Shyla Gonzalez-Dogan
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Phone: 602-543-4605
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Ira D. Payne Educational Hall, 1000 S Forest Mall 204 H Tempe, AZ 85306
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Mail code: 3151Campus: Tempe
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Dr. Shyla González-Doğan is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Arizona State University. Her academic formation draws on anthropology, education, and North African and Southwest Asian studies, reflected in degrees from the University of Arizona — where she earned her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies with a concentration in Turkish Studies — and from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she completed her M.Ed. in Anthropology and Education. She also holds a B.A. in International Relations with a SWANA regional focus from Birmingham–Southern College and a Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership from the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.
At the heart of Dr. González-Doğan's scholarship is a conviction that community-based organizing is one of the most powerful remedies available to address entrenched social problems. Rather than focusing on deficit narratives, her work foregrounds the resilience, ingenuity, and capacity-building of marginalized communities — particularly immigrants, refugees, and first-generation individuals navigating educational systems that were rarely designed with them in mind. Her research is centered in the SWANA region, with significant attention to Islamic organizations, cultural centers, and the complex dynamics of identity formation, inclusion, and exclusion within community spaces. She also engages with culturally grounded approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, urgent humanitarian challenges such as Education in Emergencies, and social issues including trauma and substance abuse as they intersect with community life.
Dr. González-Doğan brings an unusually grounded practitioner perspective to her scholarly work. Before entering higher education, she served as the principal of a private K-5 Islamic school and taught within the broader K-12 system — experiences that continue to inform how she thinks about educational leadership, community accountability, and the gap between policy and practice. She has also held positions at the University of Arizona and Pima Community College.
Ph.D. Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Arizona 2019
Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona 2016
M.Ed. Anthropology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University 2014
M.A. in Near Eastern Studies (Concentration in Turkish Studies), University of Arizona 2012
B.A. in International Relations (Middle East regional focus), Birmingham–Southern College 2006
Dr. Gonzalez-Doğan is a scholar of community organization, educational equity, and social belonging. Her research examines how communities — particularly those experiencing marginalization — organize to meet their own educational and social needs, and how exclusion operates within the very spaces meant to serve them. A central concern of her work is identifying practical and structural approaches to making community organizations more equitable and inclusive.
Her regional focus is the SWANA region and surrounding areas, with much of her empirical work centered on Islamic organizations and cultural centers. Her broader scholarly interests include cultural and national identity, refugee education, integration, and culturally grounded curriculum models such as Afrocentric education. She also engages with urgent social challenges at the intersection of community life and crisis, including substance abuse, trauma, and Education in Emergencies.
Learning and Educating Across Refugee/(Im)migrant Networks (LEARN), Arizona State University, Participating Member since Fall 2022 and PI as of Fall 2023
In this project, refugees, educators, and researchers re brought together with those in global and community organizations to 1.) identify key areas of needed research on the education of refugee/(im)migrants and to 2.) develop intentional and inclusive collectives to both conduct research and to use research findings to build necessary supports for refugee/(im)migrant communities in Arizona, the United States (US), and globally. Refugee/(im)migrants and teachers are situated as both learners and educators, who deserve support not only from organizations,but also from academic institutions.
Soyer, M., Yigit, M. F., González-Doğan S., Ovando-Montejo, G. A., Ahmad, S., & Chapoose, T. (2024). Building bridges: Catalyzing institutional change at Utah State University via experiential learning with Ute and Navajo students. Journal of Culture and Values in Education. 7(3) 112-129. https://doi.org/10.46303/jcve.2024.31
Soyer, M., & González-Doğan S. (Under Review). It is normal…period!: Raising awareness through a student-led menstrual equity project on campus. [Manuscript submitted for publication].
González-Doğan, S., Soyer, G., Bayhan, S., Yazici, M., Akçay, M., Harb, J., Mekkawi, Ramadan, A., & Turan A. (2024). “Home is the mouth of a shark”: Trauma and the needs of students from refugee backgrounds from the perspective of boundary spanning refugee resettlement workers. Education Sciences. 14(9) 970. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090970.
González-Doğan, S., & Palandjian, G. (2024). When the state becomes a monster: Post-coup education in Turkish cultural centers and new definitions of home. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2024.2398540
Foulger, T. S., King, A., & Gonzalez-Dogan, S. (2025). Piloting the Appreciative Tuning Protocol: Improving integration through a collaborative professional development model. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 19(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2025.190103
González-Doğan, S., Turan, A., Hovsepian, S., & Anayatova, D. (2024). Credentials, perpetual “foreignness”, and feeling out of place: Three stories of resilience from teachers of refugee background. Social Sciences, 13(7) 363. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13070363
González-Doğan, S., Foulger, T. S., & King, A. M. (2024). Integrating principled innovation as a character development framework in education coursework. Journal of Moral Education, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2024.2361055
González-Doğan S. (2023). Experiences of anti-Blackness in Islamic educational spaces: Implications for Islamic teacher education. Education Sciences,13(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13111160
Gonzalez-Doğan, S. (2022). Linguistic othering and “knowledge deserts”: Perspectives on Arabic use in linguistically diverse Islamic institutions. Linguistics and Education, 71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2022.101076.
