Event Information - Cultivating Critical Advocacy: A conversation with authors Rebecca Linares and Kate Seltzer

Join us for an interactive session exploring how those who work with multilingual learners (MLs) can draw on their personal histories, identities, and lived experiences to engage in meaningful, sustainable, and effective advocacy. Guided by the Critical Advocacy Tree framework (Linares & Seltzer, 2026), this workshop examines how our internal "roots" (e.g., linguistic backgrounds, cultural identities, and alternative experiences) shape our core beliefs and daily interactions with MLs. Through guided self-reflection and breakout room discussions, participants will map their own early roots, examine their experiences in schools, both as students and professionals, and discover practical ways to grow their critical advocacy stance. This workshop will include opportunities to:

● Define critical advocacy and understand it as an ongoing, proactive stance and way of being;

● Participate in self-reflection and breakout room discussions to examine how personal history influences professional work with MLs; and

● Explore strategic ways to engage in perpetual learning to continually grow critical advocacy roots.

This event is hosted by the BUENO Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Please register—a link to join the virtual webinar will be sent to registrants.

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Author Bios

Rebecca E. Linares began working with multilingual students and families through after-school programming for refugee and immigrant K-8 students in Kentucky. Her research examines the transnational literacy and translanguaging practices of emergent multilingual adolescents. She is currently an associate professor in the ESL/Bilingual Education program at Rowan University in New Jersey.

Kate Seltzer got her start in education as a high school English Language Arts teacher in New York City. She is co-author of the book The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning, and her research overall focuses on critical, asset-oriented approaches to educating MLs. She is an associate professor in the ESL/Bilingual Education program at Rowan University in New Jersey.

Cultivating Critical Advocacy: A conversation with authors Rebecca Linares and Kate Seltzer

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