Mary Christianakis, associate professor of critical theory and social justice at Occidental College, has been appointed editor of Teacher Education Quarterly, regarded as one of the country’s top journals in the field.
Christianakis, who currently serves as a member of the Quarterly’s editorial board, will succeed current editor Kip Téllez of UC Santa Cruz, on Jan. 1, 2017. She is the first woman in the history of 44-year-old peer-reviewed journal to serve as editor. (Jan Cross of Cal State Sacramento served as a co-editor in 1975.)
"That’s surprising in a feminized field such as teacher education," says Christianakis, an award-winning scholar who studies literacy development, language, and discourse and serves as chair of her department. "It’s an important step for a woman-dominated organization to acknowledge that women can be in charge of leading research in this area."
Sponsored by the California Council on Teacher Education and published by Caddo Gap Press, the San Francisco-based independent publisher, Teacher Education Quarterly has an acceptance rate of 13 percent, some 525 reviewers nationwide, and an international advisory board that includes Jeannie Oakes of the Ford Foundation and Linda Darling Hammond of Stanford University.
During her three-year term as editor, Christianakis plans to expand the treatment of such issues as teacher education for English Language Learners in STEM fields; exploring the links between the latest brain research and teacher knowledge; and critical social justice issues as they pertain to teacher education.
She also hopes to update the Quarterly’s website, including adding podcasts and an online archive organized by subject.
"I’m grateful for the support of Kerry Thompson, interim dean of the College, and associate dean Eileen Spain for my candidacy for editor," says Christianakis. "I’m also thrilled to be able to work with Dr. Andrea Rodriguez-Minkoff ’06, an adjunct assistant professor in Occidental’s Core Program, who will be working with me on the Quarterly in a post-doctoral capacity."
