New research: Supporting marginalized students, from gang-affiliated youth to first-gen PhD candidates

Recent works by Pullias researchers tackle complex issues in education, from engaging gang-associated youth in schools by valuing the knowledge and skills they already possess to effectively mentoring PhD students from historically excluded and marginalized groups. In addition, a new working paper explores how students from racial minority groups are more likely to be placed in developmental math courses due to misalignments between what local high schools and community college consider “college-readiness.”

Read the abstracts for these papers and find out more about the projects that inspired them:

Huerta, A., & Rios-Aguilar, C. (2018). “Treat a cop like they are god: Exploring the relevance and utility of funds of gang knowledge among Latino male students.” Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918794766

Latinos represent 20% of the more than 1 million gang-associated youth in the United States. This study explores how gang associated Latino males use their funds of gang knowledge to navigate their urban schools and communities. The findings highlight how Latino males build relationships and exchange information with each other, endure and persevere during juvenile incarceration, how youth interact with law enforcement, and how youth advance their status in gangs. Educators must learn how to anticipate and support gang-associated Latino males to understand their social worlds they bring into schools.

Adrian Huerta is Provost Postdoctoral Scholar at the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education. A related recent paper of Huerta’s takes a holistic view to illuminate why vulnerable, high-risk youth may find refuge in gangs.

Melguizo, T., & Ngo, F. (2018). Why Do I Have to Repeat Algebra in College?: The Equity Cost of College Readiness Standards Misalignment (working paper). Los Angeles, CA: Pullias Center for Higher Education. [Download PDF]

This study explores what linked high school and community college transcript data can reveal about college readiness, college transitions, and inequity as high school graduates enroll in a local community college. We do so by leveraging access to a unique longitudinal dataset that tracks high school graduates from a large urban school district (LUSD) in California into and through a local community college district (LCCD). Focusing on math, we first use the dataset to offer an alignment-based framework and properly identify what we call inter-sector math misalignment (ISMM). First, we define ISMM as the proportion of students who, according to their high school transcripts and high school standards, were deemed “college ready” in math but were placed in developmental math when they transitioned to community college. Second, we explore whether the problem is more pronounced in campuses serving larger proportions of racially minoritized students, as a way to measure the equity costs of inter-sector math misalignment. Third, we use the linked dataset to explore whether high school measures may be useful for assessment and placement (A&P).

The results confirmed that significant proportions of students meeting the standards found themselves placed in developmental math education upon community college enrollment. Second, we demonstrated that ISMM was most severe in colleges serving larger proportions of minoritized students within the district. Third, we provided evidence that efficient multiple measures consist of either combining the results of a commercially-developed test with high school measures or using a diagnostic test.

Tatiana Melguizo is an associate professor at the USC Rossier School of Education and a faculty researcher at the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education. Explore more of her work on math placement policies in community colleges.

Federick Ngo is an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a research affiliate of the Pullias Center.

Posselt, J. (2018). Normalizing struggle: Dimensions of faculty support for doctoral students and implications for persistence and wellbeing. Journal of Higher Education, 89(6), 988-1013. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1449080

Faculty mentoring is a durable structure of doctoral education that facilitates intellectual growth, professional socialization, and progressive independence. We must more deeply understand, however, professors’ role in supporting doctoral students’ persistence and well-being, especially for students from groups who have been historically excluded and marginalized in their fields. This study strived for such understanding by evaluating findings of a phenomenology of faculty support in 4 high-diversity science, technology, engineering, and mathematics PhD programs at 2 research universities. I found that holistic faculty support has academic, psychosocial, and sociocultural dimensions, which faculty enact through specific behaviors. Students reported meaningful experiences with faculty that normalized struggle and failure by promoting a growth mind-set, validating student competence and potential, and opening discussion about racialized and gendered dynamics in academia. Collectively, these activities may prevent students from misconstruing the difficulty of graduate school with their ability to succeed. The article discusses how the findings may advance future higher education research and faculty professional development.

Julie Posselt is an assistant professor of higher education at the USC Rossier School of Education and a faculty researcher at the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education. Explore more of her research on equity in graduate education.