Jenny Sawada

Jenny Sawada, Ph.D., is a qualitative researcher at the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC). Originally from an Arizona border town, her research is influenced by the Borderlands context and what it means to exist in liminal spaces. Her work is deeply rooted in her history and family: Amparo, her mother from Palos Altos, Jalisco, Mexico; Toshiaki, her father from Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan; and her brother, Edgar, who shares her first gen experience as a child of immigrants. Her scholarship has examined the ways in which BIPOC youth work in intentional and deliberate ways to honor their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, as well as how they resist and challenge oppressive narratives and inequities via their literacy practices. More broadly, her interests are in youth activism and liberatory education with an emphasis on counter-storytelling and on challenging traditional conceptualizations of literacy and academic research.She holds a B.A. in Sociology and English Rhetoric & Composition from the University of Arizona. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are in Educational Studies with an emphasis on Literacy, Language, and Culture from the University of Michigan.