Earl Aguilera, Ph. D. Faculty Profile

Photo of Earl Aguilera

Earl  Aguilera, Ph. D.

Associate Professor

Department of Teacher Education

Dr. Earl Aguilera (any pronouns) is an Associate Professor in the Teacher Education Department at California State University, East Bay. He is an award-winning teacher educator, as well as an internationally-recognized scholar on issues at the intersection of literacy, educational technology, and critical pedagogy.

Dr. Aguilera’s approach to teacher-education draws on his experiences as a high school English / Language Arts teacher and K-12 reading specialist working with students of marginalized backgrounds. He regularly teaches courses in teacher preparation programs, including cross-disciplinary and subject-specific teaching methods. At the graduate level, he teaches specialization courses in  educational technology, online learning, literacy education, and research methods. His teaching philosophy is grounded in principles of critical digital pedaogy, drawing inspiration from the work of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Allan Luke, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Jesse Stommel.

Dr. Aguilera's parents, Maria Antonette Benedicto Aguilera, and Edilberto C. Aguilera, who immigrated from the Philippines, provided the support for him to become the first in his family to complete a B.A., M.A., and Ph. D. here in the United States. He continues the work of his maternal grandmother, Emiliana la Serna Benedicto (Lola Miling), who was herself a lifelong educator, and his father, who became a teacher later in life. Building on this legacy, Dr. Aguilera is committed to transforming the educational landscape for first-generation students, students of color, and all of those who have been marginalized by educational and social institutions in the United States and beyond.

Dr. Aguilera often describes himself as a scholar of critical digital literacies (CDL). For him and his collaborators, CDL can be defined in two ways:

  • First, CDL can be understood as using the tools of Critical Theory to navigate, interrogate, and critique digital technologies and the ways they reinforce structures of power, ideology, and inequity in society today.
  • Secondly, CDL seeks to highlight the voices of young people, community organizations, and activists using digital technologies themselves to navigate, interrogate, and resist structures of hierarchical oppression in their everyday lives.
For graduate students looking for advising, collaborators looking for a thought partner, or organiziations seeking a speaking engagement, Dr. Aguilera's related areas of interest include:
  • Critical Pedagogy
  • Online Learning
  • Multicultural Education
  • Literacy Education
  • Critical Media Literacy
  • Game Based Learning
  • Multimodality
  • Discourse Analysis
  • Adolescent and Adult Literacies
  • English/Language Arts Teaching Methods
  • The New Literacy Studies
  • Digital Humanities
  • Critical Computational Studies
While Dr. Aguilera hesitates to label himself as having "expertise" in any of these areas, his interests and curiosity have led him to learn deeply from the people who have dedicated their life-work to these fields.

  • Ph.D., Learning, Literacy, and Technology, Arizona State University 2018)
  • M.A. Reading, New Jersey City University (May 2014)
  • B.A., English/Secondary Education, St. Joseph’s University (2008)

Not teaching this semester.

Below is a list of selected publications. Email him if you need access to anything.

Aguilera, E. (2023). Digital literacies and interactive media: A framework for multimodal analysis. Routledge.

Aguilera, E. & Salazar, C. (2023). Critical digital pedagogy in the platform society. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1888

Aguilera, E. (2022). Theorizing whiteness as a proceduralized ideology in videogames. Journal of Games Criticism, 5(Bonus Issue A). 1-21.

Aguilera, E., & de Roock, R. (2022). Digital Game-Based Learning: Foundations, Applications, and Critical Issues. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1438

Aguilera, E., & Pandya, J. Z. (2021). Critical literacies in a digital age: current and future issues. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 16(2), 103-110.

Mehta, R. & Aguilera, E. (2020). A critical approach to humanizing pedagogies in online teaching and learning. Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 37(3), 109-120.

Aguilera, E. & Lopez, G. (2020). Centering first-generation students’ lived experiences through critical digital storytelling. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 63(5). DOI: 10.1002/jaal.1037 

Aguilera, E. Stewart, O.G., Perez Cortes, L., & Mawasi, A. (2019). Seeing beyond the screen: A multidimensional framework for understanding digital-age literacies. In Sullivan, P. M., Lantz, J. J. & Sullivan, B. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Integrating Digital Technology with Literacy Pedagogies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Aguilera, E. & Pandya, J.Z. (2018). Critical digital literacies. LSLP Micro-Papers, 54. Available from http://www.literaciesinl2project.org/lslp-micro-papers.html 

Aguilera, E. (2017). More than bits and bytes: Developing digital literacies beyond the screen. Literacy Today. 35(3). Available: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/701a63a7#/701a63a7/14