|
Nancy Ares joined the Warner School in 2003 to teach doctoral level courses in learning and teaching theories, and research methods. She has taught at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate level, as well as coordinated academic support programs for under-represented and migrant students. Her primary concentration in teaching is in addressing cultural and linguistic diversity as central issues in educational research and practice. To that end, she explores social constructivist and critical approaches with students to pose problems and investigate solutions.
Ares conducts research using sociocultural, situated social practice, and critical theories as the framework for investigating classroom and community practices. This research focuses on structures that shape participation, how structures and activity are mutually constituted, and how power and roles are negotiated through social interaction. Her work in high school mathematics classrooms focuses on students of participation, agency, diversity, and pedagogy. In communities, her work emphasizes asset-based approaches to understanding school and neighborhood revitalization. She is committed to bridging multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives in studying learning and pedagogy as complex phenomena. Her work has been published is such journals as TheAmerican Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, The Journal of Literacy Research, and Mathematical Thinking and Learning.
She is also co-author, with Edward Buendía, of the book Geographies of Difference: The Social Production of the East Side, West Side, and Central City School(Peter Lang) and a chapter in Literacy as Snake Oil (2 nd Edition, Sage). With Walter Stroup, Andy Hurford, and Richard Lesh, she is co-author of a chapter in Foundations for the Future in Mathematics Education (Erlbaum).
Her WideNet research project brings critical sociocultural perspectives to studying learning in classrooms using next-generation networked technology. Focusing on the construction of group-level knowledge, discourse and practice, Ares explores how the technology and related teaching of complex dynamic systems influence secondary math practice can engage students in powerful mathematical and scientific practices while also inviting them to bring to bear cultural practices of their youth and home communities. Co-researching with secondary youth adds authenticity to this work. A second lien of research investigates issues of equity, agency, and participation in school and community reform. The influence of historical, geographical arrangements of people based on race and class, as well as the role of community funds of knowledge, in school and community transformation are central issues in that work.
|
