Jorge

Jorge P. Osterling is an associate professor of multilingual /multicultural education in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. His research focuses on multicultural and multilingual education, particularly of Latino, immigrants and other students from diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Dr. Osterling holds a Master of Arts and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Applied Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Bachelor of Arts at the Catholic University of Peru and a secondary education teaching certificate from the Peruvian government.

A Hispanic-American, fluent and literate in Spanish, English, and German, Dr. Osterling's career has encompassed several roles. Over the past three decades, Dr. Osterling has worked as a university professor in four different countries: Peru, Colombia, Germany, and the USA, and has traveled extensively throughout the world. He was also a visiting scholar at the Inter-University Center for Latin American Research and Documentation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and during the Fall 2009 semester will be a Visiting Professor at Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang City, People's Republic of China. Dr. Osterling has also served as a university teacher trainer, educational anthropologist, high school classroom teacher, community leader, public school administrator, researcher and consultant.

In his thirteenth year at George Mason University, Dr. Osterling teaches licensure, masters’ and doctoral courses in sociocultural theory, multicultural education, bilingualism and language acquisition research, educational anthropology, research to practice and social justice. He is also actively involved in ongoing action research projects with educators at local and national levels. Dr. Osterling has been an active member of the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) and was elected President of its Capital Area affiliate (CANABE).

Dr. Osterling's primary goal is to ensure that all students are valued, respected, and provided equal opportunities to excel, regardless of their cultural, linguistic, or special needs background. He achieves this by developing a collaborative learning environment, one in which teachers and students work closely together, bringing to the classroom their previous knowledge, experiences and worldviews. In his graduate and doctoral courses, focusing on social justice, educational equity, and diversity, Dr. Osterling helps his students to understand that social, cultural, economic, and political issues play a significant role in their jobs as teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students in 21st century U.S. schools.

Dr. Osterling is the author of two books (1989, 1980) and over thirty articles, chapters and research reports in contemporary social and educational issues. Since his arrival in 1996 at George Mason University, he has been conducting research on specialized populations, including immigrants, refugees and second language learners; school-community partnerships to address the problems of at-risk youth and families; social justice and counseling, and cross-cultural issues that affect the education of diverse students in U.S. schools. In his research, he places particular emphasis on the role of teacher as cultural broker and collaborator among families, community and schools in order to ensure that all students achieve academic success.