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Cyborg Jotería Pedagogies: Latinx Drag Queens Leveraging Communication Ecologies in the Age of the Digital and Social Displacement
Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2020
This peer-reviewed article explores how Latinx drag queens use digital technologies and performance to enact powerful forms of public pedagogy. Co-authored with Arturo Cortez, this piece introduces the concept of cyborg jotería pedagogies—a framework that blends queer, critical, and posthuman theories to highlight how drag performers engage in teaching, learning, and organizing through playful, gritty, and future-oriented digital gestures. Through case studies of drag queens Persia, Reina de Aztlán, and RuPawl (the world’s first doggie drag queen), we show how humor, critique, and refusal of respectability politics serve as radical pedagogical tools for building community, disrupting normative narratives, and imagining more just futures across online and offline spaces.
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Cyborg sociopolitical reconfigurations: Designing for speculative fabulation in learning
The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2023
This article theorizes and documents how educators and youth collaboratively reimagine learning through speculative fabulation—storytelling practices that envision liberatory futures. Drawing from two social design-based studies, I explore how Latinx and Black youth, alongside preservice teachers, engaged in digitally mediated projects like sci-fi filmmaking and remote maker labs during times of sociopolitical unrest and pandemic. The concept of the everyday cyborg—learners who reconfigure their relationships to tools, bodies, and communities—is central to this work. Through creative making & tinkering and the scripting of anti-authoritarian narratives, learners leveraged digital fabrication and storytelling to resist dominant narratives and imagine more just worlds. This article highlights how designing for fabulation can center care, relationality, and dignity; transforming learning into a site for speculative, justice-oriented world-building.
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AlgoRitmo Literacies In Gaming: Leveraging Chicanx Praxis To Reimagine AI Systems
Reading Research Quarterly, 2024
This article introduces a new framework we call AlgoRitmo Literacies to describe how Chicanx youth and educators creatively engage with AI and gaming to challenge dominant tech narratives and build liberatory futures. Co-authored with Arturo Cortez and Edward Rivero, this article draws on data from the Learning to Transform (LiTT) Gaming Lab, where an intergenerational group of Latinx and Black participants used tools like Character AI and Grand Theft Auto V to co-design a virtual city infused with Indigenous, queer, and Chicanx values.
Blending critical AI literacy with speculative storytelling and digital world-building, the study explores how youth developed healthy skepticism toward AI, reimagined technological infrastructures, and embodied alternative futures through role-play and collaborative design. The work offers implications for educators seeking to foster critical, culturally rooted AI literacies through gaming and creative inquiry. |
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Cultivating New Futures for Girls in STEM: Black Women Teachers as Catalysts for Change
Teachers College Press, Coming Fall 2025
This book centers the powerful pedagogies of Black women STEM teachers who are transforming what justice-driven STEM education can be. Co-edited with Aaminah Norris, this volume draws from a two-year NSF-funded study and uplifts the life histories and classroom practices of four Black women educators working in under-resourced schools.
Introducing the concept of Black STEMinist Pedagogies, the book highlights teaching grounded in radical love, ancestral knowledge, and community care. Each chapter reveals how these educators resist anti-Blackness, advocate for their students, and reimagine STEM as a space of liberation and belonging for girls of color. This volume is a call to action for recruiting, supporting, and retaining Black women in STEM education—and a roadmap for building culturally sustaining, equity-centered learning futures. |
Full List of Publications
Please contact me if you would like a pdf copy of any publication not linked above.
2025
Norris, A. & Lizárraga, J.R. (Eds.). (in press). Cultivating New Futures for Girls in STEM: Black Women Teachers as Catalysts for Change. Teachers College Press.
