Dr. Mariam Dahbi
Dr. Mariam Dahbi
Education researcher and advisor working on multilingual learning, early childhood quality, and teacher education in Morocco, the Maghreb, and Francophone Africa.
I am an Assistant Professor at the Institut des Sciences de l’Éducation, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique. Trained at Harvard, anchored at UM6P, I lead doctoral coordination at ISE and work across instructional quality, multilingual competence, and the cognitive architecture of learning under multilingual and resource-constrained conditions.
Alongside my academic program, I partner with international organizations, ministries, and education foundations on research, policy advisory, and program evaluation — with a regional focus on Morocco, the Maghreb, and Francophone Africa.
Education PhD, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Appointment Assistant Professor, ISE / UM6P
Working languages English · French · Arabic
Region Morocco · Maghreb · Francophone Africa
Research
An active program on instructional quality, multilingual competence, and the relationship between language, AI, and learning. Theoretical and empirical.
Advisory
Research, policy advisory, and program evaluation for international organizations, ministries, and foundations working on multilingual education, ECE, and teacher quality.
Writing
Peer-reviewed research, public essays on language and epistemic access, and longform writing for educators, policymakers, and the general reader.
Currently
I am working on three theoretical contributions and several empirical projects across multilingual education and teacher quality in Morocco.
A configurational framework for instructional quality that links authentic learning activities, pedagogical mediation, and meaningful learning, with linguistic accessibility theorized as a constitutive (rather than accommodative) dimension of authentic task design. The framework is being prospectively tested in a teacher-education cohort study launching October 2026 with the MLF/OSUI in-service master’s program.
A construct called registerial multilingualism, an account of how Moroccan speakers navigate between a translanguaging register (everyday, identity-anchored, Darija as matrix) and a plurilingual register (institutional, named languages kept separate). The construct addresses a long-standing impasse between translanguaging and plurilingualism in applied linguistics, and was recently presented at the EduLingua Summit.
A conceptual program on language, AI, and learning — how generative AI disaggregates linguistic proficiency from conceptual understanding, what this means for multilingual learners, and where it bypasses the constitutive struggle through which knowledge becomes knowledge.
On the empirical side, I am co-leading a study on first-generation migrant parents’ experience of early childhood education in Rabat–Salé–Témara (Phase 1 of a four-phase research program on ECE quality and inclusivity in Morocco), with a manuscript due to PECERA in July 2026. I am also developing the Epistemic Access Initiative at ISE — the institutional form of a thesis I have been working toward for some years: that language is the first gatekeeper of who gets to know what.
Recent and forthcoming
- Co-authored with Fernando Reimers (Harvard) — Knowing, doing, being: Education and climate change in Morocco. Forthcoming, International Journal of Educational Development.
- EduLingua Summit, 2026 — “Registerial Multilingualism: A Construct for Moroccan Multilingual Competence and ELT Practice.”
- Manuscript in progress, IJBEB — “How preschool teachers in linguistically diverse English-medium settings use children’s home languages during instruction” (Harvard dissertation, Paper 2).
- Conceptual paper, target Educational Researcher — “Authentic Learning Activity, Pedagogical Mediation, and Meaningful Learning: A Configurational Framework for Instructional Quality.”
Working together
For research collaborations, doctoral inquiries, or speaking invitations, the best path is email: mariam.dahbi@um6p.ma.
For advisory engagements with international organizations, ministries, or foundations, see the Advisory page for sector focus, methodology, and recent work — or write to me directly.