Fellow Index: 

Search by last name:

2013

Nancy Acevedo-Gil
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Jennifer Collett
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Lisceth Cruz
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Kathryn Hayes
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Eduardo Lara
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Adriana Ruiz Alvarado
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Joanna Wong
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Chenoa Woods
UC Irvine/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

2012

2011

Melanie Bertrand
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Working Toward Change: Youth Researchers Challenging Systemic Racism in Education

Abstract: Many Black and Latino high school students are denied access to rigorous curriculum, hurting their chances of postsecondary success. This paper explores a novel approach to addressing this manifestation of systemic racism in education, studying the potential of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)—youth-driven, collective research and advocacy—to promote the improvement of curriculum for these students. My study examines the advocacy efforts of a YPAR group called the Council, whose members include Latino and Black high school students and adult allies. My study indicates that the students’ “advocacy messages” about rigorous curriculum have impacted teachers, school administrators, curriculum, and pedagogy. Also, the Council as a whole has served as a curricular model for teachers and school administrators.

Manuelito Biag
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Adolescent Well-Being and School Connectedness: Implications for School Practices and Policies

Abstract: My dissertation employs quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine how schools influence adolescents’ health, emotional well-being, and feelings of attachment to the school community. The project consists of two studies. The first study is an in-depth, multi-perspective case analysis of school connectedness from the viewpoints of students, teachers, and administrators in one urban middle school. The second study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to profile the individual and ecological characteristics of school health service users and non-users. Findings from these studies aim to: 1) identify factors that create engaging school environments in which young people feel connected, and 2) better recognize vulnerable youth that may benefit from on-site supports, thereby reducing the gap between need and service access for those living with health concerns. Evidence from this research can inform school practices and policies designed to improve students’ physical, psychological, behavioral, and academic functioning.

Sara Castro-Olivo, Ph.D.
UC Riverside/education

Faculty Seed Grant Fellow, 2011

Title: Facilitating Universal Emotional Resiliency for the Social and Academic Success (FUERSAS) of Latino English Language Learners

This study consists of two phases. The first phase will evaluate the relationship of mental health, acculturative stress, and academic aspirations/outcomes of Latino high school students. This phase will function as a needs assessment and screening procedure for identifying youth at-risk for dropping out. Identified students will be invited to participate in phase II of the study, which will pilot the impact of a culturally adapted social-emotional learning intervention on students’ academic and social-emotional outcomes. Previous research has identified a significant correlation between Latino students’ mental health and acculturative stress. Both of these factors have been shown to have a negative impact on the academic performance of middle school Latino students (Albeg, 2010). It is hypothesized that mental health will be correlated with academic outcomes, and aspirations, of Latino high school students. The proposed intervention is expected to have positive effect on participating students’ social-emotional and academic outcomes.

Rhoda Freelon
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Shaping the Lives of their Children: How African American Parents Make Educational Investments

Abstract: This study seeks to better understand African American parents’ educational involvement by providing a nuanced account of the ways they invest in their children’s education. By disaggregating analyses to document within-group differences and similarities, this study will move away from monolithic portrayals of African American parents. The study will also explore how decisions and actions traditionally characterized as investment activities may be mediated by parents’ assets, dispositions, educational orientations, and social location. By examining parents’ educational investment patterns using quantitative and qualitative data, this study seeks to interrogate prevailing deficit understandings about African American parents. Further, this study will make contributions to our knowledge of family and secondary school connections by examining educational investments in the context of the adolescent years which represent a key time for a youth’s transition to adulthood. Educational investments made during this time could prove consequential for African American students’ college opportunity.

Elizabeth Gilliland
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Talking about Writing: Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Adolescents’ Socialization into Academic Literacy

Abstract: Taking a language socialization perspective, my research describes conditions for academic language development in culturally and linguistically diverse adolescents through a multi-case ethnographic study of high school writing instruction in California. I observed and recorded classroom talk about writing over one year in English language arts and English language development classes. Follow-up interviews with graduated seniors consider their transition into college writing. Data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Strauss, 1987). Further deductive analyses consider classroom discourse patterns (Bloome et al., 2005; Gibbons, 2006). The study examines consistencies and inconsistencies in curriculum from ELD to mainstream, ninth to twelfth grades, and from high school to college. This study traces ways students learn to talk about writing and proposes ways for schools to better address culturally and linguistically diverse students’ learning needs around academic language and writing in the face of accountability pressures and limited resources.

Sera Hernández
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Beyond Risks and Resources: Educational Discourse and the Construction of the Home-School Relationship for Mexican Immigrant Families

Abstract: Drawing on the linguistic anthropology of education, this twelve-month qualitative dissertation offers a nuanced exploration of the interplay between institutional discourse on Latinos in education and the nature of the home-school relationship for four Mexican immigrant families. Relying on participant observation in homes and schools, video and audio recordings, interviews, and textual artifact collection within a northern and southern California school district, this study furthers our understanding of how institutionally-based texts and discursive interactions between the home and school contexts are negotiated moment-to-moment, yet encoded by the sociopolitical and historical context of education in the United States. This micro-level analysis furthers our understanding of how ideologies of language and personhood shape the ways in which the study’s key social actors (parents, students, teachers, and administrators) participate in face-to-face and textual-based interactions, ultimately influencing Mexican immigrant parents’ and students’ educational perspectives, schooling practices, and postsecondary plans.

Kim Nga Huynh
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Stepping Stones to a Baccalaureate

Abstract: This dissertation investigates how students’ educational plans develop as they move to and through community college. Low community college transfer and completion rates are often discussed in terms of student characteristics, rather than institutional weaknesses that affect all students. To direct attention towards the impact of institutional practices, this study focuses on how youths make sense of, and respond to, their college environments. Forty seniors were recruited in high school and followed into community college for over eighteen months in order to investigate how their perceptions of the opportunities and constraints within their respective college shaped their college plans and persistence behavior. I find that student participation and withdrawal behavior is adaptive, which means that student performance is a strategic response to student perception of environmental conditions. A more subtle but significant finding is that student (mis)behavior can only be more fully understood as action constituted within a value-laden system of evaluation.

