Shirley Brice Heath

Stanford University

Margery Baily Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and Professor of Linguistics Emerita

Shirley Brice Heath is Margery Baily Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and Professor of Linguistics Emerita, Stanford University, and past Professor at Large, Brown University (2003-2010). A linguistic anthropologist by training (Columbia University), she is best known in the United States for her longitudinal studies of linguistic development in the learning environments of families and communities. As a Latin Americanist, she is known for her research on language policies and bilingualism in Mexico. Internationally, she is widely recognized for her studies of learning in studios and laboratories in which young people engage in creative work linked to the sciences and arts. Her books include Words at work and play: Three decades in family and community life, Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms, On Ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research (with Brian Street), The Braid of Literature (with Shelby Wolf), Identity and Inner-city youth: Beyond ethnicity and gender (with Milbrey W. McLaughlin), Language in the USA (with Charles Ferguson), and Telling Tongues: Language Policy in Mexico, colony to nation. Her honors include the MacArthur Foundation fellowship, David H. Russell Research Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, and Grawemeyer Award in Education (jointly with Milbrey W. McLaughlin).