NABE Secretary & Central Region Representative
secretary@nabe.org
Belinda Trevino Schouten, Ph.D.
Dr. Belinda Trevino Schouten has personally lived the experience of having to learn a second, third and even a fourth language and is fully committed to the educational success of Emergent Bilinguals (EBs), their parents, and their teachers.
She is the daughter of an immigrant father from the Netherlands and a Mexican American mother—a “Pionera” who dedicated her life to bilingual education. Dr. Schouten grew up speaking Dutch and English at home and for two years attended an International School through NATO in the Netherlands where she learned Dutch, French, and English.
After returning to the United States, she moved to her mother’s hometown of Pearsall, Texas and learned Spanish as her third language. Over the next two decades, Belinda lived and traveled transnationally between Germany, the Netherlands, Mexico, and the United States where she continued to use her languages in and out of the educational field.
Over the years, Dr. Schouten has been active at the local, state, and national levels in the field of bilingual education, including SAAABE (San Antonio Area Bilingual Education), TABE (Texas Association for Bilingual Education) and NABE (National Association for Bilingual Education). She currently serves as the Bilingual Education Student Organization (BESO) representative of the San Antonio Area Bilingual Education (SAAABE) board and also sits on several school district advisory boards in San Antonio all focused on serving Emergent Bilinguals, their parents, and teachers.
Belinda also serves as the Co-Chair of the NABE BESO Special Interest Group (SIG) and in 2011 assisted in establishing the NABE BESO at the national level. Each year, since 2001 she has traveled to the NABE conference with BESO students to mentor, support, and introduce them to the profession. Dr. Schouten is now working on a national effort to expand the number of BESO student organizations at universities and NABE affiliates throughout the U.S. She has devoted over 20 years to mentoring bilingual preservice teachers through the Bilingual Education Student Organization (BESO). From 2008-2013, Belinda also served as Co-Chair of the Language Policy SIG and has worked with various educational policy movements to advocate for EBs, including the Texas Dual Language Consortium and the Latino Education and Advocacy Days (LEAD).
Dr. Schouten completed her MA in Bicultural Bilingual Studies and a PhD in Culture, Literacy, and Language both from the University of Texas at San Antonio. For the past 15 years, she has served as the Coordinator for Bilingual and ESL Education at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas and is currently a full professor. Since 2005, Dr. Schouten has trained preservice and in-service teachers in the San Antonio area and has coordinated several federal bilingual teacher trainer grants at the University level and a 21st Century Community Learning center grant at North East ISD. Her publications are focused on bilingual education and various related areas including Dual Language Education, Linguistics, Mexican American English, Preservice and Inservice Teacher Training, and Teaching with Technology.
Belinda Trevino Schouten has dedicated her life to serving our communities, families, and children. In addition, she has worked tirelessly to improve the instructional practices for linguistically and culturally diverse children by remaining current in the field and in the classroom. She believes in protecting the rights of all language minority students by promoting and advocating for additive educational reforms for all students.