Edward G. Lyon
UC Santa Cruz/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Shifting from Assessment as Evaluation to Assessment as a Vehicle for Science Learning and Equity: Changes in Secondary Science Preservice Teachers’ Assessment Expertise

Abstract: Assessment plays a critical role in secondary science classrooms, both in reporting what students know, which affects their advancement through high school, as well as supporting students’ science learning. Yet assessing English Learners (ELs) equitably is a daunting task. This study aims to document how the assessment expertise of eleven secondary science preservice teachers (SSPTs) changed during a teacher education program (TEP) when provided with focal assessment-related instruction. Employing a mixed-method approach, I collected survey, interview, artifact, and classroom observation data. Responses to open-ended prompts were scored using a rubric and the content of interviews and observation field notes was qualitatively analyzed through iterative coding and pattern identification. The SSPTs demonstrated positive changes in their assessment expertise, such as “shifting” from recognizing assessment equity issues to awareness of assessment strategies appropriate for ELs. The findings have implications on how SSPTs are prepared to assess in linguistically diverse classrooms.

Danny C. Martínez
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Expanding Linguistic Repertoires: An Ethnography of Black and Latino Intercultural Communication at Willow High School

Abstract: Using theoretical and methodological tools from Sociocultural language and literacy research, and the Ethnography of Communication tradition, my dissertation documents the linguistic repertoires of Black and Latina/o youth at Willow High School. Situated in four English Language Arts classrooms, this study explores the regularities and variances of Black and Latina/o youths’ language practices. This study seeks to encourage a nuanced understanding of the intercultural peer language socialization processes of Black and Latina/o youth, and to highlight linguistic dexterity of these youth. This study details the ways in which Black and Latina/o youth participate in everyday intercultural language activities that expand their linguistic repertoires in ways not valued by current educational discourse that support the hegemony of English. This study will inform a curricular framework that honors the shared practices of Black and Latina/o youth in ways that will treat their languages as a resource for learning and development.

Tina Matuchniak
UC Irvine/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Mind the Gap: A Cognitive Strategies Approach to College Writing Readiness

Abstract: English language learners (ELLs) are one of the fastest growing groups among school-age children in the country, yet, according to national NAEP (2005) data, only 4% of them scored at the proficient level in reading in grade 8. ELLs continue to lag behind every other group when it comes to reading and writing, which raises the question of how to effectively and equitably educate a growing population of traditionally underserved students in order to prepare them to gain access to and flourish in postsecondary institutions. Much of the current literature points to academic preparation as being a key factor in college access and persistence. This study is a quasi-experimental, longitudinal, mixed methods study, which follows a cohort of 136 12th grade ELLs as they transition from high school to college, looking to see how their academic preparation, specifically their writing experiences and performances, enables them to gain access to and persist in college.

Ronald K. Porter
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Contested Humanity: Blackness and the Educative Remaking of the Human in the 20th Century

Abstract: The question of what constitutes “the human” has been of pivotal import since the rise of European modernity. While what it means to be human has been claimed to be a universal concept, the human has in fact been defined in ways that have been both narrow and exclusionary, especially in regards to race. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how black educational thinkers have both critiqued and rearticulated Eurocentric ideals of humanity. Black educational thinkers pose a fundamental question: How do we go about the task of understanding, creating, and articulating notions of black humanity when the very language of humanity is based on a universal that excludes? I seek to understand how race has been rearticulated as a question of “the human” in the 20th century by focusing on the educational thought of three individuals: W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, and James Baldwin.

Femi Vance
UC Irvine/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2011

Dissertation: Adolescent Skill-building and Persistence in Youth Programs

Abstract: After-school programs provide academic and social supports that are critical for promoting college enrollment in disadvantaged students. Yet, without sustained attendance teens will not benefit from the supports offered in this context. Research shows that for ethnic minority youth, the promise of learning new skills attracts them to programs. This dissertation is an in-depth examination of opportunities for skill-building and the relationship between skill-building and attendance in a college and career focused program serving predominantly Latino students. Specific research questions include: 1) How are skill-building opportunities created in a high quality program?; 2) Does intensity of program attendance predict content specific skill-building?; 3) Does short-term skill-building predict sustained attendance? This study uses a mixed-methods design employing observations, staff interviews, youth surveys, and attendance records. The findings will inform the practices of program leaders and the strategies to increase the attendance of low-income ethnic minority adolescents in a developmentally enriching context.

2010

Terry Flennaugh
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: Mapping Academic Self-Concept: A Mixed-Method Approach to Understanding Academic Self-concept among Black Males in Urban Schools

Abstract: The Schott Foundation for Education issued a national report card in 2008 revealing that during the 2005-2006 academic year 47% of African American males did not receive diplomas with their classmates after four years of high school. A major component of this problem is what some researchers have referred to as the development of Black adolescents' academic identity or academic self-concept (Welch & Hodges, 1997). This study explores academic self-concept among high and low-performing Black males in urban schools through the use identity maps, surveys and interviews. A variety of factors are considered within this study such as the role peers, family, parents, teachers, school staff, school activities, popular culture and community play in the composition of academic self-concept. Further understanding of these identification processes can heavily impact models for counseling, pedagogy, and theories surrounding achievement for Black males.

Megan Hopkins
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: Drawing on Our Assets: A Study of the Unique Contributions of Bilingual Teachers

Abstract: This study examines the unique contributions that bilingual teachers make to the education of English learners (ELs) and the extent to which these contributions are mediated by the policy context. Assessing bilingual teachers’ contributions, or the assets and skills that translate into pedagogical and other teaching practices, is especially relevant due to the continuing underachievement of ELs, who comprise one of the fastest growing student populations in the country, and to the decreasing numbers of teachers pursuing bilingual credentials in states with English-only policies. A small body of research suggests that bilingual teachers are best suited to work with ELs, inferring that the loss of bilingual teachers is negatively impacting EL outcomes. Using a mixed methods approach, this study will provide the first broad-scale examination of the practices of teachers of ELs and assess the impact of policies that precipitate declines in the number of teachers pursuing bilingual credentials.

