Doctoral Student Heysha Carrillo Serves as Guest Editor on Special Edition of Holistic Education Review, Discusses Experience on Local Radio Show

Heysha Carrillo, a doctoral student in the NC State College of Education’s Ph.D. in Teacher Education and Learning Sciences educational equity concentration, has spent most of her academic career producing work in English. So, as a native Spanish speaker, she was excited when she had a recent opportunity to speak on a local Spanish-language radio show, La Voz, about her scholarly work. 

“I have spent nine years in North Carolina, and most of my scholarly work has been in English. This was a great chance for me to practice the cognitive skills and abilities that multilingualism gives to be able to transfer across languages and jargon to reach a broader audience,” she said. 

During her interview on La Voz, Carrillo discussed the Holistic Education Review, an academic journal. She is serving as a guest editor on a special edition of Holistic Education Review entitled “Education for Holistic Wellbeing: Exploring intersections and common purpose with social justice and equity.”

Carrillo has explored holistic education in her own work with Associate Professor Crystal Chen Lee and Professor Jose Picart on the Literacy and Community Initiative (LCI), which partners with community-based organizations to empower youth voices through student publications, advocacy and literacy. 

“On the radio show, I talked about how our literacy work with community-based organizations supports students from marginalized communities in their creative, intrapersonal, interpersonal, cognitive and transpersonal dimensions of holistic education,” Carrillo said. 

Carrillo’s research agenda specifically focuses on bringing research to life through narrative methods with a focus on multilingual students and educators and helping build the capacity to develop critical consciousness through literacy. 

As a guest editor on the Holistic Education Review, she encouraged the journal board to open up the call for proposals to Spanish-language submissions for the first time. 

Although she still has a lot of work ahead of her as a guest editor on a journal edition that won’t be released for more than a year, Carrillo said the experience so far has been valuable in helping to prepare her for a future career in academia. 

“The experience has been inspiring. For some of us, this is our first guest editor role in an academic journal, and we all come from different lenses and experiences with social justice education or holistic education,” she said. “This journey has afforded me a nuanced understanding of the entire publishing process, from conception to fruition. I have gained a greater understanding of how the publishing process works. Additionally, our contributions through our curation process in the journal can be significant to inform holistic education practice and research.”