Lizárraga, J.R., Cortez, A., & Reyez Galvez, M. (under review). Rogue Jotería Platformization: Digital Latinx Drag Pedagogy Amidst Rising Anti-Drag Legislation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies of Education
2024
Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J.R., & Rivero, E. (2024). AlgoRitmo literacies in gaming: Leveraging Chicanx praxis to reimagine AI systems. Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.539
Smith, A., Higgs, J., Lizárraga, J. R., & Watson, V. W. (2024). Guest editorial: Artificial intelligence and composing just education futures. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 23(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-04-2024-202
2023
Lizárraga, J. R. (2023). Cyborg sociopolitical reconfigurations: Designing for speculative fabulation in learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 32(1), 21-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2022.2154159
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R., & Castro, A. (2023). Interrogating the notion of giving voice: Designing for polyphony across game-based learning ecologies. Mind, Culture, and Activity. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2023.2238700
2022
Cortez, A., McKoy, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2022). The future of young Blacktivism: Aesthetics and practices of speculative activism in video game play. The Journal of Futures Studies, 26(3), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202203_26(3).0005
2020
Lizárraga, J. R., & Cortez, A. (2020). Cyborg jotería pedagogies: Latinx drag queens leveraging communication ecologies in the age of the digital and social displacement. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 14(2), 44-66. https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.14.2.358
2019
Gutiérrez, K. D., Higgs, J., Lizárraga, J. R., & Rivero, E. (2019). Learning as movement in social design-based experiments: Play as a leading activity. Human Development, 62(1-2), 66-82. https://doi.org/10.1159/000496239
Gutiérrez, K. D., Becker, B., Espinoza, M., Cortes, K., Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J. R., Rivero, E., Villegas, K., & Yin, P. (2019). Youth as historical actors in the production of possible futures. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 26(4), 291-308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2019.1652327
2018
Lizárraga, J. R., & Gutiérrez, K. D. (2018). Centering Nepantla literacies from the borderlands: Leveraging “in-betweenness” toward learning in the everyday. Theory Into Practice, 57(1), 38-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2017.1392164
2017
Gutierrez, K. D., Cortes, K., Cortez, A., DiGiacomo, D., Higgs, J., Johnson, P., Lizárraga, J. R., Mendoza, E., Tien, J., & Vakil, S. (2017). Replacing representation with imagination: Finding ingenuity in everyday practices. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 30-60. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16687523
PEER-REVIEWED CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
Norris, A., Lizárraga, J.R., & Elsinbawi, M. (forthcoming). When I see you I see me: Reciprocal recognition in intergenerational collaborations. In C. Olatunji, C. Southwell, & D. Lewis (Eds.) Blessed positionality: Reimagining Black women’s positioning.
Cortez, A., McKoy, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (accepted). The playful aesthetics and practices of speculative Black activism. In T. M. Russworm & S. Murray (Eds.), Antiracist futures: Race, play, and the speculative imagination. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. **Modified reprint of Cortez, A., McKoy, A. (*), & Lizárraga, J. R. (2022). The future of young Blacktivism: Aesthetics and practices of speculative activism in video game play. The Journal of Futures Studies, 26(3), 53-70.
Lizárraga, J. R., Cortez, A., & Baca, K. (accepted). Transforming narratives across digital platforms: Examining technological ecologies as a site of emergent political identities and literacies for pre-service teachers. In T. P. Nichols & A. Garcia (Eds.), Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, Possibilities. New York, NY: Routledge.
2023
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2023). Speculative pedagogies in video gameplay: Designing for new social futures in collaborative world-making. In A. Garcia & N. Mirra (Eds.), Speculative Pedagogies: Designing equitable educational futures (pp. 51-66). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
2019
Lizárraga, J. R., & Cortez, A. (2019). #gentrification, cultural erasure, and the (im)possibilities of digital queer gestures. In A. DeKosnik, K. Feldman (Eds.), #identity: Hashtagging race, gender, sex, and nation (pp. 152-164). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
2015
Lizárraga, J.R., Hull, G.A., & Scott, J.M (2015). Translingual practices in a social media age: Lessons learned from youth’s transnational communication online (pp. 105-131). In D. Mole, E. Sato, T. Boals, C. Hedgspeth (Eds.), Multilingual learners and academic literacies: Sociocultural contexts of literacy development in adolescents. New York: Routledge.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRY
2021
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2021). Jotería Studies. In K. K. Strunk & S. A. Shelton (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education (pp. 320-323). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
PEER-REVIEWED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