Mei-Ling Malone
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: Over-Incarcerated and Undereducated: Examining the Rise of the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Blacks and Latinos in California

Abstract: The prison system and the education system are separate institutions with distinct purposes.  Despite the stark differences, research, reports and the emerging “school-to-prison pipeline” field demonstrate that these two institutions co-construct each other and have formed a problematic relationship that disproportionately impacts African Americans and Latinos nationwide and in California especially. In efforts to investigate this problem, a deeper understanding of how a school-to-prison pipeline develops is urgently needed.   Thus, this study conducts a comparative analysis, examining the history and relationships of California prisons, incarceration rates, criminal legislation and school discipline policies and practices.  Finally, interviews on student experiences around discipline and school climate will be drawn from individuals who attended one urban high school in Los Angeles from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Maxine McKinney De Royston
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: The Moving Target of African-Centered Education: Maintaining the ‘Relevance’ of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract: African American students' place at the center of discussions about the "achievement gap" and "equity" highlights the lingering salience and pernicious role of race in schools (Hilliard, 2003; Noguera, 2003). Independent Black Institutions (IBIs) have historically utilized comprehensive approaches to combat issues of access and racism in schools by validating students' racial identity and cultural knowledge (Asante, 1991; Mudhabuti & Mudhabuti, 1991), and equipping them with protective factors to cope and combat racism (Boykin & Toms, 1985). To illustrate and analyze this process, this study is situated within a 31 year-old African-centered elementary school with a long history of teaching to the "whole child." Distinct from other IBIs, this school also employs a racially diverse teaching faculty. Using a mixed methods approach, this study examines: 1) what are the pedagogical philosophies and practices within this school that are intended to disrupt racism? That is, what are the critical elements of this schooling environment geared towards disruption; and 2) how does racial socialization occur at this school? Using the principles of African-centered pedagogy (Lee, 2008) and the lens of racial socialization (Boykin & Toms, 1985) as analytical frameworks, this study contributes both to our understanding schooling practices that seek to disrupt racism and of schooling conditions that are designed to empower and foster African American students' success.

Gabriela Segade
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: Making and Not Making Sense: The Development of English Language Proficiency among Immigrant Community College Students

Abstract: Large numbers of immigrant students are attending community colleges, where they enroll in English as a second language courses hoping to later transfer to a four-year institution. Statistics indicate that many of these students never accomplish their goal and often languish in ESL classes. This dissertation relies on qualitative research methods, including extensive video and audio recording of classroom activities and student interviews, to examine how students at an urban community college make sense of the language and language practices they encounter in an ESL course. A preliminary analysis suggests that students who previously attended US schools bring with them practices and patterns of course participation that may be detrimental to their language development, and that course activities may encourage those practices. The findings, by informing ESL curricular and pedagogical design, can help create the rigorous programs that are critical to helping students fulfill transfer requirements.

Fanny PF Yeung
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2010

Dissertation: Legacy of Immigration on Second-generation Immigrant Students in Higher Education

Abstract: The Purpose of this dissertation is to explore the college experiences of second-generation immigrants and how immigrant histories and family responsibilities influence their postsecondary experiences.  The educational outcomes of second-generation students are highly polarized depending on parents’ educational attainment, degree of manual labor required of their parents’ occupational positions, and are further polarized by students’ academic preparation in under-resourced schools and unfamiliarity with the American educational system.  Most research has thus far consolidated first- and second-generation immigrants or has generally focused on first-generation, foreign-born immigrants; overall, little is known about the long-term adaptations of second-generation immigrants in education.  Utilizing Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth and an adapted relational accountability framework, this dissertation incorporates three phases of qualitative investigation (semi-structured interviews, photographic documentation, and case studies) with 40 second-generation immigrant college students and selected family members to explore how the family’s immigrant experiences influence students’ experiences and retention in college.

Mary M. Bucholtz, Ph.D., and Jin Sook Lee, Ph.D.
UC Santa Barbara/linguistics and education

Faculty Seed Grant Fellows, 2010

Title: School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society (SKILLS)

The proposed project is the pilot phase of an intervention enhancing college opportunities for high school students of diverse economic, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. SKILLS centers on an innovative and rigorous college-level curriculum in linguistics, supported by intensive academic mentoring. Teams of Graduate Student Teaching Fellows, undergraduate assistants, and Master Teachers in ninth- through twelfth-grade social studies classrooms in Santa Barbara County teach linguistic concepts and methods using a hands-on, technologically cutting-edge curriculum that gives students extensive experience in college-level work. Students carry out and present original empirical linguistic research on scientific, social-scientific, and humanistic/ artistic aspects of the language and culture used in their peer groups, homes, and local communities. They thereby gain a deep understanding of linguistic phenomena, the research process, and academic communication from diverse disciplinary perspectives. In addition, students’ enhanced appreciation of their linguistic heritage and their own linguistic expertise helps foster their multicultural college-going identities.

2009

Shiv Desai
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds :Spoken word as site/sight of resistance, reflection and rediscovery

Abstract: Throughout the nation, urban high schools are experiencing a “silent epidemic” where half of all minority youth drop out of high school.  In addition, these youth are increasingly being incarcerated at disproportional rates (Orfield, 2004).  Thus, this proposal provides a concrete example of implementing the critical conditions needed to enhance college opportunities for underrepresented youth as identified by UC ACCORD.  By providing a three-year qualitative account of a spoken word classroom, I will illustrate how the class fostered a safe learning environment, provided a rigorous academic curriculum and created a college-going culture.  In addition, I demonstrate how creating a student-centered curriculum that privileges “urban youth realities” allows teachers and students to critically analyze key issues affecting the lives of urban youth such as gangs, violence, immigration and education.  Moreover, this study discusses how alternative forms of literacies can enable urban youth to develop a multi-cultural college-going identity (Oakes, 2003).

Nicole Hidalgo
UC Santa Cruz/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: When Stepping to College is Stepping to Consciousness: Cultivating Transformational Resistance in an Urban High School Classroom

Abstract: This presentation explores the curricular and pedagogical processes involved in cultivating transformative forms of youth resistance in an urban high school classroom, the interweaving influences in the students' lives, and the impacts of transformative classroom practices on youth's academic achievement, college going, and social justice sensibilities. I draw from a two-year critical ethnography of the East Oakland Step to College program (STC), which prepares underserved African American and Latina/o youth to enroll in four-year universities, and nurtures students' motivations to foment positive social change. Findings revealed that the STC students were highly engaged and self-disciplined in STC class, and resisted inequities in transformative ways such as engaging in public intelligence, protest marches, public testimonies, and critical college going. Using the analytical frameworks of college access, youth resistance, and critical, culturally relelvant pedagogies, this presentation illuminates the complexities of youth resistance and the powerful role of classroom teachers as transformational mentors.

