Bio

Jonathan Rosa is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and, by courtesy, Departments of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature. Dr. Rosa’s research examines how race and language are jointly defined, experienced, and transformed across distinctive historical, geopolitical, and institutional contexts. He collaborates with schools and communities to understand these phenomena and challenge the forms of vulnerability to which they correspond. This community-based approach to research, teaching, and service reflects a vision of scholarship as a platform for imagining and enacting more just societies.

Dr. Rosa is author of the award-winning book, Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad (2019, Oxford University Press), and co-editor of the volume, Language and Social Justice in Practice (2019, Routledge). In addition to various scholarly journals and volumes, his work on race, language, immigration, and education has appeared in popular media outlets such as The New York Times, The Nation, NPR, and Univision. Dr. Rosa has served as President of the Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists, Co-Chair of the Task Force on Language and Social Justice of the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Linguistic Anthropology and Council for Human Rights, Director of Stanford’s Program in Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies, and Co-Director of Stanford’s Center for Global Ethnography. He attained an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Linguistics and Educational Studies at Swarthmore College.

Academic Appointments

  • Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Associate Professor (By courtesy), Linguistics
  • Associate Professor (By courtesy), Anthropology
  • Associate Professor (By courtesy), Comparative Literature

Administrative Appointments

  • Co-Director, Center for Global Ethnography, Stanford University (2021 - 2023)
  • Director, Program in Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies, Stanford University (2020 - 2023)

Honors & Awards

  • Distinguished Summer Scholar, Banks Center for Educational Justice, University of Washington College of Education (2024)
  • Outstanding Book of the Year Award (Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race), American Association of Teaching and Curriculum (2022)
  • Conference Grant, "Community as a Campus: Decolonial Praxis in Chicago's Paseo Boricua", Spencer Foundation (2021)
  • First Book Award (Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race), American Association for Applied Linguistics (2021)
  • Prose Award for Excellence in Language & Linguistics (Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race), Association of American Publishers (2020)
  • Visiting Scholar, Spencer Foundation (2020)
  • Charles A. Ferguson Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Center for Applied Linguistics (2018)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • President, Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association (2020 - 2022)
  • Editorial Board, Current Anthropology (2019 - 2022)
  • Editorial Board, International Multilingual Research Journal (2018 - 2021)
  • Editorial Board, Equity & Excellence in Education (2017 - Present)
  • Editorial Board, Anthropology News (2016 - 2019)
  • Executive Board Member-At-Large, Association of Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association (2015 - 2018)
  • Advisory Committee Member, Social Science Research Council/Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program (2013 - 2017)
  • Co-Chair, Language and Social Justice Task Force, Society for Linguistic Anthropology, American Anthropological Association (2012 - 2014)
  • Executive Board Member/Secretary-Treasurer, Society for Linguistic Anthropology, American Anthropological Association (2012 - 2014)

Program Affiliations

  • Center for Latin American Studies

Professional Education

  • Ph.D., University of Chicago, Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology (2010)
  • M.A., University of Chicago, Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology (2006)
  • B.A., Swarthmore College, Linguistics and Educational Studies (2003)

Contact

  • Academic
    jdrosa@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Graduate School of Education Position: Associate Professor

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 3096

Links

Research Interests

  • Diversity and Identity
  • Immigrants and Immigration
  • Literacy and Language
  • Poverty and Inequality
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Sociology
  • Teachers and Teaching

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

I am currently working on two book projects through which I am continuing to develop frameworks for understanding ethnoracial, linguistic, and educational formations. The first examines racial reckonings across distinctive societal contexts by interweaving ethnographic analysis of diasporic Puerto Rican experiences and broader constructions of Latinidad that illustrate race and ethnicity as colonial and communicative predicaments. The second spotlights decolonial approaches to the creation of collective well-being through educational and societal transformations based on longstanding community collaborations in Chicago.

2024-25 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • Raciontologies reconceptualizing racialized enactments and the reproduction of white supremacy ANTHROPOLOGY OF WHITE SUPREMACY Diaz, V., Rosa, J., Beliso-DeJesus, A. M., Pierre, J., Rana, J. 2025: 178-191

    View details for Web of Science ID 001368993700017

  • Misma Direccion, Distinto Sentido: Reconceptualizing Problems and Possibilities in Educational Language Learning EQUITY IN MULTILINGUAL SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES Munoz-Munoz, E. R., Martinez, R., Rosa, J., Kibler, A. K., Walqui, A., Bunch, G. C., Faltis, C. J. 2024; 143: 100-111

    View details for Web of Science ID 001313867800011

  • Undoing raciolinguistics, unsettling (socio)linguistics JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1111/josl.12646

    View details for Web of Science ID 001085067500001

  • Undoing raciolinguistics JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS Flores, N., Rosa, J. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1111/josl.12643

    View details for Web of Science ID 001083984400001

  • Deshaciendo la raciolingüística1 JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS Flores, N., Rosa, J. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1111/josl.12642

    View details for Web of Science ID 001083884300001

  • Rethinking Language Barriers & amp; Social Justice from a Raciolinguistic Perspective DAEDALUS Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2023; 152 (3): 99-114

