 Margie Curwen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
E-mail: mcurwen@chapman.edu
Phone: 714-628-2765
Fax: 714-744-7035
Margie Curwen has joined the faculty as an instructor in the College of Educational Studies. She attended the doctoral program at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education where she studied and researched issues relating to literacy, language, and learning.
Her dissertation examined middle-class elementary Latino/a students’ use of background knowledge and cultural capital while engaging in reading and writing classroom activities. Through a sociocultural lens, she explored dimensions of culture, language, and class that permeated the students’ official and unofficial discourse.
While at USC, Margie worked as a teaching assistant conducting weekly seminars in constructivist literacy pedagogy, as a clinical supervisor for pre-service and student teachers, and as a facilitator for RICA test preparation. Prior to enrolling at USC, she was a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, and a Reading Recovery teacher.
As a researcher, she has most recently worked on three qualitative projects that studied teacher inquiry groups as they developed a literacy curriculum, explored young Latino/a adults’ street writing (tagging) through the lens of social literacy practices, and examined the literacy practices of homeless mothers and children living in shelters. Each of these year-long collaborative projects, which were conducted with a team of researchers, explored the meaning of multiple literacies—for individuals and in a broader social context.
Margie has presented at research conferences including annual meetings of the National Reading Conference, the American Educational Research Association, and the California Reading Association, and she has co-authored publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Research interests include:
- How sociocultural resources are accessed when individuals engage in reading and writing practices;
- How historical, social, economic, and political aspects play a role in students’ differential academic achievement;
- How learning environments promote critical thinking in an increasingly multicultural and multilingual global society; and
- How new literacies intersect with individuals’ values, priorities, and meaning-making.
 Curriculum Vita
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