°Ő°äâs Maria Paula Ghiso, Associate Professor of Literacy Education, is the co-recipient of the 2018 David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English, given the by the (NCTE).
Ghiso and two collaborators â Gerald Campano, Associate Professor and Chair of the Reading/Writing/Literacy Division at the University of Pennsylvaniaâs Graduate School of Education, and Bethany J. Welch, a nonprofit management consultant who is founding director of the , a Catholic Church-affiliated community center in Philadelphia â are being honored for their co-edited book, (¶¶Òőapp Press 2016). The three âhave compiled a collection of critically insightful and provocative essays that focus on the plight and opportunities for immigrant families (of various cultural-ethnic backgrounds)â whose partnership with the Aquinas Center âis one dedicated to health, safety, English acquisition, and literacy education,â writes the NCTE in a statement on the organizationâs website. âTheirs is a model of collaboration, research, teaching, and learningâtheirs is a call to activism, anchored in that leap of faith we call âhope.ââ
LINGUISTIC SAVVY Ghiso explores the "local cosmopolitanism of young immigrants.
Ghiso, who immigrated to the United States from Argentina as a young girl and was put in remedial courses at the American public school she attended, has long been interested in âhow schoolsâ organization doesnât tap into childrenâs linguistic and cultural resources.â In her work, she explores what she calls young immigrantsâ âlocal cosmopolitanismâ â their linguistic savvy and street-smart adaptability, born of uprooting and living in multiple cultures. Those experiences are âjust as educative as a college year abroad or family vacations in Europe,â she says.
Ghiso and her co-editors argue that in a Philadelphia community center, exchanges among Indonesian, Vietnamese and Latino families about high school admissions and local health care resources involve sophisticated literacy and linguistic practices
Partnering with Immigrant Communities chronicles the Aquinas Centerâs Community Literacies Project, through which â Ghiso, Campano and Welch argue â exchanges among Indonesian, Vietnamese and Latino families about high school admissions and local health care resources involve sophisticated literacy and linguistic practices. The Projectâs immigration workshops reflect African-American intellectual and activist legacies. Youth and families cooperate across cultural, social and linguistic boundaries to forge a shared vision of educational justice and human rights.
The NCTE calls Ghiso's co-edited book âa call to activism, anchored in that leap of faith we call âhope.ââ
In 2018, Partnering with Immigrant Communities also earned Ghiso, Campano and Welch also received the Ed Fry Book Award, given by the Literacy Research Association (LRA). And Ghiso also received LRAâs first-ever Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy for her 2016 paper published in ¶¶Òőapp Record.