Tiffany Lee

Tiffany S. Lee (Diné /Lakota) is Dibé Łizhiní (Blacksheep) and born for Naałaní (Oglala Lakota).  She is from Crystal, New Mexico, located on the Navajo Nation, on her mother’s side, and Pine Ridge, South Dakota on her father’s side. She received her doctorate in Sociology of Education from Stanford University’s School of Education. Her research focuses on Indigenous education and language socialization experiences. In 2003, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the American Educational Research Association to study Indigenous Learning Communities and their influences on Native students’ life goals and commitment to their Native communities.  She also examines the effects of competing language ideologies on Native students’ commitment to (re)learning their heritage languages.

Her recent publications include: Critical language awareness among Native youth in New Mexico in Indigenous youth and multilingualism: language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (Routledge); “You should learn who you are through your culture”: transformative educational possibilities for Native American youth in New Mexico (co-author) in Cultural transformations: youth and pedagogies of possibility.  (Harvard Education Press); Leadership and Accountability in
American Indian Education: Voices from New Mexico (co-author) in the American Journal of Education; and “If I could speak Navajo, I’d definitely speak it 24/7”: Diné youth language consciousness, activism and reclamation of Diné identity in Diné perspectives: revitalizing and reclaiming Navajo thought (University of Arizona Press).  She is currently an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico.