Teresa McCarty

Teresa McCarty is a Distinguished Professor and holder of the George F. Kneller Chair in Education and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Education & Information Studies. She is also Faculty in American Indian Studies. McCarty received her Ph.D. in Social-Cultural Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1984, an M.A. from the same institution in 1977, and a B.A. in Anthropology from The Ohio State University in 1975. Prior to joining UCLA in 2013, she served as Alice Wiley Snell Professor Emerita of Education Policy Studies at Arizona State University, held various professorial roles at the University of Arizona, and worked in educational administration with the Navajo Curriculum Center on the Navajo Nation and the Arizona Department of Education's Indian Education Unit.

McCarty's research focuses 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. She currently leads a multiyear U.S.-wide study of Indigenous-language immersion schooling as principal investigator, funded by the Spencer Foundation. Her contributions to the field are recognized through numerous awards, including election to the National Academy of Education in 2019, the American Educational Research Association 12th Annual Brown Lecture in 2015, AERA Fellow status in 2009, and the George and Louise Spindler Award from the Council on Anthropology and Education in 2010. Notable publications include the co-authored book “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (2006, with K. Tsianina Lomawaima), edited volumes such as A World of Indigenous Languages: Politics, Pedagogies, and Prospects for Language Reclamation (2019, with S.E. Nicholas and G. Wigglesworth) and The Anthropology of Education Policy: Ethnographic Inquiries into Policy as Social Practice (2018, with A.E. Castagno), and her 2018 Educational Researcher article delivering the Brown Lecture, “So that any child may succeed—Indigenous pathways toward justice and the promise of Brown.” McCarty has also served in prominent editorial roles, including Editor-in-Chief of Anthropology and Education Quarterly (2001–2006) and co-editor of the Language, Education and Diversity Book Series (2019–present).

Professional Email: teresa.mccarty@ucla.edu