Michael Joseph Viola

Professional Overview

Michael Joseph Viola is the director and professor of the Ethnic Studies program.  He earned a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in urban schooling from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

His research contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of critical educational studies (critical pedagogy, critical race theory, popular education); ethnic studies; feminist standpoint theory; and critical globalization studies. His scholarship has been published in such journals as Critical Ethnic Studies, Race, Ethnicity and Education, the Journal of Asian American Studies, the Journal of Critical Educational Policy Studies, and Kritika Kultura.  His co-edited book on global hip hop titled, Hip-Hop(e): The Cultural Practice and Critical Pedagogy of International Hip-Hop (Peter Lang) received the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association. 

He is currently working on a book project that examines Filipino/a American activism and solidarities from 1965 to present.