Mari Riojas-Cortez

Mari Riojas-Cortez, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Early Childhood Studies Program at California State University Channel Islands. She earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction, specializing in early childhood education and multilingual studies, from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. Her research focuses on Latino family engagement, young children’s play in dual-language settings, and early childhood teacher education. She began her career as a bilingual prekindergarten teacher in San Antonio, Texas.

Riojas-Cortez has published in journals including the Bilingual Research Journal, Journal of Early Childhood Research, and Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. She is a co-author of Families as Partners in Education: Families and Schools Working Together and an editor of Keeping Up with the Times: Diversity and Inclusion in Early Childhood Teacher Education Programs and Diversifying Pedagogy in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs. She also contributed, with Raquel Cataldo, the chapter “Using Children’s Literature to Understand Values, Traditions, and Beliefs within Latino Family Systems” to Multicultural Literature for Latino Bilingual Children: Their Words, Their Worlds, Second Edition.