Dr. Alison G. Dover is a Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at California State University, Fullerton, where she teaches secondary methods and coordinates the Master of Science in Transformative Teaching in Secondary Education.  Alison holds a doctorate in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has taught English Language Arts and service learning in diverse urban school districts in  Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  She works extensively with local and national students, educators, and school communities to advance equity, social justice, and culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies in K-12 and teacher education.  Click here to access her full CV. 

Dr. Dover's research examines approaches to teaching for social justice within and despite accountability-driven P–12 and teacher preparatory contexts. Her recent publications include Radically Inclusive Teaching with Newcomer and Emergent Plurilingual Students: Braving Up  (2022, Teachers College Press), Preparing to Teach Social Studies for Social Justice: Becoming a Renegade (2016, Teachers College Press) and articles in The  Journal of Teacher Education, Urban Education, the International Journal of Multicultural Education, Multicultural Perspectives, Teaching and Teacher Education, The Educational Forum, English Journal, and the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, among others.   Dr. Dover is a regular media contributor, and has been featured on NPR and profiled by state and local media.

Dr. Dover's current projects include the direction of CSUF's MS in Transformative Teaching and Summer Institute on Transformative Teaching the co-direction of enrichment programs for newcomer and emergent plurilingual students in Southern California, including the Language Explorers.  Since its 2016 inception, more than 1400 students and 120 educators have participated in a summer or academic year Language Explorers program, and the programs have received state and county recognition for excellence, including two California School Board Association Golden Bell Awards and the Orange County Department of Education Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness Award.  Dover has received more than $800K in funding for research on equity-oriented education, including a 2020 Spencer Foundation Research-Practice Partnership Grant to engage newcomer students as co-researchers who cooperatively study and shape educational policy and practice (click here to learn more). Dover was also co-PI of a statewide project examining the racial climate of teacher education programs throughout California (funded by the California Teacher Education Research and Improvement Network and the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity).