maria avila

Dr. Maria Avila is Associate Professor in the Social Work department at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Carson, CA, in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. Her research methodologies are collaborative research-in-action and narrative inquiry. Her research includes civic engagement and community organizing in Higher Education, and her teaching includes critical and community based pedagogies, as well as creative expressions. Her research and teaching are underpinned by a larger context of the role of higher education in democratic societies. Her research has been funded by the Kettering Foundation, by the Los Angeles Unified School District, and by the California Community Foundation. Avila began her education in social work, and her community organizing work in the rural areas of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in the 1970s. She earned a MA in Social Service Administration at University of Chicago in the US, and a PhD in Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University, in Ireland. During her doctoral studies she received a Fulbright Specialist award, hosted by Maynooth University.  She was a postdoctoral, Andrew W. Mellon Teaching Fellow with the Center for Diversity and Democracy, and taught in the department of American Studies and Ethnicity from 2012 to 2014, at the University of Southern California. Avila was the founding Director of the Center for Community Based Learning at Occidental College, from 2001 to 2011. She has given numerous workshops, keynote speeches, and conference presentations in Mexico, the US, Ireland, and England. Prior to working in higher education, Avila worked as a community organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation from 1990-2000, the international network founded by the late Saul Alinksy in Chicago, Ill in 1940.

Education

PhD Adult and Community Education - Maynooth University, Ireland
MA Social Service Administration - University of Chicago, Chicago
BA Psychology - University of Illinois, Chicago

Publications

Avila, M., Aldana, A., and Zaragoza, M. (2020). The Use of Counter-narratives in a Social Work Course From a Critical Race Theory Perspective. In Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives, Edited by Lueg, K. and Lundholt, M. W.  Abingodn, UK: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

Avila, M. (2017). Transformative Civic Engagement through Community Organizing. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.https://sty.presswarehouse.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=366159

Avila, M. (2018). Book review: Stoecker, R. (2016). Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement. Teachers College Record.

Avila, M. (2015). Can Civic Professionalism Flourish? In Democracy’s Education: A Symposium on Power, Public Work, and the Meaning of Citizenship, Edited by Harry C. Boyte. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Bott, K., Avila, M., and Hartfield-Mendez, V. (2015). Finding our Way to Organizing Culture Change in Higher Education. Public, Vol. 3, Issue 1. http://public.imaginingamerica.org/

Peters, S. and Avila, M. (2014). Historical and Contemporary Models: An Organizing Approach to Community-Based Research. In Higher Education and Community Based Research: Creating a Global Vision. Edited by Ronaldo Munck, Lorraine McIlrath, Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Avila, M. (2010). Community Organizing Practices in Academia: A Model, and Stories of Partnerships, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Vol. 14, No. 2.