Institute for Advanced Study

IAS Distinguished Fellow Profile

Professor Shirley Brice-Heath

IAS Distinguished Fellow 2005

Professor at Large, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University; Margery Bailey Professor of English and Dramatic Literature, Emerita, Stanford University; and Visiting Professor of Research, Kings College, University of London.

A linguistic anthropologist, Professor Heath does ethnographic research in learning environments of older children and young people living in under-resourced communities of the United States, England, and South Africa. She is the author of several books on language learning and literacy; best known in Australia is Ways with Words:  Language, life and work in communities and classrooms  (1983/1996) and The Braid of Literature (1992) with Shelby Wolf.  She is also an editor (with Food and Lapp) of Handbook for Literacy Educators:  Research in the Visual and Communicative Arts (forthcoming in a new edition; 1997).  She has also published widely on social entrepreneurship, early language acquisition, youth drama, and patterns of literacy in the 18th century.