Maria Malagon
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: Trenches Under The Pipeline: The Educational Trajectories of Chicano Male Continuation High School Students

Abstract: This study examines the educational trajectories of 11 Chicano male high school students in a California continuation school. Chicana Feminist Epistemological and Latina/o Critical Race frameworks are utilized to reveal how Chicano male continuation students come to understand their experiences as they access, persist, and resist schooling institutions. Theories of reproduction and resistance additionally provide for a theoretical exploration of Chicano racialized masculinities in educational discourse and practice. Data is collected from participant observation at a continuation school site, along with 22 oral history interviews and one focus group interview. The research and policy goals of this dissertation seeks to 1) subvert dominant paradigms in education discourse that reproduces deficit knowledge about non-dominant communities, 2) move towards epistemological approaches that can examine the multiple and intersecting constructions of race, class, gender, sexuality and other forms of domination, and 3) offer policy recommendations that can help researchers and practioners improve the quality of instructional practices within remedial educational spaces.

Denise Pacheco
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: From Pedagogy to Art: The Role of the Teacher-Poet in Apprenticing Young Poets

Abstract: This dissertation uses qualitative methods to investigate the pedagogy, learning and student participation in a creative writing intervention. “The Writing Out Loud Project” introduced a class of fifth graders to college level texts, literary analysis, and poetry writing. Guided by Xicana feminism and critical pedagogy this study argues that poetry writing is useful for bringing institutional recognition to students’ articulation of voice.  By federal standards these students, urban English Learners, are in need of standardized curriculum and instruction.  This dissertation counters this assumption, arguing that poetry writing allows students to practice meaningful ways of using language to develop complex forms of thinking and voice.  Through the teaching of poetry writing as a cultural process as opposed to isolated skills, students were encouraged to take on the identity of a poet. This study contributes to an understanding of the teaching practices and curricula necessary for meeting the academic needs of urban students.

Shirin Vossoughi
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: Stretching Towards the Possible: A Qualitative Case Study of Literacy and Learning in the Migrant Program

Abstract: Migrant students comprise one of the most educationally underserved populations in the United States. In the Migrant Program (MSLI), an educational intervention designed to provide a rigorous college preparatory curriculum, high school age migrant students became successful participants in university level reading, writing and social analysis, moving on to matriculate in four year institutions in striking numbers. Through a qualitative case study of one classroom for which I was the primary instructor, this dissertation draws on Freirean and Vygotskian traditions to analyze the specific pedagogical practices that constitute MSLI as an effective intervention. Through micro-ethnographic analysis of classroom discourse and students' expanding participation in university level literacy practices, I look closely at the role of mediation in literacy learning, arguing for the developmental affordances of a deeply collective model of apprenticeship. This study contributes to a growing set of scholarly-pedagogical efforts aimed at transforming literacy education for non-dominant students.

Lindsey Malcom, Ph.D.
UC Riverside/education

Faculty Seed Grant Fellow, 2009

Title: Moving Beyond Cultural Deficit Models to Understand the Formulation of College Financing Strategies among Latina/o Students: A Resource Mapping Approach

Abstract: This pilot study examines the ways in which social networks, access to information, and community, familial, and high school institutional contexts influence the formulation of college financing strategies for Latina/o students. The study builds upon the work of previous scholars who have identified these factors as vital to Latina/o students decisions about college and who have characterized college decision-making as a collaborative, socially mediated process. The study provides a qualitiative account of the experiences of rising Latina/o high school seniors as they formulate college financing strategies continuing until their college matriculation. Using network analysis, the project contributes to our understanding of the manner in which the nature and intensity of relations to various resources influence the perceptions, knowledge, and beliefs about financial aid of Latina/o students and the resulting development and implementation of college financing strategies. Preliminary results suggest that while all students in the sample were concerned about college costs and altered their college decision making based on these concerns, students with more extensive resource networks with a diverse range of ties (i.e., ties to institutional agents, ties to information sources on the internet, ties to pre-college programming, ties to peers, ties to college-attending siblings) applied to more postsecondary institutions and perceived that they had a broader range of college opportunities than those with limited resource networks with ties of one or two types (e.g., only ties to family; only ties to peers).

2008

Arshad Ali
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: The ‘Other’ at Home: The Construction of the Label ‘Muslim’ as an Emergent Racial Signifier

Abstract: Through this study I ask how this racialization process of Muslim college students in Southern California is occurring. I will engage this research through a mixed methods study employing analysis of two preexisting data sets and the collection of interview and focus group data from Muslim college students on three campuses in Southern California. To explore the questions within my study I utilize a theoretical approach drawing from multiple traditions to construct a more complex picture of Muslim college students. I utilize aspects of socio-cultural learning theory, critical race theories, post-colonialism and critical pedagogies. This project addresses questions including: how do Muslim college students characterize the U.S. culture’s representations of the ‘Muslim’ in the post-9/11 period; how do Muslim college students construct their own racial/racialized identities, and how are these racialized characterizations and identities reflected in the daily lives of Muslim college students?

Gabino Arredondo
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: A Social Justice High School: The Construction and Socialization of a College Going Culture

Abstract: With many urban schools that primarily serve diverse students being designated as low performing it becomes paramount to examine how the day-to-day conditions at these schools impact minority students’ preparedness, eligibility, and competitiveness for college admission. The proposed dissertation reports on a three and a half year ethnographic study that follows the establishment and eventual closure of one such small school, Panther High School, in Oakland, CA. The study focuses on the creation, co-construction, and socialization of college going identities among Latina/o and African American students. The dissertation examines these processes primarily by looking at language use, literacy practices, and critical discourses of academic achievement in the lived experiences of these students in their school and neighborhood communities. A close examination of these processes offers insight to researchers, educators, policy makers, and community organizers on the critical conditions and transitions of these underrepresented youth in pursuing a higher education.

