Daniela Torres-Torretti

Education is always so much more than just teaching and learning. If utilized differently, education can also be a means of liberation and can contribute to the fight for social justice. 

UC Davis School of Education Power of 10 Scholarship recipient Daniela Torres-Torretti is what she is learning at UC Davis to contribute to the fight for social justice in her home country of Chile.

A student in the Language, Literacy, and Culture emphasis area of the School’s PhD program, Torres-Torretti credits her decision to attend the School of Education to Professor Karen Watson-Gegeo and her critical work and transformative pedadogy. Torres-Torretti says she was also deeply interested in the Graduate Group in Education because of the opportunity to take classes from different departments and to learn from faculty and students in different disciplines.

Torres-Torretti is a sixth-year PhD student who is currently finishing her dissertation. Her area of research focuses on critical and transformative education and critically analyzes ways to challenge and re-image the role of education in society and the roles of educators and researchers. Torres-Torretti’s main goal as an educator is to “continuously denounce, challenge, and fight oppressive and dehumanizing structures in education and society.”

After becoming a mother last year, Torres-Torretti says her academic future hung in the balance. For Torres-Torretti, receiving the Power of 10 Scholarship “not only provides to me a huge economic and academic help, but it helps me to be able to fulfill my role as a mother in a better and more balanced way.”