Dr. Sabrina F. Sembiante

Sabrina F. Sembiante, Ph.D., is a Professor of TESOL and Bilingual Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and doctoral coordinator of the Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction program. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Miami in Teaching and Learning with an area of specialization in Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings. She also served as a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University’s Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy before coming to FAU.

Her research agenda comprises three interconnected objectives: (1) To document the varied and complex ways teachers and children use their multiple languages and modes in preschool contexts; (2) To promote the inclusion of bi/multilingual speakers’ rich, fluid languaging practices to support their learning in school; (3) To explore how functional language instruction can provide emergent-to-advanced bilingual students with meaningful access to content area knowledge and discourse. Her academic orientation is sociological in nature, comprising of the intersections of bi/multilingualism, social justice, and education. In her research, she employs ethnographic, discourse-analytic, and statistical approaches to analyze textual and video data documenting sociocultural influences on participants’ language and literacy development. As doctoral coordinator of the Ph.D. program in Curriculum & Instruction, Dr. Sembiante is also dedicated to mentoring doctoral students in research and publication methods with a particular focus on literature review methodology.