Texas State’s Brooks Selected As NAEd/Spence Postdoctoral Fellow

This study will contribute to research that is necessary to create more equitable schools for U.S.-educated adolescents who remain classified as ELs for all or most of their K-12 educational trajectories.

SAN MARCOS – Maneka Brooks, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas State University, has been selected as a 2018 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.

Just 30 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowships were awarded nationwide in 2017.

The two-year, $70,000 fellowship will support Brooks’ research project, Always an “English Learner”: Learning From the Veterans of EL Educational Systems.

Her study will utilize the voices and perspectives of 60 Texas high school students who have been classified as English learners (ELs) since elementary school to investigate how these students interpret their experiences with English language assessments and explain their on-going classification as ELs.

The study’s findings will be fundamental to developing English proficiency assessment practices and instructional environments that are informed by the perspectives of a group of adolescents whose voices are frequently overlooked and unheard.

As a result, this study will contribute to research that is necessary to create more equitable schools for U.S.-educated adolescents who remain classified as ELs for all or most of their K-12 educational trajectories.

The goals of the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship program are to support early career scholars working in critical areas of education research; fund proposals that make significant scholarly contributions to the field of education; and advance and develop fellows’ careers through professional development activities involving NAEd members.

About Texas State University

Founded in 1899, Texas State University is among the largest universities in Texas with an enrollment of 38,694 students on campuses in San Marcos and Round Rock. Texas State’s 184,000-plus alumni are a powerful force in serving the economic workforce needs of Texas and throughout the world. Designated an Emerging Research University by the State of Texas, Texas State is classified under “Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity,” the second-highest designation for research institutions under the Carnegie classification system.