Gabrielle Oliveira Wins AERA Outstanding Book Award

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has announced that Associate Professor Gabrielle Oliveira has won the 2026 Outstanding Book Award for her Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life published in 2025. The honor was announced on March 5, as part of AERA's slate of 2026 awards for excellence in education research.

Now We Are Here documents the journeys of Latin American migrant families who have settled in Massachusetts, highlighting their perseverance and sacrifice as they continue to pursue education for their children in the face of crises and uncertainty. The book focuses on the families’ relationship to schooling and how educators can best support these students by helping center their stories in the classroom. For many of these families, says Oliveira, education provides stability after a time of unrest and represents hope that their children will flourish in their new home.

“I think we forget, or maybe the media doesn't pay enough attention because they're so focused with the basic piece, which is survival, but education is not just one of the main drivers [behind families’ migration], but it's also a stabilizing force,” Oliveira told the Harvard EdCast last fall.  “Once they come here, being able to bring your children to school, have them study, have them learn, it also stabilizes, and justifies a lot of the sacrifice of coming here.”

Oliveira is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Associate Professor of Education and of Brazil Studies at the Ed School. Her previous book, Motherhood Across Borders: Immigrants and their Children in Mexico and in New York City, won the Erickson and Hornberger Book Award Forum and was named book of the year in 2019 by the Council of Anthropology and Education. 

Oliveira and other award winners will be honored as part of the AERA annual meeting in Los Angeles on April 9.