Expertise
Professor Garcia-Nevarez's recent studies examine the attitudes of pre-service teachers toward their career development, working with economically and culturally diverse settings, and civic engagement.
Previous research projects have focused on the attitudes and perceptions that foreign-trained teachers and bilingual education teachers have towards their education training and the promising prospects these teachers have in the United States. Her dissertation, a mixed method study entitled Attitudinal Differences Among Elementary Teachers Toward the Use of the Native Language, explores the attitudes that some elementary teachers have toward the native language of their non-English speaking students.
Her research interest was sparked by her own experiences as a second language learner and later as a teacher.