Claudia Bermúdez is a clinical assistant professor and coordinator in the Teacher Education Program at Claremont Graduate University. Her positionality as a first-generation Latina brought up by working class immigrant parents from Colombia and Guatemala influences every aspect of her professional work.
She is a mami to Ellie, Pablo, and Emma, a partner, a sister/sisterfriend, and una maestra who is passionate about racial justice on a global scale. Bermúdez strives to ally with folks whose marginalized identities are removed from the center of power. Her research and teaching interests explore the significance of healthy classroom ecologies and the tension between critical social justice teaching and subtractive schooling. Her work spans PK-12 to higher education, with an emphasis on antiracist, antibias and culturally sustaining pedagogies; the intersection of class/race in education; the value of testimonios y pláticas in qualitative research; linguistic justice and translanguaging; and critically socially just leadership.
Between 2015 and 2017, Bermúdez was part of a research team that was awarded a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to study highly effective teachers of historically marginalized students. In 2019, the findings of this extensive study were published in a book that she co-edited with CGU Professor Emerita Mary Poplin titled Highly Effective Teachers of Vulnerable Students: Practice Transcending Theory.
Prior to Bermúdez’s time at CGU, she cultivated her skills as an educational leader in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where, over the span of a 20 year career, she served as a paraprofessional, an elementary teacher, a site level bilingual coordinator, a district level English learner expert, an assistant principal (APEIS), and an elementary school principal.
Bermúdez holds a PhD in Education from Claremont Graduate University, a master’s degree in educational administration from CSULA, a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from UCLA, and a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from UCLA.
BOOKS Poplin, M. & Bermúdez, C. Eds. (2019). Highly Effective Teachers of Vulnerable Students: Practice Transcending Pedagogy. Peter Lang.
BOOK CHAPTERS Bermúdez, C. & Camacho, R. (2019). Women of Color in Academia: Self-Preservation in the Face of White Fragility and Hegemonic Masculinity.
In Zaleski, K., Enrile, A., Weiss, E., & Wang, X. (Eds.), Violence Against Women in the 21st Century: Transnational Perspectives of Empowerment and Subjugation. Oxford University Press.
ARTICLES Bermúdez, C., Kanaya, T., Santiago, M. (2017) “Improving Family-School Communication with Parents of Long Term English Learners.” Communiqué, National Association of School Psychologists.
EDUC643 Leading for Linguistic Justice in PK-12 Settings;
EDFN6411 Using Qualitative Research to Explore Teaching and Learning for Diverse Urban Settings;
EDUC627 Socially Just Leadership: Building Pathways Toward Equity;
EDUC473 Qualitative Inquiry: Theory, Models, and Methods;
EDUC538 Strategies for Highly Effective Administrators of At-Risk Populations;
EDUC302 Literacy & Methods for Multiple Subject and Education Specialist Teacher Candidates;
EDUC301 Teaching and Learning Process for Equity and Social Justice;
EDUC303 Differentiating Content and Language for All Learners;
EDUC305 Making Hidden Curriculum Visible to Support All Students and Households;
EDUC307 Dismantling the Deep Structures of Schooling