Ball, Arnetha F.
Academic Title
Other Titles
Director, The Program in African and African American Studies
Contact Info
Admin. Support
Program Affiliations
Research
Before entering the professorate, Dr. Arnetha Ball was a speech/language pathologist, taught in pre-school, elementary and secondary classrooms for over 25 years, and was the founder and Executive Director of an early education center for students of diverse backgrounds. Currently, she conducts an interdisciplinary program of research that aims to improve education for urban populations in three intersecting contexts: U.S. schools in which predominantly poor African American, Latino, and Pacific Islander students are underachieving; community-based organizations that are part of an alternative education system offering "second chance" or "last chance" opportunities for individuals in search of personal, academic, and economic success; and teacher education programs in the U.S. and South Africa. Dr. Ball specializes in the preparation of teachers to teach in urban schools and has served as an Academic Specialist for the United States Information Services Program in South Africa. She has co-taught courses on multiliteracies and English methodologies in the teacher education program at Johannesburg College of Education, and has taught in the Further Diploma in Education Program at the University of Cape Town. Dr Ball's research integrates sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and ethnographic approaches to investigate the processes of teacher change, teacher generativity, and teacher development, as well as the language and literacy practices of students in multicultural and multilingual settings. She works with Duquesne University as their Sizemore Consulting Professor on issues of Urban Education and currently serves as President of the American Educational Research Association.
Language, Literacies, and Studies in Teacher Professional Development: research on the writing and writing instruction of cultually and linguistically diverse students; preparing teachers to teach diverse student populations in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms; linking sociocultural and linguistic theory with educational practice; and using the linguistic resources present among culturally diverse populations to enhance curriculum and instruction. She is currently conducting research on the implementation of her "Model of Generative Change" (Ball 2009) in pre-service teacher education, inservice teacher professional development, and a secondary pipeline program designed to "grow our own next generation of excellent teachers for urban schools."
Quote
"Globalization, technological advances, and the increasing number of students in classrooms worldwide who are from various racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds make multicultural and multilingual education an imperative in the 21st century. … Teachers, however, continue to primarily come from backgrounds that are different from those of their students, and they feel woefully underprepared to teach students from cultural and linguistic groups that differ from their own."
- from Multicultural Strategies for Education and Social Change: Carriers of the Torch in the United States and South Africa (2006)
Education
- PhD (Language, Literacy & Culture), Stanford University, 1991
- MS (Speech Pathology), University of Michigan, 1972
- BA (Education), University of Michigan, 1971
Time at Stanford
Professor of Education (2007-present)
Associate Professor of Education (1999-2007)
Research Associate and Instructor (1988-1991)
Professional Experience
Director, Program in African and African American Studies, Stanford University (2010-Present)
Professor, Curriculum Studies, Teacher Education, and Educational Linguistics, Stanford University (2007-Present)
Associate Professor, Stanford University (1999-2007)
Associate Professor of Education & Coordinator of the Literacy, Language and Culture Program, University of Michigan (1998-1999)
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan (1992-1998)
Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Michigan (1991-1992)
External Program Evaluator, Los Angeles Unified School District (1991-1992)
Speech Pathologist, Audiology Associates of Dayton, OH (1986-1987)
Classroom Teacher, Aurora Elementary School, Aurora, IL (1984-1986)
Head Start Speech/Language Pathologist (1980-1984)
Founder, Administrative Director and Classroom Teacher, Children's Creative Workshop, Richmond, CA (1974-1980)
Ethnic Studies Resource Specialist, Speech Pathologist, Classroom Teacher, Richmond Unified School District, Richmond, CA (1972-1983)
Courses Taught
- ED 103B/AAAS 106/ED 337 - Race, Ethnicity, and Linguistic Diversity in Classrooms: Sociocultural Theory and Practices
- ED 112/212 - Urban Education
- ED 135/337 - Preparing Teachers for Diversity: Studying Diversity in Teacher Education
- ED 243 - Research on Writing and Writing Instruction
- ED 281 - Using Literacies to Support Struggling Students
- ED 322 - Discourse Analysis: The Discourse of Liberation and Equity in Schools and Society
Recent Publications
Ball, A. F. and Tyson, C. A. (2011). Studying Diversity in Teacher Education, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Ball, A. F. (2009). Toward a theory of generative change in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 46(1), 45-72.
Paris, D. J., & Ball, A. F. (2009). Connecting teacher and student knowledge in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms: Lessons for teacher education. In L. M. Morrow, R. Rueda, & D. Lapp (Eds.), Handbook of research on literacy instruction: Issues of diversity, policy, and equity. New York: Guilford.
Cooks, J., & Ball, A. F. (2008). African American adolescent literacies: Practices, perspectives, and pedagogical approaches. In L. Christenbury, R. Bomer, & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Handbook on adolescent literacy research. New York: Guilford.
Ball, A. F. (Ed.) (2006). With more deliberate speed: Achieving equity and excellence in education. NSSE 2006 Yearbook: National Society for the Study of Education. Williston, VT: Blackwell Publishing.
Ball, A. F. (2006). Multicultural strategies for education and social shange: Carriers of the torch in the United States and South Africa. New York: Teachers College Press.
Ball A. F. & Lardner T. (2005) African American Literacies Unleashed: Vernacular English and the Composition Classroom. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Ball, A. F. (2005). Culture and language: Bidialectal issues in literacy. In J. Flood & P. Andres (Eds.), Literacy development of students in urban schools: Research and Policy. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Ball, A. F., & Freedman, S. W. (Eds.) (2004). Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy and learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ball, A. F. (2002). Three decades of research on classroom life: Illuminating the classroom communicative lives of America's at-risk students. Review of Research in Education,
Ball, A. F. (2000). Empowering pedagogies that enhance the learning of multicultural students. Teachers College Record, 102(6), 1006-1034.
Current Activities
President, American Educational Research Association (AERA)
President-Elect, American Educational Research Association (AERA)
Vice President, AERA Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education)
Associate Editor, Urban Education (2001-present)
Past-President, National Council of Research on Language and Literacy
Board of Directors, NSSE
Research Foundation Board of Trustees, National Council of Teachers of English
Executive Board, Conference on College Composition and Communication
Editorial Board, Written Communication
Editorial Board, American Educational Research Journal
Editorial Board, Teachers College Press
Editorial Board, College Composition and Communication
Conferences
Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS)
American Educational Research Association
Human Rights Education Conference, Potchefstroom, South Africa
National Council of Teachers of English, San Francisco
Literacy Summit, The Importance of Writing in Literacy Development, Calif State University Dominguez Hills
International Reading Association, Conference on Literacy in Urban Schools
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Adolescent Literacy Conference