2022
Hladik, S., Vossoughi, S., Roque, R., Hayden, R., Moreno, C., Lizárraga, J. R., Cortez, A. Baca, K., & McKoy, A., Trehin, S., Chokshi, A., Sengupta, P., Rahm, J., Touioui, F., Tremblay-Gagnon, D., Jones, S. T., Lee, S. P., Simmons, S., Mallwitz, I., Jiang, M., Butler, M., & Worsley, M. (2022). Examining equity in facilitation of tinkering and making in STEAM: From players to hackers: Intergenerational tinkering with the socio-political in video game play. In C. Chinn, E. Tan, C. Chan, & Y. Kali (Eds.), International collaboration toward educational innovation for all: Overarching research, development, and practices, 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2022, (pp. 1747-1754). Hiroshima, Japan: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2020
Uttamchandani, S., Shrodes, A., Lizarraga, J. R., Cortez, A., Paré, D., Shanahan, M., Sengupta, P., Bang, M., & Hoadley, C. (2020). Attending to gender and sexuality in learning: Lessons from scholarship by, for, and with LGBTQ+ People. In Gresalfi, M. and Horn, I. S. (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Volume 1 (pp. 358-365). Nashville, Tennessee: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
INVITED REPORT
Fuller, B., Lizárraga, J. R., & Grey, J. (2015). Digital media and Latino families: New channels for learning, parenting, and local organizing. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
NON-REFEREED ARTICLE
2020
Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J. R., Jurow, A. S., Kirshner, B., Mendoza, E., Paguyo, C., Penuel, W. R., Shea, M., Schultz, K., Stamatis, K., & Tayne, K. (2020, November 18). 'Dear Professor': On Anti-Blackness and Learning. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/11/18/group-non-black-scholars-invites-other-professors-help-strengthen-teaching-support
EDITED VOLUMES
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (Volume Eds.) (under contract). Language, Literacy, Youth & Culture (Volume 6 of The Encyclopedia of Social Justice in Education). London, England: Bloomsbury Publishers.
Norris, A. & Lizárraga, J.R. (Eds.). (in press). Cultivating New Futures for Girls in STEM: Black Women Teachers as Catalysts for Change. Teachers College Press.
Lizárraga, J.R., Cortez, A., & Reyez Galvez, M. (under review). Rogue Jotería Platformization: Digital Latinx Drag Pedagogy Amidst Rising Anti-Drag Legislation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies of Education
2024
Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J.R., & Rivero, E. (2024). AlgoRitmo literacies in gaming: Leveraging Chicanx praxis to reimagine AI systems. Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.539
Smith, A., Higgs, J., Lizárraga, J. R., & Watson, V. W. (2024). Guest editorial: Artificial intelligence and composing just education futures. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 23(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-04-2024-202
2023
Lizárraga, J. R. (2023). Cyborg sociopolitical reconfigurations: Designing for speculative fabulation in learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 32(1), 21-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2022.2154159
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R., & Castro, A. (2023). Interrogating the notion of giving voice: Designing for polyphony across game-based learning ecologies. Mind, Culture, and Activity. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2023.2238700
2022
Cortez, A., McKoy, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2022). The future of young Blacktivism: Aesthetics and practices of speculative activism in video game play. The Journal of Futures Studies, 26(3), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202203_26(3).0005
2020
Lizárraga, J. R., & Cortez, A. (2020). Cyborg jotería pedagogies: Latinx drag queens leveraging communication ecologies in the age of the digital and social displacement. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 14(2), 44-66. https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.14.2.358
2019
Gutiérrez, K. D., Higgs, J., Lizárraga, J. R., & Rivero, E. (2019). Learning as movement in social design-based experiments: Play as a leading activity. Human Development, 62(1-2), 66-82. https://doi.org/10.1159/000496239
Gutiérrez, K. D., Becker, B., Espinoza, M., Cortes, K., Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J. R., Rivero, E., Villegas, K., & Yin, P. (2019). Youth as historical actors in the production of possible futures. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 26(4), 291-308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2019.1652327
2018
Lizárraga, J. R., & Gutiérrez, K. D. (2018). Centering Nepantla literacies from the borderlands: Leveraging “in-betweenness” toward learning in the everyday. Theory Into Practice, 57(1), 38-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2017.1392164
2017
Gutierrez, K. D., Cortes, K., Cortez, A., DiGiacomo, D., Higgs, J., Johnson, P., Lizárraga, J. R., Mendoza, E., Tien, J., & Vakil, S. (2017). Replacing representation with imagination: Finding ingenuity in everyday practices. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 30-60. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16687523
PEER-REVIEWED CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
Norris, A., Lizárraga, J.R., & Elsinbawi, M. (forthcoming). When I see you I see me: Reciprocal recognition in intergenerational collaborations. In C. Olatunji, C. Southwell, & D. Lewis (Eds.) Blessed positionality: Reimagining Black women’s positioning.
