Ph.D., Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010

M.Ed., Teaching English as a Second Language, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2005

MA, Comparative Education, University of Minnesota, 2000

BA, Anthropology, French, Grinnell College, 1996

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, College of Education, 2020

T. Dávila, L. (2023). Immigrant Outreach and Language Access During First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Applied Linguistics.  link >

Dávila, L. T., & Doukmak, N. (2022). Immigration Debated: Central African Immigrant Youth’s Discourses of Fairness and Civic Belonging in the United States. Equity and Excellence in Education, 55(1-2), 118-132.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (Guest ed.) (Accepted/In press). Introduction to Special Issue: Researching Language Teaching, Learning and Policy in Refugee Resettlement Contexts in the United States. Linguistics and Education, 70, Article 101056.  link >

Dávila, L. T., & Susberry, V. (2021). Multimodal and multilingual co-authoring in high school social studies ESL classrooms. In D. Shin, T. Cimasko, & Y. Yi (Eds.), Multimodal Composing in K-16 ESL and EFL Education: Multilingual Perspectives (pp. 55-71). Springer.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2021). Newcomer refugee and immigrant youth negotiate transnational civic learning and participation in school. British Educational Research Journal, 47(4), 855-871.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2021). Om språk, resiliens och inkludering av nyanlända ungdomar i USA. In N. Bunar (Ed.), Inkludering och skolframgång för nyanlända elever Natur och Kultur.

Sanders-Smith, S. C., & T. Dávila, L. (Accepted/In press). ‘It has to be in a natural way’: a critical exploration of co-teaching relationships in trilingual preschool classrooms in Hong Kong. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.  link >

Davila, L. T. (2020). Multilingual Interactions and Learning in High School ESL Classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 54(1), 30-55.  link >

Dávila, L. T., & Linares, R. E. (2020). English as a second language teachers’ perceptions of care in an anti-immigrant climate. International Multilingual Research Journal, 14(4), 355-369.  link >

Dávila, L. T., & Bunar, N. (2020). Translanguaging through an advocacy lens: The roles of multilingual classroom assistants in Sweden. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(1), 107-126.  link >

Davila, L. T. (2019). Multilingualism and identity: articulating ‘African-ness’ in an American high school. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(5), 634-646.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2019). “J'aime to be Funny!”: Humor, Learning, and Identity Construction in High School English as a Second Language Classrooms. Modern Language Journal, 103(2), 502-514.  link >

Kolano, L. Q., & Davila, L. T. (2019). Transformative Learning of Refugee Girls Within a Community Youth Organization Serving Southeast Asians in North Carolina. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 33(1), 119-133.  link >

Sanders-Smith, S. C., & Dávila, L. T. (2019). Progressive practice and translanguaging: Supporting multilingualism in a Hong Kong preschool. Bilingual Research Journal, 42(3), 275-290.  link >

Thorstensson Dávila, L. (2018). The pivotal and peripheral roles of bilingual classroom assistants at a Swedish elementary school. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(8), 956-967.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2017). Ecologies of Heritage Language Learning in a Multilingual Swedish School. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 16(6), 395-407.  link >

Dávila, L. T., Kolano, L. Q., & Coffey, H. (2017). Negotiating Co-Teaching Identities in Multilingual High School Classrooms. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 8(1), 28-43.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2017). Newly arrived immigrant youth in Sweden negotiate identity, language & literacy. System, 67, 1-11.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2015). “Dare I Ask?”: Eliciting Prior Knowledge and Its Implications for Teaching and Learning. TESL-EJ, 19(2).

Dávila, L. T. (2015). Diaspora literacies: An exploration of what reading means to young African immigrant women. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 58(8), 641-649.  link >

Davila, L. T. (2014). Performing Allegiance: An Adolescent Refugee's Construction of Patriotism in JROCT. Educational Studies, 50(5), 447-463.  link >

Kolano, L. Q., Dávila, L. T., LaChance, J., & Coffey, H. (2014). Multicultural Teacher Education: Why Teachers Say It Matters in Preparing Them for English Language Learners. The CATESOL Journal, 25(1), 41-65.