Gabriel Baca
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Education Organizing, Policy Advocacy and the Accountability Gap: How Activist Organizations Leverage Power for Advancing Equity-Focused Education Policy for English Learners in a Post-Proposition 227 Era

Abstract: Education organizing has increasingly been seen as a significant alternative, given the failure of traditional educational reform strategies, to realize more equitable schooling for students learning English in under-resourced communities. Dozens of organizing groups have entered the field of education reform in the last decade, helping to change the landscape of education politics in powerful ways. In the Southwest, many of these groups hope to remedy the deplorable state of education for English learners, as evidenced by high drop-out rates and poor test scores, and in light of the onerous effects of an accountability system that positions English as the superior and legitimate language to be learned in school. This activism around education has been examined very infrequently either by scholars in education or by scholars of social movements. Moreover, almost nothing is known about how these groups grapple with, make sense of, and ultimately take action around English learner issues. This study begins to fill this gap. Using a blended conceptual framework which draws from studies of equity reform in education, scholarship on education organizing and social movement theory, and using a comparative case study design, this study documents how activist groups use a variety of tools, some grounded in knowledge production and others grounded in political interaction, to advocate for English learners and hold the system accountable for their learning opportunities and outcomes. Specifically, the study examines how four different activist organizations leverage power through social movement activism for equity-focused education policy for English learners. By situating the study within the context of NCLB implementation in California, attention can be given to the complex processes through which education organizing, policy advocacy and restrictive language policies intersect.

Dafney Blanca Dabach
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Teachers as a Context of Reception for Immigrant Language Minority Youth: Adaptations in 'Sheltered' and 'Mainstream' Classrooms

Abstract: This dissertation investigates how secondary teachers of immigrant students who are not fluent in English understand and enacts their practice within a system of specialized instruction called “sheltered instruction” (or SDAIE). In this qualitative study, 20 teachers of immigrant language learners who teach both sheltered and mainstream courses in social studies, math and science are being interviewed in order to determine how their curriculum and instruction vary in each. This design is unique as it follows teachers across different instructional contexts to capture their potential adaptations. Two-four case study teachers will be selected for observations and additional interviews in order to understand how explanatory variables (institutional constraints, teacher disposition, and teacher repertoire) map out in teachers’ classrooms. Understanding the process by which teachers respond and adapt to their immigrant language learners is of critical importance with direct links to the critical conditions necessary for providing college opportunities for underrepresented students.

Lindsay Huber Perez
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Suenos Indocumentados: The Educational Experiences of Undocumented Chicana College Students at a Public California Research University

Abstract: Utilizing a LatCrit framework, this study seeks to understand how the critical issues of race, immigration status, gender, and class mediate the educational trajectories of undocumented Chicana students at a four-year public research university. This study also identified the critical conditions they have utilized to navigate higher education. A total of 40 interviews will be conducted with undocumented and U.S. born Chicana students to explore how the college experiences of undocumented and U.S. born students vary. In addition, I will conduct 2 focus groups where these experiences will be further discussed and data collaboration will take place. I provide policy recommendations for institutions of higher education, as well as state and federal legislation that will create greater educational opportunity for this student population.

Season Mussey
UC San Diego/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Negotiating Identities: Student Perspectives and Strategies for Striving in and Surviving the Undergraduate STEM Experience

Abstract: Females and minority students are underrepresented in STEM careers and majors. Using a mixed methods design, this study aims to investigate and understand what strategies and behaviors first generation, low income, underrepresented minority (URM) females who graduated from an innovative college preparatory high school use to achieve success within the context of the university science culture and to understand how they perceive their academic and science identity formation within the context of a large public university. The main research questions are: In what ways does completion of a rigorous, personalized high school program with the critical conditions for enhancing college opportunities for minorities influence both the academic and social-cultural college science experiences for first generation, low income, minority students at large public universities? How are students developing their multi-cultural college-going academic identities in the context of university science classes and cultures?

Vanessa Ochoa
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: A Case Study Portrait of an Effective High School Counseling Program and its Impact on Latina/o Student Academic Preparation and the College Choice Process

Abstract: Research highlights that Latina/o high school student’s experience difficulty in their attempts to enter post-secondary education. In certain instances, Latina/o students attend high schools where they do not receive appropriate counseling to assist in their academic preparation and college choice process. This dissertation project entitled: A Case Study Portrait of an Effective High School Counseling Program and its Impact on Latina/o Student Academic Preparation and the College Choice Process paints a portrait of two Counselors of Color and their tactics and motivation for assuring that Latina/o high school students are well informed in the college-choice process. Moreover, the counselor’s ability to motivate, energize and engage their Latina/o students allows them to promote a strong college-going attitude for their students. Thus, this project provides depth to an issue that is rarely discussed in educational research: Latina/o students, their college choice process and the role of effective high school Counselor of Color.

Rema Reynolds
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Holla If You Hear Me; Giving Voice to Those We’ve Missed: A Qualitative Examination of Black Middle Class Parent Engagement in Public Secondary Schools

Abstract: In the United States, persistent educational inequities have resulted in dramatic contrasts in both economic and social opportunities for students of color in the public school system. Researchers find that parent involvement is associated with a greater likelihood of aspiring to attend college and actually enrolling, as well as with higher grades, higher eighth grade mathematics and reading achievement, lower rates of behavioral problems, and lower likelihood of high school dropout and truancy. Merging a Critical Race Theory Framework with The Ecologies of Parent Engagement, I explore notions of agency, authorship, and space as they relate to parent engagement, seek to discover parents’ beliefs about their engagement, and develop a holistic picture of parent-school relationships. How do race and class intersect to influence parent engagement? Counter storytelling through interviews and a focus group as a qualitative methodological tool allows parents’ lived experiences to be the central focus of this study.

Veronica Velez
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2008

Dissertation: Del Coraje a la Esperanza (From Rage to Hope): Transformation, Empowerment, and Collective Agency Among Latina/o Immigrant Parents

Abstract: This qualitative case study seeks to understand how members of ALIANZA, a Latina/o immigrant parent group, come to see themselves as agents of change and organize collectively as a result. Utilizing a LatCrit framework, this study contends that educational research erroneously characterizes Latina/o parents as disinvested in the education of their children. A more critical analysis reveals that these characterizations operate from normalized standards of what it means to be a "good" parent that fail to acknowledge the participation of Latina/o parents as well as the barriers they face within schools. Moreover, a LatCrit analysis reveals that traditional notions of civic engagement render invisible the political efforts of non-citizens, like those in ALIANZA. This study argues that ALIANZA could inform research and practice about how to build school-community partnerships in Latina/o communities, as well as how parent involvement and civic engagement intersect in campaigns for social justice on behalf of Latina/o immigrant parents. To examine notions of consciousness and collective action, this study uses a Freirean pedagogical perspective that broadly guides its main inquiry. Data from this study are collected from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and organizational archives.

