School of Education

Dr. Cristina Santamaría Graff is an Associate Professor of Special Education, Urban Teacher Education at IU Indianapolis (Ph.D., University of Arizona, 2009).

She has expertise in bilingual/multicultural special education and applies her skills in working with families of Color, specifically Latinx immigrant families of children with dis/abilities, in family-centered projects. Her scholarship focuses on the ways community-engaged partnerships with families and other stakeholders can transform inequitable practices impacting youth with dis/abilities at the intersections of race, language, and other identity markers of difference.

She is one of the Editors for the journal Multiple Voices: Disability, Race, and Language Intersections in Special Education, the former AERA SIG Program Chair for Spirituality and Education and served six years as a Board Member of IN*SOURCE (Indiana Resource Center for Families with Special Needs). Her scholarship has been nationally recognized through The Ernest A. Lynton Scholarship of Engagement Award (2019) and AERA’s award for Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research (2019). Selected publications include: Co-investigation and co-education in ‘Family as Faculty’ approaches: A repositioning of power (2021), Examining preservice special education teachers’ biases and evolving understandings about families through a Family as Faculty approach (2020), and Models of School-Family Relations (2020).

• University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (2009), Ph.D. Learning Disabilities with an emphasis in Bilingual/Multicultural Special Education
• University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (1999), M.A. Learning Disabilities with an emphasis in Bilingual/Multicultural Special Education
• University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (1993), B.A. Spanish Literature Major, Education Minor
• Teacher Preparation Program (1994 - 1996), California State University at Long Beach (CSULB), Long Beach, CA, Bilingual Cross-Categorical Language and Academic Development (B-CLAD), Multiple Subjects Credential Program

• EDUC-K307 Methods for Teaching Students with Special Needs

• EDUC-K420 Assistive Technology in Special Education

• EDUC-K448 Families, Schools & Society

• EDUC-465 Service Delivery Systems

• EDUC-K510 Assistive Technology in Special Education

• EDUC-K548 Families, Schools & Society

• EDUC-K565 Collaboration & Service Delivery

• Bilingual Special Education

• Family as Faculty approaches

• Co-Decolonization (Methodologies)

• Community Engagement and Partnership

• MultiCrit approaches to identity

• Family centered approaches

• Critical Pedagogy

• Critical Consciousness and Praxis

• Critical Race Theory

• MultiCrit

• Dis/Crit

• Immigration

• Critical Community Engagement

• Critical Service Learning

• Critical Peace Education

• Decolonizing Methodologies

• Indigenous Epistemologies

• Spirituality and Education

• Santamaría Graff, C. (2021). Co-investigation and -Education in Family as Faculty approaches: A (re)positioning of power. Theory Into Practice, 60(1), 39 – 50. DOI: 10.1080/00405841.2020.1829380.

• Santamaría Graff, C., Manlove, J., Stuckey, S., & Foley, M. (2020). Examining pre-service special   education teachers’ biases and evolving understandings about families through a Family as Faculty approach. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth.

  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1045988X.2020.1811626

• Teemant, A., Borgioli Yoder, G., Sherman, B. J., & Santamaría Graff, C. (2020). An equity framework for    family, community, and school partnerships. Theory Into Practice, DOI: 10.1080/00405841.2020.1827905

• Santamaría Graff, C., & Boehner, J. (2019). Forming a mutually respectful university/parent-to-parent organization community partnership through a “Family as Faculty” project. Engage!: Urban University Community Journal, 1(1), 46 - 63. DOI: 10.18060/22816

• Warren-Gordon, K., & Santamaría Graff, C. (2018, Nov/Dec). Critical Service-Learning as a vehicle for change in higher education courses. Changes, 50(60), 20 – 23. DOI: 10.1080/00091383.2018.1540817

• Santamaría Graff, C. (2017). “Build That Wall!”: Manufacturing the enemy, yet again. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(10), 999 – 1005.

• King Thorius, K. A., & Santamaría Graff, C. C. (2017). Beyond remediating: Repositioning and empowering students with dis/abilities in schools and classrooms through Peer Assisted Learning Strategies. Intervention in School and Clinic, 1 - 8.

• Santamaría Graff, C., & Kozleski, E. B. (2014). Calcifying sorting and segregating: Brown at 60. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 14(2), 52-67.

• Santamaría Graff, C., McCain, T., & Gomez-Vilchis, V. (2013). Latina resilience in higher education: Contributing factors including seasonal farmworker experiences. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 12(4), 334 – 344. DOI 10.1177/1538192713494212

Selected Book Chapters:

• Santamaría Graff, C. (2021). How do we arm ourselves with love? Examining “armed love” through educators’ critical conversations in an online platform. In D. J. Davis (Ed.), United we stand: The role of spirituality in engaging and healing communities. (1st ed., chapter 15). Contemporary Perspectives on Spirituality in Education Series. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. https://www.infoagepub.com/products/United-We-Stand

• Santamaría Graff, C., & Manlove, J. (2021). Beyond the color lines: A Duoethnography of multiraciality and unhooking from whiteness. In C. Hayes, I. M., Carter, & K. Elderson (Eds.), Chapter 13 (pp. 230 – 261).Unhooking from Whiteness: It’s a Process. Boston, MA: Brill Publishers.

• Santamaría Graff, C., & Sherman, B. (2020). Models of School-Family Relations. In U. Sharma and S. Salend (Eds.). Inclusive and Special Education. New York: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.ORE_EDU-01247.R2

• Santamaría Graff, C. (2019). The unbearable whiteness of being. In E. Hurd (Ed.). Reflexivity of Pain and Privilege (Section 1, pp. 21-46). Brill Publishers.

• Santamaría Graff, C. & Vazquez, S. L. (2014). Family resistance as a tool in urban school reform. In E.B. Kozleski & K. King Thorius (Eds.), Ability, equity, and culture: Sustaining inclusive urban education reform (pp. 80 – 104). New York: Teachers College Press.