Rate My Professor Sera Hernandez

Sera J. Hernández, Ph.D., is the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Dual Language and English Learner Education at San Diego State University’s College of Education, where she teaches graduate courses on language policy, multilingual education, and biliteracy. She earned her Ph.D. in Language, Literacy & Culture in Education from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. With over 20 years of experience in public K-12 schools and universities, Hernández spent a decade teaching in elementary classrooms with bilingual learners before joining the SDSU faculty in 2015. Her interdisciplinary research bridges educational linguistics and the anthropology of education, focusing on the sociocultural, linguistic, and political contexts surrounding educational language policies, bilingual teacher preparation, and bilingualism and biliteracy practices, particularly in U.S.-Mexico border regions. She is currently investigating the professional development experiences of binational educators working and living near the Mexico-U.S. border.

Hernández received the Outstanding Global Educator/Researcher Award from SDSU in 2022 for her advocacy for language, culture, and global education. Her international efforts include leading the Formadores de Docentes Project since 2018, a binational collaboration with Baja California escuelas normales to develop curricula addressing socio-political, social-linguistic, social-cultural, and social-emotional impacts on migrant students and families. She has also contributed to bilingual education programs in Palau, Switzerland, and Oaxaca, Mexico. Key publications include “Equity issues in parental and community involvement in schools: What teacher educators need to know” (2013, Review of Research in Education, with P. Baquedano-López and R.A. Alexander); “Future perfect?: Teachers’ expectations and explanations of their Latino immigrant students’ postsecondary futures” (2018, Journal of Latinos and Education, with D.B. Dabach, C. Suárez-Orozco, and M.D. Brooks); “Are they all language learners?: Educational labeling and raciolinguistic identifying in a California middle school dual language program” (2017, CATESOL Journal); and “Bilingual teacher educators as language policy agents: A critical language policy perspective of the Castañeda v. Pickard case and the bilingual teacher shortage” (2022, Language Policy, with C. Alfaro and M.A.N. Martell). Her scholarship advances bilingual education policy and teacher preparation by emphasizing the assets of multilingual learners.