Her scholarship emphasizes issues of equity in education including children and youth cultures, as well as the intersections of formal and informal cultures in constructing educative experiences. Her social studies education work includes numerous peer-reviewed publications in national and international journals, professional evaluation, grants, and conference papers. Dr. Summers works in geographically and/or linguistically marginalized school districts classified as urban, rural, or with 50% or more of students maintaining home languages other than English. She has taught in both English and Spanish in K-12 public school classrooms in Texas and in Guatemala.