Cortez, A., McKoy, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (accepted). The playful aesthetics and practices of speculative Black activism. In T. M. Russworm & S. Murray (Eds.), Antiracist futures: Race, play, and the speculative imagination. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. **Modified reprint of Cortez, A., McKoy, A. (*), & Lizárraga, J. R. (2022). The future of young Blacktivism: Aesthetics and practices of speculative activism in video game play. The Journal of Futures Studies, 26(3), 53-70.
Lizárraga, J. R., Cortez, A., & Baca, K. (accepted). Transforming narratives across digital platforms: Examining technological ecologies as a site of emergent political identities and literacies for pre-service teachers. In T. P. Nichols & A. Garcia (Eds.), Literacies in the Platform Society: Histories, Pedagogies, Possibilities. New York, NY: Routledge.
2023
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2023). Speculative pedagogies in video gameplay: Designing for new social futures in collaborative world-making. In A. Garcia & N. Mirra (Eds.), Speculative Pedagogies: Designing equitable educational futures (pp. 51-66). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
2019
Lizárraga, J. R., & Cortez, A. (2019). #gentrification, cultural erasure, and the (im)possibilities of digital queer gestures. In A. DeKosnik, K. Feldman (Eds.), #identity: Hashtagging race, gender, sex, and nation (pp. 152-164). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
2015
Lizárraga, J.R., Hull, G.A., & Scott, J.M (2015). Translingual practices in a social media age: Lessons learned from youth’s transnational communication online (pp. 105-131). In D. Mole, E. Sato, T. Boals, C. Hedgspeth (Eds.), Multilingual learners and academic literacies: Sociocultural contexts of literacy development in adolescents. New York: Routledge.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRY
2021
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (2021). Jotería Studies. In K. K. Strunk & S. A. Shelton (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education (pp. 320-323). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
PEER-REVIEWED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
2022
Hladik, S., Vossoughi, S., Roque, R., Hayden, R., Moreno, C., Lizárraga, J. R., Cortez, A. Baca, K., & McKoy, A., Trehin, S., Chokshi, A., Sengupta, P., Rahm, J., Touioui, F., Tremblay-Gagnon, D., Jones, S. T., Lee, S. P., Simmons, S., Mallwitz, I., Jiang, M., Butler, M., & Worsley, M. (2022). Examining equity in facilitation of tinkering and making in STEAM: From players to hackers: Intergenerational tinkering with the socio-political in video game play. In C. Chinn, E. Tan, C. Chan, & Y. Kali (Eds.), International collaboration toward educational innovation for all: Overarching research, development, and practices, 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2022, (pp. 1747-1754). Hiroshima, Japan: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2020
Uttamchandani, S., Shrodes, A., Lizarraga, J. R., Cortez, A., Paré, D., Shanahan, M., Sengupta, P., Bang, M., & Hoadley, C. (2020). Attending to gender and sexuality in learning: Lessons from scholarship by, for, and with LGBTQ+ People. In Gresalfi, M. and Horn, I. S. (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Volume 1 (pp. 358-365). Nashville, Tennessee: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
INVITED REPORT
Fuller, B., Lizárraga, J. R., & Grey, J. (2015). Digital media and Latino families: New channels for learning, parenting, and local organizing. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
NON-REFEREED ARTICLE
2020
Cortez, A., Lizárraga, J. R., Jurow, A. S., Kirshner, B., Mendoza, E., Paguyo, C., Penuel, W. R., Shea, M., Schultz, K., Stamatis, K., & Tayne, K. (2020, November 18). 'Dear Professor': On Anti-Blackness and Learning. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/11/18/group-non-black-scholars-invites-other-professors-help-strengthen-teaching-support
EDITED VOLUMES
Cortez, A., & Lizárraga, J. R. (Volume Eds.) (under contract). Language, Literacy, Youth & Culture (Volume 6 of The Encyclopedia of Social Justice in Education). London, England: Bloomsbury Publishers.