2007

Lauren Anderson
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: Opportunities to Teach, Grow and Transform: Exploring the Relationship Among School Conditions, Teachers’ Social Networks, and Teachers’ Careers

Abstract: High school reform and teacher development/retention are two pressing issues in urban education. This study explores the relationship among school conditions, teachers’ social networks, and teacher development/retention in the context of a secondary reform—the creation of small, autonomous high schools—that is part of both a community-backed effort to improve educational opportunities for local, predominantly Latino students and a national trend among urban school districts. The mixed methods research design includes a social network survey administered to roughly 100 teachers at the large, comprehensive urban high school undergoing reform and longitudinal case studies that chronicle four of those teachers’ experiences as they move across school contexts and work to expand opportunities to teach and learn for themselves and their students. Thus, this study seeks to yield findings that will inform ongoing reform efforts and extend existing research concerning the role of social relations in supporting teacher development/retention and urban high school reform. 

Grace Chiu
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: Peer Support Networks Among Urban Youth in Community Technology Centers

Abstract: Most education research on social capital has either focused on the social resources adults and teachers bring into schools, or the negative peer networks—namely gangs—among youth living in poor, urban conditions. Little attention has been paid on positive peer networks that form outside schools in the context of informal learning settings. The focus of my research is to investigate what a peer social network is: whether they exist among urban youth in informal learning environments, the attributes of such networks, and the role different aspects of a sociocultural constructionist learning model potentially plays in the development of these networks. Drawing from social capital, social network, and sociocultural constructionist theories, I have collected quantified network survey data, participant observations, and in-depth case studies from after-school, Community Technology Centers. Through this work, I hope to shed further light on the study of after-school pedagogy and its connection to the building and nurturing of college-bound urban youth.

Alice Ho
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: Adjustment and Achievement of Ethnically Diverse, Urban Adolescents across the Transition to High School

Abstract: Existing transition research indicates that academic achievement and engagement significantly decline as students move from middle school to high school. Little is known, however, about why the decline occurs, the role of school structure, and whether the pattern might be different for particular ethnic groups. With an ethnically-diverse, urban sample, this study examines (1) ethnic identity development, perceptions of educational barriers and school interracial climate, and academic achievement and engagement longitudinally across the critical transition to high school, (2) the effects of school context, and (3) how different patterns of student experiences predict distal educational outcomes such as academic achievement and engagement at the end of 10th grade. Utilizing piecewise growth modeling and piecewise growth mixture modeling, I will analyze individual student change across the transition from middle to high school, identify groups of students with similar experiences in each phase, and use these groups to predict distal academic outcomes.

Martha A. Rivas
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: Navegando Contra La Corriente: Understanding the Chicana Transfer Experience from Community College to the Doctorate

Abstract: Chicana/o students who pursue a postsecondary education are often concentrated at the community college segment. Although most of these students aspire to transfer into four-year institutions, their consistently low transfer rates indicate the lack of access to transfer opportunities. However, the U.S. Chicana/o doctorate production rates between 1990 and 2000 indicate that one out of four doctorate recipients first attended a community college (Solorzano, Rivas, & Velez, 2005). Nonetheless, the experiences of community college transfer students through every segment of postsecondary education continue to be underresearched. Using critical race theory and Chicana feminist epistemology, this retrospective study subscribes to Testimonios as the primary qualitative method. Ten Chicana students in their second or third year of doctoral training at UCLA participated in a 3-part series of Testimonios. A fourth meeting, focus group, served as the “member check” data analysis of the findings. This study seeks to develop a theory and initiate a discussion on how the role of racism, sexism, and other forms of subordinations may affect the Chicana transfer experience at every segment of postsecondary education.

Michelle Samura
UC Santa Barbara/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: Architecture of Diversity: Dilemmas of Race and Space for Asian American Students in Higher Education

Abstract: Significant increases in Asian American college enrollment have created a veil of success often concealing a variety of tensions and dilemmas that many Asian American college students wrestle with—dilemmas that stem from their achievement, on the one hand, and their inability to escape processes of racialization on the other. By highlighting the multiple salience of higher education for Asian Americans, this study aims to examine how Asian American students work to understand, negotiate, and contest their racial identities given their fluctuating status within the larger US racial system. Bringing together three distinct and usually separate perspectives to frame this project—symbolic interactionism, group position model, and spatial analysis—this study gathers data from a large public university in the form of in-depth interviews, surveys, ethnographic observations, and cognitive mapping in order to: 1) examine how Asian Americans college students navigate through physical and social spaces; and 2) explore what it means to be Asian American in spaces where inclusion and mobility, while highly sought after, remain problematic.

Elizabeth Vazquez
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2007

Dissertation: We’re Back: The Emerging Importance of Suspension, Expulsion and Student Reentry

This study looks at how low-income students of color make a critical transition back into the learning environment and the types of critical conditions necessary to facilitate successful student reentry. Existing research on school discipline provides compelling information about the overrepresentation of low-income students of color in unprecedented suspension and expulsion rates. More recently, scholars have pointed to discipline incidents as a potential factor in the dropping out process. Learning and understanding how students make sense of removal from school, why they return to school and what the reentry process means to them is at the heart of this study. While these questions remain understudied and often overlooked, they are telling of a crisis that plagues school systems nationwide. Students’ interpretations can shed light on the complexity of expulsion and suspension and possible interventions that might aid such students’ reentry into schooling and prevent them from dropping out in the future.

Eduardo Mosqueda, Ph.D., and Leticia Oseguera, Ph.D.
UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine/education

Junior Faculty Fellows, 2007

Title: Why Do Asian American Students Do Better in School?: Understanding the Roots of Social Capital Among Black, Mexican American, Vietnamese American, and White High School Youth

This study develops a more comprehensive understanding of Asian American success by exploring the roots of social capital to help explain differences in academic school performance among Vietnamese, Black, Mexican, and White high school youth. We quantitatively investigate the study habits of students in the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS):88 database. Using the quantitative findings as a guide, we will then generate an interview protocol to undertake a pilot qualitative study of high school students to delineate relationships between access to social capital networks and school achievement. This work suggests a closer examination of the association between parental socioeconomic status, gender, familial social capital (e.g., parental expectations), and within- and between- school social capital (e.g., positive relationships in schools) as possible explanations for the relative success of Vietnamese high school students. This research will inform policy and practice in identifying educational reform efforts to promote academic success among all students.

