Dr. Mildred Boveda - Beautiful Risks in Education

Ronald Beghetto talks with Mildred Boveda about her educational journey, coming from an immigrant family who had few formal educational opportunities in the Dominican Republic, compared to Boveda’s ethnically diverse education experience in Miami with many teachers who believed in and encouraged her. Boveda discusses how she noticed the higher her educational attainment, the whiter the learning spaces became. She became drawn to education, wanting to support minoritized and marginalized students.

Early on in her career as a special educator, Boveda reflected on how students are often labeled and categorized based on ability, and she wondered how this socialized departmentalizing impacted how teachers understand and reflect on their own sociocultural identities and the role this plays in their teaching. Boveda believes pre-service teachers should feel comfortable and prepared to talk about their own sociocultural identity, and as such, her research focuses on understanding and measuring intersectional competencies. 

You can learn more about Dr. Mildred Boveda and her work by accessing her directory page at Arizona State University and by following her on Twitter: @MildredBoveda