Gonzalez-Doğan, S. (2022). “You're Black. You're from Africa. You can't be the principal": Limited leadership in Islamic institutions. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 44(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2022.2032903
Gonzalez-Doğan, S. & Doğan, B. (2020). Together in education, apart from brick and mortar: Rapid professional development for online distance learning. In R.E. Ferdig, E. Baumgartner, R. Hartshorne, R. Kaplan-Rakowski, & C. Mouza (Eds.), Teaching, technology, and teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from the field (pp. 211-217). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Koyama, J. & Gonzalez-Doğan, S. (2019). Displacement, replacement, and fragmentation in ordermaking: Enacting sovereignty in a US-Mexican border state. Ethnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138119845395
Doğan, S. (2015). The lived environments of the Middle East. In Teaching the Middle East: A resource guide for American educators, Washington, DC: Middle East Policy Council.
González-Doğan S., Soyer, M., Giron, M., Hofmann, E., Lindstrom, E.D., Morales, J., Delgado, L. (2026). It is normal…period!: Raising awareness through a student-led menstrual equity project on campus. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Courses
2026 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 494 | Special Topics |
| EDU 494 | Special Topics |
2025 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
2024 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| DCI 792 | Research |
2023 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 396 | Exploring Ideas Internship |
| EDU 396 | Exploring Ideas Internship |
2023 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| BLE 536 | Ed for Social Transformation |
| BLE 536 | Ed for Social Transformation |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
| EDU 302 | Diversity in Learning Contexts |
2021 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| BLE 536 | Ed for Social Transformation |
| BLE 536 | Ed for Social Transformation |
2021 Summer
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| BLE 511 | Intro/Language Minority Educ |
| BLE 511 | Intro/Language Minority Educ |
2021 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
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| TEL 410 | Leadership and Advocacy in Ed |
| TEL 410 | Leadership and Advocacy in Ed |
MLFTC Internal Research Grant, “"That You May Know One Another:” Examining Race Relations in One U.S. City’s Islamic Community," 2023
American Educational Research Association, Division G, Social Context of Education Mini-Grant, “Redefining “Home”: Politics as Motivation for Educational Change in Turkish Diaspora Cultural Centers,” 2021-2022
Reviewer, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2021-
Reviewer, Anthropology Education Quarterly, 2014-2017, 2020-
Reviewer, Current Issues in Comparative Education Journal, Teachers College Columbia University, 2013-2014
American Anthropological Association, Member
American Association of University Women, Member
American Educational Research Association, Member
Middle East Studies Association, Member
Comparative and International Education Society, Member
American Educational Studies Association, Member
Association for Moral Education, Member
Society of North American Scholars, Member
Center for Maghrib Studies, Arizona State University, Board Member 2020 - Present
Middle East Outreach Council, Board Member 2015 – 2018
Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, Member
Setrag Hovsepian, Ph.D., Educational Policy and Evaluation, Secondary Advisor (2021-2022)
Nasir Kaihan, Visiting Scholar, Educational Policy and Evaluation, Secondary Advisor (2022 - Present)
Emily Nunez-Eddy, Ph.D., Educational Policy and Evaluation, Secondary Advisor (2020-2021)
Dilraba Anayatova, Ph.D., Educational Policy and Evaluation, Secondary Advisor (2021-2022)
Adnan Turan, Ph.D., Educational Policy and Evaluation, Secondary Advisor (2021-2022)
Advisor of the ASU Palestinian Cultural Club 2025-
Learning and Educating Across Refugee/(Im)migrant Networks (LEARN), Arizona State University, Participating Member since Fall 2022 and PI as of Fall 2023
Faculty Women of Color Caucus, Inaugural Research Leadership Development Program, Arizona State University, Member, 2022-
Commission on the Status of Women, Arizona State University, Service Representative, 2021-Present
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, Affiliate Faculty, 2022-Present
Center for Maghrib Studies, Working Committee Member, 2020 - Present
Fulbright Specialist, 2021-2025
Higher Education Program for Morocco - Islamic Education Domain, 2020-2021
WestEd, Subject Matter Expert