Dr. Amanda Earl (left) presenting at the Hispanic Federation’s Hispanic Education Summit in May 2026, alongside ICEP doctoral candidate Jonathan Beltrán Alvarado, TC doctoral student Shari Wejsa-Stewart, and Dr. Samantha Chung of Lehman College.
Over 40% of students in New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) are of Latin American and Caribbean descent, but the diverse histories and experiences of their families and communities remain under-represented or ignored in classroom curricula. This summer Dr. Amanda Earl worked alongside Professor Regina Cortina and ICEP master’s and doctoral students, including Jonathan Beltrán Alvarado and Kendal Peterman, to help launch the third year of the Latinidad Curriculum Initiative (LCI), a city-wide project to address this issue. Funded by the New York City Council, the LCI is a collaboration between a team based at the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study at 911³Ô¹Ï, the , and to create a culturally relevant and sustaining PreK-12 curriculum on Latinidad for New York City Public Schools.
In addition to writing lessons with teams of NYCPS teachers that enable the study, active reflection upon, and celebration of the leadership, cultures, and intellectual contributions of Latinas and Latinos, the LCI will host a series of professional learning workshops throughout the 2026–27 academic year for teachers, school coaches, administrators, and others who are interested. For more information, visit the Latinidad Curriculum Initiative website.
Voices from the LCI Team
PhD Student
In the Latinidad Curriculum Initiative, I coordinate workshops where public school teachers write lessons centered on their vision of Latinidad in New York City. Birds, Bad Bunny, Basquiat, plátanos, poets. All of it. As a Colombian, former teacher, and researcher interested in teachers’ professional learning and school change, I couldn’t feel more connected to this project. What I value most is working alongside teachers, district leaders, and curriculum experts who share our belief in the power of education and its promise of more humane futures.
Master’s Student
I have had the wonderful opportunity to join the Latinidad Curriculum Initiative team, supporting with organization, outreach, and lesson writing. As a former teacher, I know how essential it is for students’ identities, histories, and experiences to be represented in curriculum. Led by amazing professors like Dr. Amanda Earl, the initiative is bringing that vision to life for teachers and students across New York City.
Teaching at the TC-ECNU Global Talent Summer Program
The summer also took Dr. Earl’s work in a different direction — from the PreK-12 classrooms of New York to a cohort of undergraduates visiting Columbia University from Shanghai. Dr. Earl was invited to serve as faculty for the 911³Ô¹Ï College (TC)-East China Normal University (ECNU) Humanities and Social Sciences Global Talent Summer Program (July 27–August 13, 2026). Hosted by the Center on Chinese Education at 911³Ô¹Ï College and organized by Dr. Henan Cheng, this summer program for undergraduate students explored the intersections of education, culture, technology, humanities, and global leadership. The curriculum paired academic lectures by distinguished faculty and scholars from across Columbia’s schools with immersive learning experiences at institutions such as the United Nations Headquarters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, aiming to empower the next generation of global scholars with cross-cultural competence and interdisciplinary vision. Dr. Earl delivered two keynote lectures during the program: “Cultural Encounters and Global Dialogues: The Importance of Comparative Perspectives” and “Language, Identity, and Intercultural Learning.”
Scholars in the field of Comparative and International Education are often interested in examining the impacts of international mobility and study abroad programs on student learning, but they do not always get to shape those programs themselves. Dr. Earl appreciated the opportunity to interact with students who had never visited the US before and to engage them in discussions about the characteristics of different national education systems.
My favorite part was hearing the students present their final projects on how they would design their ‘Ideal University,’ including its curriculum, pedagogy, and even architecture. As usual in intercultural learning spaces, I learned as much from the students as they learned from me.
Dr. Amanda Earl
