Steve Daniel Przymus

Biography

Steve Daniel Przymus, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of TESOL and Bilingual Education in the Feinstein College of Education at the University of Rhode Island. His training includes a doctorate in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (University of Arizona, 2016), being a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer (República Dominicana, 2003-2005), a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Grantee (México, 2010), and 29 years of advocating for and teaching multilingual youth at the middle school, high school, and higher education levels. As a teacher/scholar, Dr. Przymus’ work is grounded in the belief that the education of culturally and linguistically diverse and exceptional youth and the critical preparation of teachers are cornerstones of social justice.

Prior to joining the URI Feinstein College of Education faculty, Dr. Przymus was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Texas Christian University, during which time he was recognized as the Donovan-Patton National Impact Scholar (2017-2019), the TCU College of Education Piper Professor (2022, 2023), and the Richard Ruiz Distinguished Scholar in Residence (2022, Guanajuato, México).

Research

Dr. Przymus’ research focuses on what bilingualism is (from cognitive and sociolinguistic perspectives) and how it is treated in schools (bilingual, dual-language education), with related subset research in linguistic landscapes, intercultural virtual exchanges, the language and identity development of Indigenous and transnational youth, biliteracy development, and the intersection of bilingualism and special education.

Dr. Przymus’ current research projects include (1) learning from social justice, equity-based urban planning to address gentrification in bilingual dual language programs, (2) bridging work in bilingual speech language pathology to bilingual special education in schools, (3) corralling the diverse cognitive representations (metaphors and metonymies) of bilingualism under a holistic representation, (4) using magic and storytelling to promote positive identity and language development in transnational youth, and (5) documenting and explaining the impact of implicit messages in the linguistic landscape surrounding schools.

Education

  • Ph.D., Second Language Acquisition & Teaching, University of Arizona, 2016
  • M.A., TESOL & Applied Linguistics, University of Northern Iowa, 2008
  • B.S.Ed., Spanish Education, University of South Dakota, 1996

Selected Publications

  • Przymus, S. D., Mendoza, M. E., Serna-Gutierrez, O., García-Mateus, S., & Samaniego Calderón, M. (Forthcoming, 2026). Welcoming Refugees and Immigrants: Representing holistic familial languaging practices and life experiences in books. In J. Lacina (Ed.), Children’s Literature to Read Our World: Text Selection and Strategies for Critical Reflection, Routledge.
  • Przymus, S. D., Mendoza, M. E., & Sorrells, A. (Forthcoming, 2026). This bridge we call disability: Intersectional considerations of race, ethnicity, language, and disability via an Anzaldúan lens. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Social Justice.
  • Przymus, S. D. & Mendoza, M. E. (2025). Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Unveiling Adolescent Multilingual Identities through Magic, Storytelling, and Translanguaging. Linguistics & Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2025.101383
  • Przymus, S. D., Solmaz, O., Cal y Mayor Turbull, A., Rodriguez Rosales, M. E., & Dominguez, A. M. (2025). Leveraging glocal linguistic landscapes to raise preservice teacher candidates’ critical language awareness: Pitfalls and potential from three international telecollaboration projects. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices.
  • Przymus, S. D. and Solmaz, O. (2025). Developing educational linguistic landscape (EdLL) materials and learning methods. In D. Gorter and J. Cenoz (Eds.), Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism, Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Ekpe, L., Weinberg, N., Daly, G., Przymus, S., Hernandez, F., Huddleston, G., & Kyzar, K. (2025). Navigating the Educational Landscape: Experiences of Hispanic Male Teachers in Texas K-12 Schools. Journal of Education, 00220574251318295.
  • Przymus, S. D. (2024). American Education Mythologies: A Remythification of the Public Language of U.S. Schools, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5622-5
  • Przymus, S. D., & Mendoza, M. (2024). We barely wrote this paper: Sociolinguistic relativity in Southwestern U.S. schools and its impact on English language teaching. Focus on ELT Journal, 6(3), 124–147. https://doi.org/10.14744/felt.6.3.8
  • Przymus, S. D. & Mendoza, M. E. (2024). Easy de traducir: Geomapping Spanish Billboards across Fort Worth, Texas. Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingue
  • Przymus, S. D. (2024). Semiotically deconstructing parental and adolescent failed communication: It’s not what they’re saying, it’s their words. American Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QLhXe58AAAAJ&hl=en
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steve-Przymus?ev=hdr_xprf