Laura M. Jiménez
Senior Lecturer
Director, Center for Educating Critically
Dr. Laura M. Jiménez is a senior lecturer in the Language & Literacy Education Department at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is also the director of the Center for Educating Critically. As a white-presenting Latina lesbian, her scholarship and activism center the multiple ways teaching has always been a political act. Additionally, it explores how educators can disrupt and create anti-oppressive, justice-oriented, inclusive classroom experiences for students.
Previously, Dr. Jiménez served as BU Wheelock’s associate dean for equity, diversity & inclusion. She is one of the inaugural Boston University D&I Partners Faculty Fellows. Her scholarship looks at the ways marginalized communities are represented in children and YA literature and the ways teachers can learn to critically engage their own teaching practices to include and forefront humanizing pedagogy and the power of modifying existing curriculum.
She is a founding member of the editorial board of Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, and a co-editor on the first all queer editorial team for NCTE’s Journal of Children’s Literature, co-editor of Diversity in Graphic Novels: Special Issue of Research on Diversity in Youth Literature. In addition, she is a co-author of Lee and Low’s 2023 and 2019 Diversity Baseline in Publishing surveys. Her work has been published in Journal for Literacy Research, Language Arts, Encyclopedia of Social Justice in Education, Literacy Research and Instruction, and other peer reviewed journals, as well as the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and other media outlets.
Recent News
- Brown v Board of Education: “We Need Another Moment for Our Time”
- 4 Ways Educators Can Be More Inclusive
- Leading an Antiracist Classroom
- Books Are Being Banned Across the Country. What’s Really at Stake?
- Literature That Reflects the World
- Laura Jiménez Honored for Literacy Advocacy
- BU Wheelock Announces Fall Faculty Award Winners
In the Media
- BU to Change the Name of Dorm Named for English Colonist Who Massacred Native Americans
- Boston University Removes Myles Standish Name from Dorm, Report Says
- Boston University Removes the Myles Standish Name from Dorm
- Where Is the Diversity in Publishing? The 2023 Diversity Baseline Survey Results
- Publishing Pledged to Diversify. Change Has Been Slow.
- Fanfare, Then Fallout at Antiracist Research Center Reveals Other Fractures
- How to Help Kids Become Better Readers
- Want to Find a Banned Book? Brookline Booksmith Has Some on Display
- 75 Years Later, Why Is Goodnight Moon Still Lulling So Many Children to Sleep?
- Books Are Being Banned. What’s Really at Stake?
Education
PhD, Educational Psychology and Educational Technology, with a Language and Literacy option, Michigan State University
BA, Humanities, with an emphasis on creative writing, New College of California
Research
Current Projects
Theorizing a framework to help teachers better understand the multiple dimensions at work in graphic novels.
Researching intersectional representations in graphic novels that feature female protagonists.
Working with a set of middle school teachers to develop lesson plans and other materials they can use in the classroom to leverage student engagement with multi-modal literature.
Selected Publications
Jimenez, L. M. (2014). “So, like, what now?”: Making identity visible for pre-service teachers. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 10(2), 68-86.
Jiménez, L. M. and McIlhagga, K.K.A., (2013). Books for Young Readers: Strategic Selection of Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Journal of Education, 193(3).
Selected Presentations
Jiménez, L.M. (2014, April). Negotiating Graphic Novels: An Analysis of Expert Readers’ Metacognitive Strategies. An accepted paper presented at the AERA Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
Jiménez, L.M. (2013, December) Inside the Box: Expert Readers Attention Patterns in Graphic Novels. Accepted paper to Literacy Research Association annual conference, Dallas, TX.
Jiménez, L.M. (2013, November) Going graphica: Diverse contexts, shared purposes. National Council of Teachers of English annual conference, Boston, MA.
Jiménez, L.M., Wargo, J., and McIlhagga, K.K.A. . (2013, November) “I Just Can’t Go There”: Examining Preservice teacher responses to LGBTQ Literature. National Council of Teachers of English annual conference, Boston, MA.
Jiménez, L.M. (2013, April) Visual attention mapping: Expert readers journey across the graphic novel page. Roundtable presentation AERA Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Norman, R.R. and Jiménez, L. M. (2011, December). Readers Creating Narratives: Making a Story out of a Picture. Literacy Research Association, Jacksonville, Florida.
Jiménez, L. M. (2011, December). Applying research in the classroom: Beyond a common text. Alternative session presentation, Learning about Literacy in Pre-service and In-service Settings: Research and Developments from the Literacy Achievement Research Center, Literacy Research Association, Jacksonville, Florida.
Jiménez, L. M. (2011, April). Interest Matters: Fourth-Graders Reading Multiple High- and Low-Interest Texts. AERA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jiménez, L. M. (2010, August). Accidentally stereotyping: White readers reading multicultural texts. The American Psychological Association, San Diego, California.
Jiménez, L. M. (2010, April) Comprehending Captain Underpants: A content analysis for good reading in bad books. Bright Ideas Spring Conference on the English Language Arts, East Lansing, Michigan.
Jiménez, L. M. (2010, March). Defending Captain Underpants. Michigan State University Graduate Academic Conference, East Lansing, Michigan.
Jiménez, L. M. (2009, October). Praise and vilification: A Comparative Reading of Ramona the Pest and Junie B. Jones. Midwest Popular Culture Association and Midwest American Culture Association Conference, Detroit, MI.
Jiménez, L. M. (2009, October). A Place for Inappropriate Literature in the Classroom. Midwest Popular Culture Association and Midwest American Culture Association Conference, Detroit, MI.