2006

Jevon Hunter
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2006

Dissertation: The Social Organization of Academic Literacy Within and Across Middle School Contexts

Abstract: This dissertation study employs a sociocultural theoretical framework and an interpretative case study approach to understand how MESA, a University of California sponsored academic enrichment program, fosters academic literacy. A sample of ten seventh grade students and their teacher are followed in two settings, MESA and a language arts classroom, to examine the features that are associated with and contribute to the social organization of academic literacy learning within and across multiple contexts. Of central importance to this research is how the various learning contexts, and the features within, mediate the acquisition of academic discourses and literacies.

Jolena James-Szanton
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2006

Dissertation: Examining the Social Networks of High-Achieving Black Adolescents

Abstract: Educators debate how Black students’ social networks and ethnic values relate to their academic performance. The literature often focuses on low-achieving students; however, high-achieving Black students’ social welfare is often overlooked in this debate. The tendency to overlook this group may result from educators’ assumptions that since high-achieving Black students do not have academic dilemmas, they must not have social ones. This dissertation will examine (a) where achieving Black students are located in a school’s social network, (b) what factors characterize achieving Black students’ friendships, and (c) how location in their school’s network and the characterization of their friends impacts achieving Black students levels of depression, loneliness, and self-worth. Employing social network methodology and hierarchical linear modeling, the research analyzes the relationships among the values and attitudes of high-achieving Black students their friends and determines what factors of the achieving students’ networks influence their psychosocial adjustment.

Eva Ritter
UC Riverside/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2006

Dissertation: Enlisting Minority Students into Science Research: Federal Policy, Science Curriculum, and Minority Underrepresentation in the Sciences

Abstract: Despite three decades of federal efforts to equalize ethnic/racial representation in the sciences, college enrollment and graduation statistics show that, other than Asian Americans, all major minority groups continue to be severely underrepresented in science and science education. Few studies illuminate why these efforts have not significantly increased representation of minority groups. This dissertation seeks to address one facet of this knowledge gap. Through an ethnographic case study, this research examines the intended and unintended consequences of a major federal program designed to facilitate underrepresented minority students’ transition from undergraduate to graduate school in order for them to become research scientists. In particular, this dissertation will investigate: the role of federal minority programs in the undergraduate science context; the life and conditions for underrepresented minority students in college science; and, the policy implications of recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority students in the sciences.

Veronica Santelices
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2006

Dissertation: Differential Item Functioning in the SAT Reasoning Test

This research explores allegations of unfair SAT results for African American and other minority students, which would inaccurately limit college opportunities for disadvantaged students. My dissertation research revolves around the psychometric definition of unfair treatment (differential item functioning or DIF) and its effects on the SAT results for African American and Hispanic students. DIF is investigated using two different methodological approaches: a classical test theory approach and an item response theory approach. This research also helps to judge the merits of an alternative measure of academic preparation for minority students based on some of the more difficult SAT questions. The alternative measure will be judged by its capacity to predict minorities’ performance in college and its predictive capacity analyzed in the context of other measures traditionally used for this purpose.

Jessica Singer
UC Santa Barbara/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2006

Dissertation: Literacy Sponsorship and First Generation Latino College Writers

Abstract: There is great need for educators and researchers to understand the kinds of classroom experiences that Latino students encounter in K-College that reinforce their literacy growth. This dissertation is a retrospective interview study of ten Latino college students and the factors that led their college professors to judge them as outstanding writers. The participants have made it past various social and academic barriers to attend and succeed in a prestigious four-year university. All of the students come from low-income families with little or no formal education in high poverty communities, and spoke no English at the time of entrance to school. This research will contribute to the diversity of literacy studies by providing concrete examples of the interactions and processes that mentors use to assist Latino students develop superior writing skills. Findings yielded from this dissertation may have significant implications for writing instruction and interventions for Latino students in K-College classrooms.

Amy Fann, Ph.D.
UCLA/education

Postdoctoral Fellow, 2006

Title: Postsecondary Access and the Role of Higher Education in California Tribal Sovereignty and Nation Building

American Indian nations cautiously look to colleges and universities to prepare tribal citizens for participation in nation building efforts that preserve the political and cultural self-determination of their communities. Nonetheless, American Indian students have the lowest college admission and retention rates in the nation. After decades of national, state and institutional level initiatives to increase access to higher education for historically underrepresented students, the college pipeline for American Indians is largely unaddressed. As a result, little is known and even less is understood about the critical issues, conditions and college transitions of American Indian students. This study explores American Indian college access within the context of Native nations’ sovereignty, social and economic development, including taking stock of what tribes report as their goals for higher education, and tribal perceptions of obstacles to and sources of tension around college going.

2005

Maria Ledesma
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2005

Dissertation: Higher Education as a Political Act: Waging the Battle Against Fictive Meritocracy

About: Policy making in K-20 is often influenced by factors outside the realm of education. The language employed in public discourse to frame issues of educational opportunity also influences how policy is crafted and implemented. This fact coupled with ongoing debates around who deserves to gain entry into selective institutions of higher education, as well as enduring concerns about the use of race-conscious admissions policies have made college access and admissions a political act for many Students of Color. As more students apply for graduate and undergraduate admittance, race-conscious admissions practices aimed at equalizing the historic under-representation of Students of Color in higher education are increasingly scrutinized and attacked. The purpose of this dissertation then is to explore how critics and supporters of race-conscious admissions policies in the University of Michigan’s 2003 affirmative action cases addressed, or failed to address, prevailing patterns of schooling inequality and disparities in access to higher education and what this means for California and the nation.

Anysia Mayer
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2005

Dissertation: Interrupting social reproduction: An International Baccalaureate program in a diverse urban high school

About: My dissertation research will examine the development and outcomes of a high quality academic program, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB), in two contrasting schools.  One school serves a community that is relatively disadvantaged according to a wide range of social and economic indicators. The other school serves a community at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum. This study seeks to determine if an IB program established in a low performing school provide the same kinds of educational opportunities to students as an IB program in a high performing school. And to identify the relative importance of both SES and program design in shaping the educational futures of diverse students. Our understanding of these issues bear directly on one of the most critical social and educational dilemmas of our times: educational inequality, manifested in this case in college-going rates.

