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uw_boundless_barrio_preprocess_page()
call_user_func_array() (Line: 261)
Drupal\Core\Theme\ThemeManager->render() (Line: 490)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->doRender() (Line: 248)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->render() (Line: 484)
Drupal\Core\Template\TwigExtension->escapeFilter() (Line: 112)
__TwigTemplate_91c1c2d83fd3d53e4f40009f07f2d822->doDisplay() (Line: 411)
Twig\Template->yield() (Line: 366)
Twig\Template->display() (Line: 381)
Twig\Template->render() (Line: 51)
Twig\TemplateWrapper->render() (Line: 33)
twig_render_template() (Line: 348)
Drupal\Core\Theme\ThemeManager->render() (Line: 490)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->doRender() (Line: 248)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->render() (Line: 158)
Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\HtmlRenderer->Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\{closure}() (Line: 637)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->executeInRenderContext() (Line: 153)
Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\HtmlRenderer->renderResponse() (Line: 90)
Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber\MainContentViewSubscriber->onViewRenderArray()
call_user_func() (Line: 111)
Drupal\Component\EventDispatcher\ContainerAwareEventDispatcher->dispatch() (Line: 186)
Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handleRaw() (Line: 76)
Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handle() (Line: 53)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\Session->handle() (Line: 48)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\KernelPreHandle->handle() (Line: 28)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\ContentLength->handle() (Line: 32)
Drupal\big_pipe\StackMiddleware\ContentLength->handle() (Line: 201)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->fetch() (Line: 138)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->lookup() (Line: 87)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->handle() (Line: 48)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\ReverseProxyMiddleware->handle() (Line: 51)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\NegotiationMiddleware->handle() (Line: 36)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\AjaxPageState->handle() (Line: 51)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\StackedHttpKernel->handle() (Line: 741)
Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel->handle() (Line: 19)

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uw_boundless_barrio_preprocess_page()
call_user_func_array() (Line: 261)
Drupal\Core\Theme\ThemeManager->render() (Line: 490)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->doRender() (Line: 248)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->render() (Line: 484)
Drupal\Core\Template\TwigExtension->escapeFilter() (Line: 112)
__TwigTemplate_91c1c2d83fd3d53e4f40009f07f2d822->doDisplay() (Line: 411)
Twig\Template->yield() (Line: 366)
Twig\Template->display() (Line: 381)
Twig\Template->render() (Line: 51)
Twig\TemplateWrapper->render() (Line: 33)
twig_render_template() (Line: 348)
Drupal\Core\Theme\ThemeManager->render() (Line: 490)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->doRender() (Line: 248)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->render() (Line: 158)
Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\HtmlRenderer->Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\{closure}() (Line: 637)
Drupal\Core\Render\Renderer->executeInRenderContext() (Line: 153)
Drupal\Core\Render\MainContent\HtmlRenderer->renderResponse() (Line: 90)
Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber\MainContentViewSubscriber->onViewRenderArray()
call_user_func() (Line: 111)
Drupal\Component\EventDispatcher\ContainerAwareEventDispatcher->dispatch() (Line: 186)
Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handleRaw() (Line: 76)
Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernel->handle() (Line: 53)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\Session->handle() (Line: 48)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\KernelPreHandle->handle() (Line: 28)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\ContentLength->handle() (Line: 32)
Drupal\big_pipe\StackMiddleware\ContentLength->handle() (Line: 201)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->fetch() (Line: 138)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->lookup() (Line: 87)
Drupal\page_cache\StackMiddleware\PageCache->handle() (Line: 48)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\ReverseProxyMiddleware->handle() (Line: 51)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\NegotiationMiddleware->handle() (Line: 36)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\AjaxPageState->handle() (Line: 51)
Drupal\Core\StackMiddleware\StackedHttpKernel->handle() (Line: 741)
Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel->handle() (Line: 19)

lafolalu@uw.edu

Website

lakeyaafolalu.com

Area

Teaching, Learning & Curriculum

Additional Appointments

Affiliate Faculty, African Studies Program Affiliate Faculty, Banks Center for Educational Justice

Research Interests

Digital Literacies

Equity Studies

Immigration and Schooling

Literacy

Multicultural Education

Lakeya Afolalu

Assistant Professor

Elementary Teacher Education Program (ELTEP) Language, Literacy and Culture

Lakeya Afolalu is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture. As a Nigerian and African American woman, her hybrid identity grounds her research on the intersections of race, ethnicity, language, literacy, and migration.

