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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.

L. Esthela Bañuelos
UC Santa Cruz/sociology

Dissertation Fellow, 2009

Dissertation: (Re)Producing Difference: Academic Cultures and the Making of “Women of Color” Ph.D.s

Patricia Baquedano-Lopez
UC Berkeley/education

Fellow, 2001

Title: Language and Literacy Practices of Latinos across Community Settings

This ethnographic study looks at the language, literacy, and schooling practices of diverse immigrant Latino students outside their school settings. It examines how and whether these experiences match their academic experiences in school. Of specific interest will be Latino students who receive Sunday religious instruction in Spanish and English. These students’ progress will then be followed in their local public schools.

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.

Kevin Binning, Ph.D.
UCLA/psychology

Postdoctoral Fellow, 2008

Title: Undermining the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Student Performance: A Self-Affirmation Intervention

We propose a social psychological intervention designed to reduce the racial/ethnic educational achievement gap by weakening the influence of stereotype threat on academic performance. Stereotype threat is the fear that one's behavior (e.g., failing a test) will confirm an existing stereotype of a group with which one identifies, and it has been found to impair academic performance in the negatively stereotyped groups (e.g., African Americans, Latinos). Using a double-blind experiment in a mixed-ethnicity middle school, a self-affirmation manipulation will be administered in which experimental subjects think and write about values that are important to them. This simple exercise provides a psychological “safety-net” that makes the possibility of confirming negative stereotypes less stressful and thereby improves performance. My major contribution to the project is an examination of the role of subgroup respect (i.e., the feeling that one’s group is valued and appreciated) in moderating the effect. I predict that students high in subgroup respect will be less threatened whereas students low in subgroup respect will be more threatened, and more benefited by the intervention.

Heinrich Mintrop, Ph.D., and Gary Blasi
UC Berkeley/education and UCLA/law

Faculty Augmentation Grantee, 2002

Title: Improving Learning Conditions for Underrepresented Students Through A More Effective Accountability System for Low-performing Schools

A schooling policy trend, both nationally and in California, is to pursue high-stakes accountability through testing that identifies low-performing students and schools to receive special interventions and sanctions. One representative mechanism for addressing low performance is California’s Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP). The few research investigations into the nexus of accountability and programs to address deficiencies do not reveal salutary effects of current approaches. This study will look closely into the effects of accountability testing and its policy consequences in three California high schools serving low-income students of color; it will explore additional and alternate responses to addressing under-performance; and it will design and pilot accountability instruments and protocols that could do a better job of leveraging school and student performance.

Barbara Bolaños
UC Riverside/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2012

Does the apple ever fall from the tree? A qualitative study of college-going processes

Abstract: This study investigates how students from varying backgrounds transition from a local high school to colleges and how various in- and out-of-school factors (e.g., relationships, school programs and practices, economics) shape their college-going processes. Data from formal and informal interviews of students and school personnel, document collection, participant-observations in various contexts, and surveys of participating students are used in this qualitative case study to describe and analyze the college-going processes of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) students and their non-AVID, college-bound peers. A Bourdieuian theoretical framework is employed to provide a (re)productive analysis of how particular factors (e.g., students’ enrollment in high-track classes, relationships with individuals who share their knowledge of how to make students look competitive vis-à-vis other applicants, students’ access to financial assistance to pay college costs) shape these students’ college-going processes and result in either socially (re)productive or transformative processes and outcomes.

Lisceth Brazil-Cruz
UC Davis/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2013

Dissertation: From High School to College: Parental Practices of Latino First-Generation College Students

Abstract: Despite efforts of several Chicana/o-Latina/o researchers to document the experiences of parents in their children’s educational process, most mainstream higher education researchers have consistently overlooked the study of the engagement of Latino parents at home and school. Given the strong familial ties often attributed to Latina/o communities in literature, examining parental engagement is a viable avenue to address disparities in education and to increase high school graduation and college enrollment rates. This study focuses on understanding and identifying the ways Latino parents participate in the last two years of high school and the first two years in college—a critical transition period in the education of first-generation college students. Based on a survey and in-depth iterative interviews with a purposive sub-sample while using Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth framework, this study seeks to understand the multiple ways Latino parents contribute to, participate in, and influence the college transition of their children.

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

Faculty Seed Grantee, 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.

Zoë Buck
UC Santa Cruz/education

Dissertation Fellow, 2012

Improving Access to Cosmology Content for Community College Students through Visualizations

Abstract: Cosmology content is often delivered through high tech animated simulations of our Universe called visualizations, which have low linguistic demand, but the potential to convey complex science content. The research I propose is designed to improve access to STEM content by studying learning mediated by these visualizations in a culturally and linguistically diverse community college classroom in California’s Central Valley. Using the lenses of sociocultural theory, and activity theory, I ask the following question: How are students in a diverse community college classroom using visualizations to mediate learning activity in small groups? I will conduct 25 semi-structured group interviews that include a collaborative drawing task. The resulting paper will contribute to the literature on designing learning tools to expand access, and directly inform the production of new tools through collaboration with a visualization design group at UCSC, and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

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

Faculty Seed Grantee, 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.
Click here to download the full proposal (PDF 87KB)