Research & Publications

As a critical applied linguist and independent scholar, Crissa Stephens' bilingual research in language policy centers language policy and social identity. At its heart, her collaborative, community-based research is about access to speaking, listening, and being heard in interactions and in institutions such as public schools. Her work provides a roadmap for policymakers, researchers, and educators to build a more socially and linguistically just system.

Stephens has also initiated, developed, and participated as PI on language education initiatives, including Project ELEECT, which trained diverse, culturally and linguistically responsive teachers for DC schools and M3I: The Mind, Math, and Multiliteracies Institute ($350K), which trained DC teachers to meet students' needs at the intersection of disability and multilingualism. Her projects and publications seek to disrupt prevalent, damaging narratives about multilingual children, families, and schools providing insights to support access and equity in a multilingual world.

• Project ELEECT Advances Educational Justice in D.C. - Georgetown Magazine
• AERJ Author Awarded TIRF Alatis Prize - AERA Highlights
• Are We Gentrifying DLBE? Reframing School Choice as Family Language Planning

• FY 2024 OSSE Grow Your Own Grant ($275K) - 2023
• Co-PI, National Professional Development Grant ($2.6M) - 2021
• PI, AERA Educational Service Research Projects Grant: Black Youth as Educational Policy Analysts in Contexts of Midwest Segregation ($5,000) - 2020
• Co-PI: OSSE Special Education Teacher Training Program ($350,000) - 2019
• Co-PI, OSSE Special Education Enhancement Fund ($350K) - 2019
• PI, NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program ($1.2M) - 2019
• The International Research Foundation for English Language Education, TIRF Laureate Doctoral Dissertation Grant ($3,000) - 2016

Recent Publications

• Cioè-Peña, M. & Stephens, C. & Wesley-Nero, S. (2025). Are we gentrifying? And, if so, is that bad?: School choice as family language planning and policy. Race and Justice in Multilingual Education, 1(1).
• Donley, K. & Stephens, C. (2025). Teachers as researchers: How teachers inquire, implement, and reflect on responsive pedagogies for multilingual learners. TESOL Journal, 16(3).
• Stephens, C. & Morita-Mullaney, T. (2025). Interpreting as Education Policy: Disentangling language access policy in schools. Language Policy, DOI:10.1007/s10993-025-09728-8
• Stephens, C. (2024). Commentary In Kleyn, T., Hunt, V., Jaar, A., Madrigal, R., & Villegas, C. (Eds.) Lessons from a dual language bilingual school: Celebrando una década de Dos Puentes Elementary. Multilingual Matters.
• Stephens, C. (2024). Invisible Policy Brokers: The political roles of interpreters in educational policy negotiations with language minoritized mothers. American Educational Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312241228837
• Donley, K., Wesley-Nero, S., Stephens, C. Ashraf, H. & Reed, D. (2023). Preparing culturally and linguistically responsive teachers through job-embedded feedback and teacher inquiry. Journal of Language Teaching. 3(10), 8-22.
• Stephens, C. (2023). "This is our country, too": Embodied experiences of and resistance to Neo-nationalism in a Midwest School District. TESOL Quarterly, 57(3), pp. 916-945.
• Schissel, J. & Stephens, C. (2020). Anti-oppressive pedagogy in language teacher education: Identity texts and intersectionality. In B. Yazan and K. Lindahl (Eds). Language Teacher Identity in TESOL: Teacher Education and Practice as Identity Work. Routledge.
• Stephens, C. (2020). Common Threads: Language policy, nation, whiteness, and privilege in Iowa's first dual language program. In N. Flores, S. Subtirelu, & A. Tseng (Eds). Bilingualism for all? Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Dual Language Education. Multilingual Matters.
• Stephens, C. (2018). Language Policy and Multilingual Identity at Home and in School. Doctoral Dissertation, Proquest Dissertations Publishing.
• Johnson, D.C., & Stephens, C. (2018). Conceptual and methodological development in language policy and planning. In A. Phakiti, P.I. De Costa, L. Plonsky, & Starfield, S. (Eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology. Palgrave.
• Johnson, D.C., Stephens, C. & Lynch, S. (2018). The past is prologue: Language policy and nativism in new immigrant contexts. Journal of Language and Politics, 17(3), 36-385.
• Stephens, C. (2017). Media discourses of language policy and the "new" Latino diaspora in Iowa. In J. Crandall & K. Bailey (Eds) Global Perspectives on Educational Language Policies. Routledge.
• Johnson, D.C., Stephens, C., Johnston, J. & Johnson, E. (2017). Violating Lau: Sheltered English instruction and educational opportunity. Journal of Education Policy.
• Johnson, D. C., Lynch, S., & Stephens, C. (2016). Proceedings of the14th Annual Conference, 2015: Educational language policy and the new Latino diaspora in Iowa. In S. Jeanetta, C. Rector, L. Saunders & C. Valdivia (Eds.), Cambio de colores: Latinos in the heartland: Shaping the future: Leadership for inclusive communities (pp. 55-59). Kansas City, MO: Cambio Center at the University of Missouri.
• Stephens, C. & Johnson, D.C. (2015). "Good Teaching for all Students?": Sheltered Instruction Programming in Washington State Language Policy. Language and Education. 29(1), 31-45.
• Stephens, C. (2012). Film Circles: Scaffolding Speaking for EFL Students. English Teaching Forum. 15(2), 14-20.