Her current research explores how Black African immigrant and transnational youth navigate U.S. racialization alongside their ethnocultural and linguistic worlds. She pays particular attention to how they construct and negotiate their identities through literacy, digital, and multilingual practices, including Nigerian Pidgin, Amharic, Somali, and Nigerian English. A critical ethnographer, she engages Black African youth across home, school, community, digital, and transnational spaces. In doing so, she makes visible how they desire to be seen and heard. Attending to their agency and desire, she theorizes how race, ethnicity, language, and identity are produced and renegotiated as they move across these worlds.

A former elementary and middle school literacy teacher, she continues to draw on the wisdom of her former students in her community-engaged work and advocates for expanded access to literacy and arts education for youth. She founded and directs the Seattle Multilingual Collective, a research collective that partners with multilingual youth of color across Seattle Metro to advance language and racial justice. Her commitment to youth also extends to civic leadership through her mayoral appointment to Seattle's Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) Levy Oversight Committee.

Her academic scholarship has appeared in journals such as Teachers College Record, the Journal of Literacy Research, and Research in the Teaching of English, and has been supported by the National Council of Teachers of English Research Foundation. Her public scholarship has been featured at TEDx, on NPR, and in ESSENCE.

Education

Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin (Language & Literacy Studies)

M.A. Teachers College, Columbia University (Curriculum & Teaching, Literacy Specialist)

B.A. Michigan State University (Elementary Education; Language Arts)

Centers and Initiatives

Banks Center for Educational Justice

Multimedia

Courses Taught

EDUC 405A: Postcolonial Identities in the Arts, Education, and Society

EDC&I 568A: Youth Multiliteracies: Intersections of Race, Multilingualism, and Modality Across Spaces

EDTEP 533: Language, Culture, and Power in the Writing Classroom

Fellowships, honors and awards

Best Paper Award, Caribbean and African Studies in Education SIG, American Educational Research Association, 2026
Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, Office of Undergraduate Research, University of Washington, 2026
Speaker Bureau Member, Humanities Washington, 2026–2027
Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Fellowship, National Council of Teachers of English, 2024–2026
Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions Fellowship, Literacy Research Association, 2022–2024
Outstanding Dissertation Award, Bilingual Education Research SIG, American Educational Research Association, 2022
Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color Fellow, National Council of Teachers of English, 2020–2022
Texas New Scholars Fellowship, Department of Teaching & Curriculum, University of Texas at Austin, 2016–2019

Publications

(If you need access to any article, email me: lafolalu@uw.edu. Publications before 2024 are under my former name, Omogun.)

Afolalu, L., Smith, P., & Austin, T. (2026). This Is Where We Go: The Quantum Healing Possibilities in Languaging Black Humanity. Journal for Multicultural Education, 1-14.
Afolalu, L. (2026). Toward the African Linguistic Gaze in Theory and Practice. Theory Into Practice, 1-23.
Afolalu, L. (2025). Reading African Young Adult Literature Differently: A Transnational Lens on Racial, Ethnic, and Linguistic Identities across Borders. ALAN Review, 53(1), 57-68.
Afolalu, L. (2024). More than My Race: Deconstructing Racial Identity Categories through Digital Literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 59(2), 155-186.
Afolalu, L. (2024). I'm Still Nigerian: Navigating Race Through Digital Literacies. Journal of Literacy Research, 56(3), 268-297.
Afolalu, L. (2024). Opening Space to Participate: One Nigerian Girl’s Use of Visual Arts to Navigate School-Based Linguistic Discrimination. In Watson, VM., Knight-Manuel, M. & Smith, P. (Eds.), Educating African Immigrant Youth: Schooling & Civic Engagement in K-12 Schools, Teachers College Press.
Omogun, L. & Skerrett, A. (2021). From Haiti to Detroit Through Black Immigrant Languages and Literacies. Journal of Literacy Research, 53(3), 406-429.
Omogun, L. (2021). Counterstories: Reimagining Youth In Multiethnic Short Story Anthologies [Review of the Book Black Enough: Stories Of Being Young & Black in America edited by I. Zoboi]. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(5).
Johnston, K., Omogun, L. & Lee, C. (2021). From New York City to the World: Examining Critical Global Literacies in an English Language Arts Classroom. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(2), 215-230.
Skerrett, A. & Omogun, L. (2020). When Racial, Transnational, and Immigrant Identities Meet: Black Youth of Caribbean Origin Speak. Teachers College Record, 122(13).
Omogun, L. (2018). Immigrant Student Identities In Literacy Spaces. Texas Education Review, 6(2), 70-81.

News features

Embracing a broader definition of literacy

As the U.S. is facing another literacy crisis, particularly with the Science of Reading, Lakeya Afolalu has a solution. It’s to challenge schools and society to redefine literacy.