Michelle Renee
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2005

Dissertation: Using Research to Make a Difference: How community organizations use research as a tool for advancing equity-focused education policy

About: The increasing activism of grassroots organizations representing low-income communities and communities of color in education reform has been little studied, either by education researchers or sociologists of social movements.  Yet, this activism is significant, given the failure of traditional educational reform strategies to realize more equitable schooling.  This study examines one aspect of this new form of change:  how equity-focused organizations define, value, access and use research in their efforts to advance educational equity. As educational discourses become increasingly "scientific," community organizations and social movements must rely on research knowledge to advance equity agendas.  Using mixed methods, I examine through the lenses of social movement theory, studies of equity reform in education, and research utilization in policymaking, how organizations use research, like the kind of research produced by ACCORD scholars, to positively impact critical equity issues, critical college going conditions and critical transitions in the lives of underrepresented students.

Erica K. Yamamura
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2005

Dissertation: Moving from College Access to Educational Equity: Peer Social Capital in a University Outreach Program

About: With continuing challenges in access to higher education for urban minority students, looking in-depth at outreach programs is imperative in this time of fiscal uncertainty in California. Increased accountability to policymakers with decreased funding necessitates identifying outreach outcomes that not only facilitate college-going but also translate into college success. This study aims to uncover the long-term effects of a university outreach program by linking its effectiveness from acceptance to college alone (college access) to adjustment and persistence in the college years (college equity).  Building on a pilot study that identified peer social capital as a salient resource in students’ college application processes, this study will continue to examine the influence of outreach peers on students’ transition to college and first-year experience. Informed by theories of social capital and critical race theory, interviews with outreach students and document analyses of the outreach program will be conducted.

Gigi Gomez, Ph.D.
UCLA/education

Postdoctoral Fellow, 2005

Title: Clearing a Path to College: Examining How the Home and School Cultures Influence the College Choices of Mien American Students.

The Mien Americans are a largely unknown population when compared to other Southeast Asians and Asian Pacific Islander Americans. Arriving to the United States as war refugees of war in the 1970s, the adjustment and social problems of Mien American refugee adults and their American born children are typically unidentified, understudied, and unaddressed. Experiencing low educational attainment rates, few Mien Americans have gone to college. But because of their small numbers, the model minority image, and the practice of aggregating all Asian ethnic sub-groups, the educational struggles of the Mien Americans go undetected.

Extending my dissertation’s college-choice study on Mien American high school students, I plan to return to the same California public high school and examine how Mien refugee parents, teachers, and counselors influence the college choices of Mien students. Working with Dr. Margaret Gibson and her theory of accommodation without assimilation, I seek to understand the tensions and barriers as well as the successful strategies that the parents, teachers, and counselors impose on the Mien college-going students. Utilizing qualitative methods, the purpose of this study is not only to examine how parents and school staff members can work together to bolster the weak educational pipeline of the Mien students, but also to broaden the college access knowledge for other similar struggling students through programs, policy, and research.

George Bunch, Ph.D.
UC Santa Cruz/education

Faculty Seed Grant Fellow, 2005

Title: English Learners, Language Policy, and Transitions to Higher Education

The seed grant will be used to design a larger proposal investigating how institutional conceptions of language proficiency in general and "academic language" in particular impact the experiences of English learners as they attempt transitions from high school to higher education. The larger proposal will investigate the numerous and often conflicting language assessments and other language-related policies that California students face as they attempt to graduate from high school and attempt to access community colleges. The seed grant will be used to review relevant literature, investigate potential focal institutions for the larger study, and develop instruments for analyzing language assessments. The ultimate goal is to contribute to an understanding of the ways that language assessments and other language policies facilitate or hinder transitions to higher education by English learners, knowledge that can be used to work toward more equitable access to higher education for students from language minority backgrounds.

2003

Collete Cann
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2003

Dissertation: How Are Effective Mathematics Teachers Allocated to High School Students in an Urban School District?

Abstract: This research seeks to understand the social, political, and personal factors that influence the movement of mathematics teachers in and out of urban high school classrooms.  This includes the entry, distribution and exit of mathematics teachers into, across and out of various levels of mathematics courses.   Research has documented the importance of effective teachers in increasing students’ access to a quality education and further academic opportunities. Therefore, this study also explores how district, school, department and teacher conceptions of “effective teaching” intersect with teacher requests, department needs and district budget limitations to influence the distribution of this valued resource across student groups.

Eileen Lai Horng
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2003

Dissertation: What Makes Schools “Hard-to-Staff”?  Examining Teachers’ Choices

Abstract: Low-performing, low-income students of color are most likely to attend schools that have difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified teachers.  Educational policymakers and researchers have hypothesized that raising teacher salaries or improving working conditions would attract qualified teachers to hard-to-staff schools. This study will explore the these and other job features that could encourage more qualified teachers to teach at hard-to-staff schools.   The findings will provide new data to policymakers about the combination of job features that are useful in recruiting and retaining teachers in low performing schools.

Korina M. Jocson
UC Berkeley/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2003

Dissertation: Youth Poetry as a Tool for Promoting Literacy, Social and Academic Development

Abstract: This study examines the ways one intervention program, Poetry for the People (P4P), influences the literacy learning processes of high school youth. This study explores the impact of the program on literacy practices and learning processes associated with poetry. In addition, the study seeks to understand the ways that these experiences have contributed to the academic and social identities of students in high school and beyond. Effective strategies for teaching and learning as well as developing a college-going school culture are assessed with respect to this intervention model.

Rebecca Joseph
UCLA/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2003

Dissertation: How First Grade Teachers Utilize Prescriptive Reading Curricula

Abstract: California is currently at the forefront of a national trend in mandating prescriptive early reading curricula.  These curricula exclude a focus on teaching methods and instead focus exclusively on  the use of phonics-centered direct instruction.  This approach is inconsistent with research that finds that effective literacy instruction requires multiple strategies that are tailored to the specific needs of students, particularly those with varying language and cultural backgrounds.  This study investigates how six effective California urban first grade teachers make sense of and respond to these curricula-- exploring the beliefs and ideologies, tangible tools, literacy experiences, and teaching practices that shape their overall teaching identity.

Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Ph.D.
UC Berkeley/education

Faculty Augmentation Grant Fellow, 2003

Title: Landscapes of Educational Opportunity: Understanding the Full Context of Schooling

Focusing on four diverse San Francisco neighborhoods, this study employs GIS maps to reveal the distribution of educational opportunities and constraints for local youth. This work looks at the wider contexts of youth’s lives, and includes as school opportunity indicators factors such as housing, faith-based and community institutions, and environmental hazards. By expanding the group of indicators used to measure educational opportunities, this study will offer insights into how education policy fits into other state policies areas.