Thorstensson Davila, L. S. (2014). Representing Refugee Youth in Qualitative Research: Questions of Ethics, Language and Authenticity. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 8(1), 21-31.  link >

Coffey, H., Dávila, L. T., & Kolano, L. (2013). Understanding dialect and developing critical literacy with English language learners. Multicultural Learning and Teaching, 8(1).  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2012). ‘For Them it's Sink or Swim’: Refugee Students and the Dynamics of Migration, and (Dis)Placement in School. Power and Education, 4(2), 139-149.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2011). “Good kids,” but “poor students”: The academic identities of refugee high school students From Vietnam’s Central Highlands. In X. L. Rong, & R. Endo (Eds.), Asian American Education: Identities, Racial Issues, and Languages (Research on the Education of Asian Pacific Americans). Information Age Publishing Inc..

Rong, X. L., Dávila, L. T., & Hilburn, J. (2011). Working with Immigrant Children of “Undocumented” and “Mixed” Families. In B. S. Fennimore, & A. L. Goodwin (Eds.), Promoting Social Justice for Young Children (pp. 93-109). (Educating the Young Child; Vol. 3). Springer.  link >

Dávila, L. T. (2008). Language and Opportunity in the “Land of Opportunity”: Latina Immigrants’ Reflections on Language Learning and Professional Mobility. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 7(4), 356-370.  link >

Thorstensson, L. (2001). This Business of Internationalization: The Academic Experiences of 6 Asian MBA International Students at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. Journal of Studies in International Education, 5(4), 317-340.  link >

CI 507: Problems & Trends in Special Fields (CI 507) Intensive examination of problems and trends in the subject fields.

EPOL 395: Independent Study (EPOL 395) Designed for students who wish to do advanced readings and research in greater depth and to investigate further ideas and themes that have been explored in EPOL 199 and EPOL 201.

EPOL 420: Global Migration and Education (EPOL 420) This course will integrate contemporary global and comparative perspectives on the study of migration and formal education at the preschool, primary and secondary (P-12) levels. Students will critically examine how institutions of education around the world are shaped by migration, as well as how migrant students and their families interface with educational institutions in resettlement contexts. Specific topics will include: policy responses, curricular approaches, language(s) of instruction, teacher and learner identities, and community-school dynamics.

EPOL 586: General Field Research Seminar (EPOL 586) This course will guide doctoral students as they develop a broad and critical understanding of their general field of doctoral study. Students will conduct a synthesized and critical review of the general field literature, which will become part of their dissertation. This course may meet the doctoral requirement of the General Field Qualifying Examination.

EPOL 587: Special Field Research Seminar (EPOL 587) This course will guide doctoral students as they develop a broad and critical understanding of their special field of doctoral study. Students will conduct a synthesized and critical review of the special field literature, which will become part of their dissertation.This course may meet the doctoral requirement of the Special Field Qualifying Examination.

EPOL 590: Advanced Graduate Seminar (EPOL 590) Seminar in educational policy studies; sections offered in the following fields: (a) history of education; (b) philosophy of education; (c) comparative education; (d) social foundations of education; (e) philosophy of educational research; and (f) historical methods in education.

EPS 395: Independent Study (EPS 395) Designed for students who wish to do advanced readings and research in greater depth and to investigate further ideas and themes that have been explored in EPS 199 and EPS 201. Prerequisite: EPS 201; and consent of adviser and staff member who supervises the work.

EPS 590: Advanced Graduate Seminar (EPS 590) Seminar in educational policy studies; sections offered in the following fields: (a) history of education; (b) philosophy of education; (c) comparative education; (d) social foundations of education; (e) philosophy of educational research; and (f) historical methods in education.

ERAM 576: Discourse Analysis (ERAM 576) Students will gain an understanding of major theoretical and methodological approaches to doing discourse analysis in educational research (e.g., through analysis of face-to-face or online classroom talk and interaction, or published policy documents). Course assignments will provide students with opportunities to develop and apply tools for conducting research using discourse analytic methods.