    View details for DOI 10.1162/daed_a_02020

    View details for Web of Science ID 001057599900007

  • Premises, Pitfalls, and Possibilities of Undoing Competence: A Response to Open Peer Commentaries LANGUAGE LEARNING Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1111/lang.12564

    View details for Web of Science ID 000941147200001

  • Rejecting Abyssal Thinking in the Language and Education of Racialized Bilinguals WORLD YEARBOOK OF EDUCATION 2023 Garcia, O., Flores, N., Seltzer, K., Wei, L., Otheguy, R., Rosa, J., Scott, J., Bajaj, M. 2023: 81-99

    View details for DOI 10.4324/9781003241393-7

    View details for Web of Science ID 000964880900006

  • Undoing Competence: Coloniality, Homogeneity, and the Overrepresentation of Whiteness in Applied Linguistics LANGUAGE LEARNING Flores, N., Rosa, J. 2022

    View details for DOI 10.1111/lang.12528

    View details for Web of Science ID 000878243300001

  • Decolonization, Language, and Race in Applied Linguistics and Social Justice APPLIED LINGUISTICS Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2021; 42 (6): 1162-1167

    View details for DOI 10.1093/applin/amab062

    View details for Web of Science ID 000740584000012

  • Introduction: Language and White Supremacy JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Smalls, K. A., Spears, A. K., Rosa, J. 2021; 31 (2): 152-156

    View details for DOI 10.1111/jola.12329

    View details for Web of Science ID 000695811200002

  • Rejecting abyssal thinking in the language and education of racialized bilinguals: A manifesto Critical Inquiry in Language Studies Garcia , O., Flores, N., Seltzer, K., Wei, L., Otheguy, R., Rosa, J. 2021; 18 (3): 203-228

    View details for DOI 10.1080/15427587.2021.1935957

  • Raciontologies: Rethinking Anthropological Accounts of Institutional Racism and Enactments of White Supremacy in the United States AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Rosa, J., Diaz, V. 2019

    View details for DOI 10.1111/aman.13353

    View details for Web of Science ID 000504832000001

  • Bringing Race Into Second Language Acquisition MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL Flores, N., Rosa, J. 2019; 103: 145–51

    View details for DOI 10.1111/modl.12523

    View details for Web of Science ID 000456092700012

  • Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of Latinidad Rosa, J. Oxford University Press, USA. 2019

    View details for DOI 10.1093/oso/9780190634728.001.0001

  • Language and Social Justice in Practice Avineri, N., Graham, L. R., Johnson, E. J., Riner, R. C., Rosa, J. Routledge. 2018

    View details for DOI 10.4324/9781315115702

  • Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2017; 46 (5): 621–47

    View details for DOI 10.1017/S0047404517000562

    View details for Web of Science ID 000417284600001

  • Deprovincializing Trump, decolonizing diversity, and unsettling anthropology AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST Rosa, J., Bonilla, Y. 2017; 44 (2): 201–8

    View details for DOI 10.1111/amet.12468

    View details for Web of Science ID 000404546100002

  • Diaspora and language ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF MIGRATION AND LANGUAGE Rosa, J., Trivedi, S., Canagarajah, S. 2017: 330–46

    View details for Web of Science ID 000446897500019

  • Do you hear what I hear? Raciolinguistic ideologies and culturally sustaining pedagogies Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world Rosa, J., Flores, N. 2017: 175-190
  • Standardization, Racialization, Languagelessness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies across Communicative Contexts JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Rosa, J. D. 2016; 26 (2): 162-183

    View details for DOI 10.1111/jola.12116

    View details for Web of Science ID 000383263500003

  • Racializing language, regimenting Latinas/os: Chronotope, social tense, and American raciolinguistic futures LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION Rosa, J. 2016; 46: 106-117

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.langcom.2015.10.007

    View details for Web of Science ID 000368204700009

  • Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW Flores, N., Rosa, J. 2015; 85 (2): 7–29

    View details for Web of Science ID 000356399900001

  • Invited Forum: Bridging the "Language Gap" JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Avineri, N., Johnson, E., Brice-Heath, S., McCarty, T., Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Blum, S., Zentella, A. C., Rosa, J., Flores, N., Alim, H. S., Paris, D. 2015; 25 (1): 66-86

    View details for DOI 10.1111/jola.12071

    View details for Web of Science ID 000354725800004

  • Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST Bonilla, Y., Rosa, J. 2015; 42 (1): 4–17

    View details for DOI 10.1111/amet.12112

    View details for Web of Science ID 000349898500002

  • Rethinking Gaps Literacies and Languages in Participatory Cultures JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT & ADULT LITERACY Jocson, K., Rosa, J., Curwood, J. 2015; 58 (5): 372–74

    View details for DOI 10.1002/jaal.368

    View details for Web of Science ID 000348862600004

  • On Latin@s and the Immigration Debate AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Davila, A., Mullings, L., Rosaldo, R., Plascencia, L. B., Chavez, L. R., Magana, R., Rosas, G., Aparicio, A., Najera, L., Zavella, P., Galvez, A., Rosa, J. D. 2014; 116 (1): 146–59

    View details for DOI 10.1111/aman.12069

    View details for Web of Science ID 000333215100019