2020 Funding Awardees
Graduate Student Fellowships
Five doctoral students were awarded fellowships to complete a project using UC PromISE survey data. They will work closely with UC PromISE faculty mentors to develop their project, conduct analysis, and submit a manuscript for publication.
A Latent Profile Analysis of Undocumented College Students and Students of Mixed-Status Families’ Advocacy Communication Strategies
Monica Cornejo (Communication, UC Santa Barbara)
UC PromISE Mentors: Dr. Cecilia Ayón (Public Policy, UC Riverside) and Dr. Laura Enriquez (Chicano/Latino Studies, UC Irvine)
It’s About Family: An Analysis of Positive Spillover Effects of Documented Family Members on the Mental Health of Undocumented and Documented College Students
Josefina Flores Morales (Sociology, UC Los Angeles)
UC PromISE Mentors: Dr. Laura Enriquez (Chicano/Latino Studies, UC Irvine) and Dr. Cecilia Ayón (Public Policy, UC Riverside)
The Influence of Family Immigration Status and Political Engagement on the Mental Health of College Students
Erin Manalo-Pedro (Community Health Sciences, UC Los Angeles)
UC PromISE Mentors: Dr. Jennifer Nájera (Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside) and Dr. Annie Ro (Public Health, UC Irvine)
Surviving and Thriving: Exploring Flourishing in CSU and UC Undocumented College Students
Martha Morales Hernandez (Sociology, UC Irvine)
UC PromISE Mentors: Dr. Zulema Valdez (Sociology, UC Merced) and Dr. Cecilia Ayón (Public Policy, UC Riverside)
Undocumented Undergraduate Experience: The Associations with Basic Needs, Perceived Health, and Academic Performance
Frank Ortiz (Public Health, UC Merced)
UC PromISE Mentor: Dr. Annie Ro (Public Health, UC Irvine) and Dr. Zulema Valdez (Sociology, UC Merced)
Faculty Grants
Three UC faculty-led projects were awarded funding to support policy-relevant research on undocumented and immigrant-origin students.
1. We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice
Steve McKay (Associate Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz), Leslie Lopez (Lecturer, Oaks College, UC Santa Cruz), Karina Ruiz (Ph.D. Student, Latin American and Latino Studies, UC Santa Cruz), and Gabriela Sanchez Ramirez (Community Impact Coordinator, Jovenes SANOS Youth Program, United Way of Santa Cruz County)
We Belong is a Community Initiated Student Engaged Research (CISER) project designed to generate new, actionable knowledge on the experiences of students and immigrant families of mixed legal status in Santa Cruz County and help articulate a county-wide action agenda for inclusivity and justice. The CISER project aims to strengthen a county-wide coalition providing social services to immigrant families and elevate immigrant voices in local policy debates, while simultaneously training and mentoring first-generation undergraduate researchers (many of whom are members of mixed-status families). We seek funding for the third year (January 2021 – December 2021) of a three-year project involving faculty, staff, graduate students, 80 undergraduates and 8 community organizations. Funds will be used to support our graduate researcher and local students from mixed status families who work directly with our community partner, as well as to develop multiple platforms to share our research results in local public fora. Our goals are to strengthen existing networks on and off campus, and facilitate better research (beyond the documented/undocumented binary) that is democratically created and informs policies designed to support communities in which students and immigrant families belong and can thrive.
2. Nested Contexts of Reception and the Educational Incorporation of Undocumented Students in the University of California and California State University Systems
Tanya Golash-Boza (Professor of Sociology, UC Merced), Whitney Laster Pirtle (Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Merced), Zulema Valdez (Professor of Sociology, UC Merced), Melissa Quesada (Ph.D. Student in Sociology, UC Merced), and Maria Escobar (Ph.D. Student in Sociology, UC Merced)
This study draws from the UC PromISE survey data to investigate how “nested contexts of reception” shape the educational incorporation of undocumented students on the University of California and California State University systems, as measured by sense of belonging and academic achievement. We argue that undocumented students in the UC and CSU systems encounter distinct contexts of reception at the local, state, and federal levels that shape their educational incorporation. By considering nested contexts, we reveal how local, state, and federal policies and societal reception combine to help or hinder undocumented students’ success in higher education. Findings will contribute to new insights in sociology of education literature and inform policy recommendations to improved equity and access among one of California’s most vulnerable student populations.
3. Exploring the Relationships among Immigration Policies, Immigration Enforcement Activities, and Student Educational Outcomes and Social-emotional Wellbeing Under Different Immigration Policy Regimes
Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj (Associate Professor of Education, UC Santa Barbara)
This project leverages student-level data from two separate datasets to explore the relationships among immigration policies, immigration enforcement activities, and student educational outcomes and social-emotional wellbeing under different immigration policy regimes. The first set of analyses will retrospectively examine the associations between immigration policies enacted under three different U.S. presidents and student academic achievement, absenteeism, and social and emotional wellbeing. The study will draw on the Education Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), a nationally representative sample of children in public and private schools across the country followed from kindergarten through the eighth grade, to explore how these relationships vary, if at all, based on student nativity (first-, second- or third generation immigrant or higher) between 1998 and 2016. The second analysis uses data from the California CORE school districts, eight of the largest school districts in California that serve over one million students in six counties. With data spanning the years 2014-2018, we will examine how changes in county-level deportation proceedings filed in immigration courts in California, published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), compared to changes in students’ math and English language arts achievement and absenteeism as well as student perception of school climate, supports for academic learning, sense of belonging, and school safety.