University of California grants promote educational equity, diversity
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Claudia Bustamante
bustamante@gseis.ucla.edu | 310-267-4408
LOS ANGELES (Oct. 9, 2012) — Graduate students from five University of California campuses received grants for their work in addressing educational inequalities in California’s public school system.
UC/ACCORD All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity awarded 12 dissertation fellowships to doctoral students from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz.
The fellows join a growing network of academics, researchers and education experts interested in replacing prevailing patterns of schooling inequality and disparities in access to higher education with equitable conditions and outcomes for children from all sectors of the state. Since 2001, UC/ACCORD has awarded 135 fellowships and grants to doctoral and postdoctoral students and UC faculty.
This year’s fellows will discuss their work at the 12th annual UC/ACCORD conference held in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., Oct. 12-14.
The 2012 dissertation fellowships were awarded to the following students:
Barbara Bolaños is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education at UC Riverside, where her research investigates educational inequalities and their relationship to college aspirations and attendance. Bolaños’ dissertation focuses on how students from varying backgrounds transition from high school to college and the factors that shape their college-going processes.
Dissertation: Does the apple ever fall from the tree? A qualitative study of college-going processes
Zoë Buck is a doctoral student in Mathematics and Science Education at UC Santa Cruz’s Education Department. Buck is interested in the use of cutting-edge cosmology visualizations as learning tools in culturally and linguistically diverse community college classrooms.
Dissertation: Improving access to cosmology content for community college students through visualizations
Erin N. Cue is a doctoral student in Psychological Studies at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Cue’s research interests include examining achievement motivation and attitudes toward school among African-American students. Her dissertation focuses on increasing healthy attitudes, including the belief that academic failure can be overcome with increased preparation and effort.
Dissertation: Let's YAP about the future: A youth attribution program for African-American 6th graders
Leslie Echols is a doctoral student in Psychological Studies at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Her research examines school contextual influences on peer relations and overall adjustment in middle school. Echols is particularly interested in the role of peer acceptance in academic success for students in ethnically diverse schools.
Dissertation: Taking a closer look at academic tracking: New measures, new questions, and new implications for ethnic minority youth
Katherine K. Frankel is a doctoral student in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on literacy instruction in secondary schools, particularly for students who have struggled academically. Frankel’s dissertation examines how well 9th grade literacy intervention models serve their student populations.
Dissertation: Understanding “remediation” from the student’s perspective: The potential for expansive learning in ninth grade literacy intervention classes
Gina A. Garcia is a doctoral student in Higher Education and Organizational Change at UCLA’s Graduation School of Education & Information Studies, where her research focuses on Latina/o college student experiences and the institutions that primarily serve this student population. Garcia’s dissertation examines the organizational identity of Hispanic Serving Institutions.
Dissertation: Challenging the ‘manufactured identity’ of Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs): An exploration of the social construction of organizational identity at a HSI
Lynette Parker is a doctoral student in the Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include policy practices, internalized racial oppression, teacher development, and measurement of internalized oppression as a construct.
Dissertation: Theorizing the ghetto: The case of Compton – From the suburban to the sub-urban and the intersection of resources, psychology, and oppression in the construction of black identity and consciousness
Jean J. Ryoo is a doctoral student in Urban Schooling at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Ryoo's research examines issues of equity and access to quality teaching and learning with new media technology for young women and students of color who have traditionally been denied access to computer science education in public secondary schools.
Dissertation: Mobilizing Generation Z: An examination of teaching and learning in a mobile phone-based, community research curriculum
Yen Ling Shek is a doctoral student in Higher Education and Organizational Change at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Her research centers on racial diversity and equity in higher education, cultural resource centers and undocumented students. Shek’s dissertation looks to understand the purpose and scope of cultural resources centers in higher education by analyzing those at four-year nonprofit colleges and universities.
Dissertation: Cultural resource centers in higher education: Missions, structures, and strategies
Bryan C. Ventura is a doctoral student in Urban Schooling at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Using ethnography and narrative analysis, he studies the practices alternative schools use to (re)create environments where at-risks students have the opportunity to learn and ultimately graduate from high school.
Dissertation: Perspectives from within the hidden system: A mixed-method examination of practices used by California's Model Continuation Schools
Tammie Visintainer is a doctoral student in Education in Math, Science & Technology at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Her research addresses issues of equity in science education, exploring high school students’ trajectories of developing interest in, and identification with, science for youth that are currently racially/ethnically underrepresented in the sciences. Visintainer also explores how programs that directly address race and diversity in science inform underrepresented students’ ideas of who can do science.
Dissertation: Shaping high school students’ ideas about science: Examining the identity-constructing resources of summer science programs for underrepresented youth
Juliet Wahleithner is a doctoral student in Language, Literacy and Culture at UC Davis’ School of Education, where she is also pursuing a designated emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric and Communication Studies. Her research interests include the teaching of writing at the secondary level, teacher development, assessment, and the impact of policy on teachers' instructional decisions, particularly how they negotiate pressures of high-stakes accountability and students' diverse needs when teaching writing.
Dissertation: High school teachers' instruction of writing: Negotiating knowledge, student need, and policy
####
