Adriana Cárdenas

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Biography

Dr. Adriana Cárdenas is a College Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at New Mexico State University and serves as coordinator of the Scholarly Master’s Program in Early Childhood Education. A proud NMSU alumna, she spent more than a decade teaching in bilingual early childhood and elementary classrooms before transitioning into higher education. Her experiences as a classroom teacher continue to shape her work with both preservice and practicing educators.

Dr. Cárdenas’s teaching and research interests center on language and identity, culturally and linguistically sustaining education, bilingualism, teacher reflection, and the experiences of educators, children, and families in borderland communities. Her scholarship is particularly interested in how educators’ lived experiences, languages, and identities influence their teaching and relationships with children and families.

As a transfronteriza, first-generation college student, emergent bilingual, and mother, Adriana brings these lived experiences into her commitment to supporting students and preparing early childhood educators to serve diverse children, families, and communities. She values learning spaces that invite dialogue, reflection, curiosity, and connections between theory, lived experience, and practice.

Research Interests

Language and identity; bilingual and culturally sustaining education; borderland education; teacher identity and reflection; early childhood education; narrative and arts-based methods.