest, and innovative projects involving service-learning education with Native students in urban and rural communities.

Dorothy has taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder and in Denver. She taught in Boulder Valley Schools and Denver Public Schools for several years. She is currently teaching in the Educational Leadership Program at Lewis & Clark College.

Dorothy’s current research touches on epistemological and methodological issues in education related to the development of non-assimilationist models of education for Native students with a focus on indigenous language preservation and restoration projects in K-12 schools. As an education activist her work centers on collaborating with Tribal communities to establish ongoing streams of culturally responsive education through indigenously-controlled schools. Her dissertation project was a comparison of 14 case studies involving schools serving Native American students. She examined the relationships among culturally responsive education, student achievement scores, and external student success indicators.

Publications

Journal Articles

Aguilera, D.E., Lipka, J., Demmert, W., & Tippeconnic, J., (Eds.). (forthcoming). Editor’s introduction: Examining culturally responsive schools serving American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaskan Native student populations. Journal of American Indian Education.

Aguilera, D.E., & LeCompte, M.D. (forthcoming). Resiliency in native languages: The tale of three indigenous communities’ successes with language revitalization and preservation. Journal of American Indian Education.

Aguilera, D.E. (2003). Who defines success: An analysis of competing models of education for American Indian and Alaskan Native Students. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder).

LeCompte, M.D., Aguilera, D.E., Wiertelak, M.E., Fordemwalt, B., & Wilks, S. (2000). Re-estableciendo y reforzando los lindes de identidad cultural: El Circulo de Aprendizaje. (The Learning Circle Program for urban Native Americans: Improving achievement by privileging indigenous culture). In Calvo-Ponton, Delgado-Ballesteros, & Rueda Beltran, (Eds.), Nuevos paradigmas, compromisos renovados: Experiencias de investigacion cualitativa en educacion. Mexico City: Universidad Autnonoma de Mexico. Proceedings of the (Mexican) Congress of Educational Research, Universidad Pedagogical Nacional, Mexico, D.F.

Vadeboncoeur, J.A., Rahm, J., Aguilera, D.E., & LeCompte, M.D. (1996). Building democratic character through community experiences in teacher education. Education and Urban Society, 28(2), 189-208.

Online Publications

Aguilera, D.E. (2000). CSRD implementation in Native American sites: cross-site lessons. WestEd.

Aguilera, D.E. (2000). Examining comprehensive school reform in schools serving Native American communities: Case study report. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning; and Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Educational Resources Information Center.

Aguilera, D.E. (1998). Supporting service-learning through leadership. In S.H. Billig (Ed.), Building support for service-learning. Denver, CO: RMC Research Corporation.

2006 Presentations

Aguilera, D.E. (2006 April 28). Resiliency in native languages: A comparison of indigenous communities’ successes with language revitalization and preservation. Indigenous Issues and Voices in Educational Research and Assessment (IVERA) Conference, Phoenix, AZ.

Aguilera, D.E. (2006 November 15-18). Defining success: A comparison of case studies of school reform in 14 school communities serving Native American students. American Anthropological Association Conference, San Jose, CA.

Aguilera, D.E. (2006 November 15-18) My story: Identity formation of a multi-ethnic doctorate student. American Anthropological Association Conference, San Jose, CA.

Academic Credentials

Ph.D. 2003, M.A. 1995, B.A. 1992 University of Colorado at Boulder

Dorothy 9/06

Migrating from my Southwest roots to the Pacific Northwest this summer was easier than I initially expected. I think it’s because the coastal views are as breathtaking as the Colorado Rocky Mountains I left behind, and then, there’s Mt Hood in its majestic stance. My home is now in Portland and I look forward to learning the natural environments and communities of this region. My work at Lewis & Clark College provides many opportunities to collaborate with current and future American Indian leaders interested in the areas of community development and education, particularly in reforming schools to improve the education of Native children and youth. Supporting the development of exceptional schools in diverse communities by growing leadership through grassroots efforts has been a lifelong quest of mine.