We are pleased to announce the recipient of the 2025 TIRF James E. Alatis Prize for Research on Language Planning and Policy in Educational Contexts. Dr. Crissa Stephens, Independent Scholar, has been selected as this year’s recipient of TIRF’s Alatis Prize. Her article is entitled “Invisible Policy Brokers: The Political Roles of Interpreters in Educational Policy Negotiations with Language Minoritized Mothers” (2024, American Educational Research Journal, Sage).

Dr. Crissa Stephens

Individuals interested in downloading and reading the TIRF Alatis Prize-winning article may do so by clicking here. TIRF extends its sincere appreciation to colleagues at American Educational Research Association andSage for their collegial support in making the article accessible free of charge to the public. Access will remain open until April 21, 2025.

When asked about what receiving the TIRF Alatis Prize means to her, Dr. Stephens responded, “To me, receiving this award means joining a cohort of peers and colleagues whose work has challenged and inspired me over the years. I am humbled to be part of this powerful legacy with the support of an organization which has supported vital work in language education around the world. I hope this opportunity will amplify the voices of my collaborators – the language-minoritized mothers who knew what they wanted and needed from the school system to support their children’s educations – and that it will draw more attention to language access policies in schools as a crucial facet of equity in a multilingual world.”

As a critical applied linguist and independent scholar, Dr. Stephens focuses her bilingual research  around language policy and social identity. At its heart, her collaborative, community-based research is about access to speaking, listening, and being heard in interactions and in institutions such as public schools. Her work provides a roadmap for policymakers, researchers, and educators to build a more socially and linguistically just system.

Across her career in international and U.S.-based education in K-12, adult ESL, and higher education, Dr. Stephens has impacted policies and classroom practices to support multilingual access. Her work includes extensive experience in teacher training, interpretive policy analysis, curriculum writing, and professional development.  Dr. Stephens created teacher-training infrastructure as an English Language Fellow in Chilean Patagonia. Her partners and collaborators have included Chilean university students, language minoritized mothers, community interpreters, teachers, and administrators.

In addition, Dr. Stephens has initiated, developed, and participated as a principal investigator on language education initiatives. These activities include (1) a National Professional Development Grant, which trained diverse, culturally and linguistically, responsive teachers for Washington, DC schools, and (2) M3I: The Mind, Math, and Multiliteracies Institute ($350K), which trained DC teachers to meet students’ needs at the intersection of disability and multilingualism. Her projects and publications seek to disrupt prevalent, damaging narratives about multilingual children, families, and schools providing insights to support access and equity in a multilingual world.

We wish to note that Dr. Stephens previously received a TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant. You can read a summary of her doctoral work on TIRF’s website by clicking here, using the “Recipients” tab, and filtering to the year 2016.

TIRF has a history of recognizing Alatis Prize recipients, as part of its activities at the TESOL Convention each year. However, as Dr. Stephens is unable to attend the Convention this year, she prepared an acceptance speech for TIRF supporters. The recording may be viewed below or on YouTube by clicking here.

Please join the TIRF community in congratulating Dr. Stephens on her wonderful accomplishment!

About TIRF and the TIRF Alatis Prize

The TIRF Alatis Prize was established in 2014 to honor James E. Alatis, a TIRF founder and long-serving Trustee of the Foundation. TIRF Trustees decided to recognize an outstanding article or chapter in the field of language planning and policy in educational contexts in Dr. Alatis’ name, because he dedicated a great deal of his career working in the field of language education policy.

For the 2025 Prize, nominations of articles published in 2023 or 2024 were solicited. The Foundation’s team of reviewers, who are scholars in the field of language planning and policy, adjudicated the nominations. TIRF Trustees Joan Kang Shin and Polina Vinogradova (Co-Chairs of TIRF’s Alatis Prize Committee) along with Trustees Donna Christian and Jodi Crandall, helped to shape many of the competition’s details. The result of this process was the selection of the Stephens (2024) article highlighted above.

TIRF is committed to developing knowledge about English language learning and teaching in various settings through a coherent program of research, dissemination, and networking. The offering of the TIRF Alatis Prize is consistent with the following aspect of the Foundation’s mission: to influence the formation and implementation of appropriate language education policies, recognizing the importance of indigenous languages and cultures worldwide, and of English as an international language. Members of TIRF’s Board of Trustees, all of whom serve on a voluntary basis, are drawn from academia, publishing, business, and government. To date, TIRF has awarded monies to fund 260 research projects involving 295 researchers from nearly 30 countries.

To learn more about TIRF, click here, or write to Ryan Damerow, Chief Operating Officer at TIRF, at [email protected].