ASU professor receives dissertation award

Arizona State University’s Django Paris has been awarded the Mary Catherine Ellwein Outstanding Dissertation Award for Qualitative Research Methodology from the American Educational Research Association. The organization is a prominent international association with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application.

Paris, an assistant professor in the department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, spent six years as an English language arts teacher in California, Arizona, and the Dominican Republic before entering graduate school.

Chosen among six national finalists, Paris will receive the award and present a research talk at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting April 15 in San Diego, Calif. 

The award is given to educational research that exemplifies excellence of qualitative methodology and emphasizes ways that qualitative research may contribute to reducing inequality and injustice in schools and society.

His dissertation, “’Our Culture’: Difference, Division, and Unity in Multiethnic Youth Space,” is an ethnographic and sociolinguistic portrait of how youth of color live ethnic and linguistic difference in multiethnic urban America. His research focuses on a small group of Latino, African-American, and Asian Pacific Islander students who shared a high school and community.  

Paris’ research has been supported by fellowships from the Spencer Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Council of Teachers of English Research Foundation. His teaching focuses on youth language and literacy practices, the training of English teachers to work in multiethnic high schools, and multicultural curriculum theory and design.

He earned a doctorate in English education and literacy studies and master’s degree in education from Stanford University. He also received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. Paris has been with ASU since August 2008.