Dr. Sergio Loza is an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon and Director of the Spanish heritage program. As a first-generation college graduate, a son to Mexican immigrants and a grandson to two Bracero workers, his cultural roots and linguistic experiences are those of a U.S. Latino, heritage speaker of Spanish. His identity informs his scholarly inquiry as well as his advocacy for educational excellence for all underrepresented minorities. Dr. Loza’s qualitative work spans the fields of sociolinguists, heritage language education, critical language awareness, language ideologies, language attitudes, sociolinguistic style, Spanish in the U.S., critical discourse analysis and raciolinguistics. His research agenda is rooted in bringing issues of social justice and equity to the forefront of Spanish language education, particularly for Latinx students. Dr. Loza’s research unpacks the ways that dominant language ideologies shape the educational experiences of Latinx students. Connecting his research to the classroom, his publications detail how to incorporate these ideological, and often sociopolitical, considerations into designing curriculum and instruction for Latinx students. Dr. Loza’s academic mission aims to eradicate the ideological barriers that Latinx people confront daily to provide underrepresented learners with a transformative educational experience. Recent publications include a co-edited book entitled Heritage language teaching: Critical language awareness perspectives for research and pedagogy (2022) and a co-authored book: Heritage language program direction: Research into practice (in press), with Routledge. He has also published book chapters and journal articles in top journals such as Studies of Second Language Acquisition, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Language Awareness, Language Testing, Languages, International Multilingual Research Journal, and Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures.
BOOKS
Beaudrie, S. M. & Loza, S. (2023). Heritage language program direction: Research into practice. Routledge.
EDITED BOOKS
Schwartz, A., Magaña, D., Grammon, D. & Loza, S. (in press). Aquí se habla: In conversation with local and personal Spanish language education. De Gruyter Mouton.
Loza, S. & Beaudrie, S. M. (2022). Heritage language teaching: Critical language awareness perspectives for research and pedagogy. Routledge.
PEER REVIEWED CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES
Flores, J. R., Gómez-Becerra, J. J., & Loza, S. (in press). A Chicana/o De-Colonial Praxis for the SHL classroom: Where colonial language meets decolonial pedagogy/epistemology. In A. Schwartz, D. Magaña, D. Grammon & S. Loza (Eds.), Aquí se habla: In conversation with local and personal Spanish language education (pp. 0). De Gruyter Mouton.
Loza, S. (in press). Introduction: Embodied knowledge and institutional knowledge. In A. Schwartz, D. Magaña, D. Grammon & S. Loza (Eds.), Aquí se habla: In conversation with local and personal Spanish language education (pp. 0). De Gruyter Mouton.
Loza, S. (2024b). “Did you have some kind of blow to the head?”: Spanish heritage language learners, language ideologies and oral corrective feedback. Linguistics and Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2024.101380
Grammon, D. & Loza, S. (2024). Missed opportunities: Oral corrective feedback, heritage learners of Spanish, and study abroad in Peru. Heritage language journal, 21(1), 1-29. doi:10.1163/15507076-bja10025
Loza, S. (2024a). Critical language awareness for all: Including receptive learners’ voice in the SHL classroom. In L. Padilla & R. Vana (Eds.), Representation, inclusion and social justice in world language teaching: Research and pedagogy for inclusive classrooms (pp. 1-15 pp.). Routledge.
Zalbidea, J., Pascual y Cabo, D., Loza, S. & Luque, A. (2023). Spanish Heritage Language Learners’ Emotions in the Classroom: Exploring the Impact of Teacher-focused Factors. Studies in second language acquisition, 45(4), 979-1003. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263123000025
Cerrón-Palomino, A., Loza, S. & Vana, R. (2023). What pre and post Arizonian statehood newspapers tell us about subject expression. Languages, 8(1), 1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/languages8010025
Loza, S., Padilla, L., & Vana, R. (2022). A critical analysis of Elite: Linguistic capital, ideologies, and marginalization. In A. Sánchez-Muñoz & J. Retis (Eds.), Communicative spaces in bilingual context: Discourses, synergies and counterflows in Spanish and English (pp. 129-142).Routledge.
Loza, S. (2022b). Unmasking ideologically charged oral CF practices in a Spanish mixed classroom: Teacher and SHL student perspectives. Languages, 7(3), 1-20. doi.org/10.3390/languages7030194
Loza, S. (2022a). Oral corrective feedback in the Spanish heritage language context: A critical perspective. In Beaudrie, S. & Loza, S. (2021). Heritage language teaching: Critical language awareness perspectives for research and pedagogy (pp. 119-137). Routledge.
Beaudrie, S. M. & Loza, S. (2022). The central role of critical language awareness in SHL education in the United States. In S. M. Beaudrie & S. Loza (Eds.). Heritage language teaching: Critical language awareness perspectives for research and pedagogy (pp. 3-18). Routledge.
Beaudrie, S. M. & Loza, S. (2021). Insights into SHL program direction: Student and program advocacy challenges in the face of ideological inequity. Language Awareness, 32(1), 39-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2021.1949333
Beaudrie, S. M., Amezcua, A., & Loza, S. (2021). Critical language awareness in the heritage language classroom: Design, implementation, and evaluation of a curricular intervention. International Multilingual Research Journal, 15(1), 61-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2020.1753931
Beaudrie, S. M. & Loza, S. (2020). Spanish heritage education in the Southwestern United States: Fighting restrictive policies toward language maintenance in Arizona. In F. Salgado-Robles & E. M. Lamboy (Eds.), Spanish across domains in the United States (pp. 25-46). Brill.
Loza, S. & Vana, R. (2020). Hola, my name is Carmen, who is this?- Language ideologies and dialect stylization in prank calls.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 18(2), 133-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2020.1796484
Beaudrie, S. M., Amezcua, A., & Loza, S. (2019). Critical heritage language awareness in the heritage context: Development and validation of a measurement questionnaire, Language Testing, 36(4), 573-594. https://doi.org/10.1177/02655322198442
Loza, S. (2017). Transgressing Standard Language Ideologies in the Spanish heritage language (SHL) Classroom. Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, 1(2), 56-77. https://doi.org/10.2979/chiricu.1.2.06
BOOK REVIEWS
Loza, S. & Ochoa, V. (2021). Adult Minority Language Learning: Motivation, Identity and Target Variety, by Colin J. Flynn, 2020 (Multilingual Matters). International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
2024 Plenary speaker. Hispanic Linguistic Symposium. University of Nebraska, Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/foreign-languages/hispanic-linguistics-symposium/index.php
2024 Keynote speaker. Graduate Conference, Hispanic Literature and Linguistics Conference.Arizona State University, Tempe.
2022 Keynote speaker. 9th National Spanish as a Heritage Language Symposium, Florida State University. https://9nsshl2022.fsu.edu/keynote-speakers
2022 The critical turn in the field of Spanish heritage language education. Heritage Language Learning Symposium. The University of North Carolina Charlotte. https://heritagelanguagelearning.charlotte.edu/symposium