Sophia L. Ángeles’s research while affiliated with Pennsylvania State University and other places

This article uses the framework of legal violence to examine two educational labels attached to immigrant young people: newcomer and international student. We demonstrate how these labels function to obscure immigrant students' long‐standing relationships with the United States and result in missed opportunities to address how legal violence manifests in their lives. We invite scholars to better attend to how immigration policies are intertwined with schooling in the lives of immigrant young people.

Nationwide, almost one in two of full-time undergraduate students are employed. As such, this qualitative study investigates how 69 workers and learners, who were full-time students in a Los Angeles County public college or university and who had a job, leveraged the wealth of knowledge and resources embedded in their familial and peer networks to strategically manage the demands of school and work. Informed by the theoretical frameworks of funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth, we illustrate the diverse ways family and peers contributed to the success of workers and learners, including sharing college-specific knowledge, providing financial resources, facilitating access to employment opportunities, and providing job-specific knowledge. Findings shed light on the ways workers and learners strategically manage their worlds of school and work with support from their family and peers.

This research examines an educational project designed to closely link educational theory and practice in a community-engagement course. Students attended university seminars on sociocultural learning theory and ethnographic research. Then they worked with youth in an after-school program at an urban elementary school, writing field notes about their experiences. Field notes from 51 students, written across three quarters of instruction, were coded and analyzed qualitatively to investigate how these functioned as mediational devices to connect theory and practice and deepen students’ reflective stances. Results showed that students connected theory and practice in patterned ways, including starting with theory and connecting it to practice, using practice to deepen their understanding of theory, using theory to guide practice, and relating theory to life. The results highlight the importance of students’ animated, relational engagement with children at the after-school program and with each other for their willingness to engage with theory and their ways of understanding it. We draw implications for undergraduate education that seeks to bridge the theory-practice divide and to integrate better mind, heart, culture, and activity for transformative educational practice. Overall, the research contributes to debates about the role of theory in transformative action in the world.

This manuscript reports on an educational project that was designed to closely link educational theory and practice – or mind, heart, culture, and activity – in a community-engagement course on sociocultural learning theory and ethnographic research. We identify patterned ways in how students connected theory and practice as revealed through an analysis of field notes written across three quarters of instruction about their experiences in an after-school program at an urban elementary school. We draw implications for how undergraduate education can better foster students’ ability to engage with theory in support of transformative educational practice.

Purpose To illuminate the meaning of social relationships and health concerns as experienced by adolescents and young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A longitudinal qualitative study was conducted. Data reported from 172 adolescents and young people aged 12–24 years in five countries; Chile, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States collected from May 2020 to June 2021 were analysed via thematic analysis. Results Adolescents and young peoples’ experiences of social relationships and health concerns were described in seven themes: Family proximity, conflicts and frustration; difficulties and challenges related to limited living space; peer relations and maintaining friendship in times of social distancing; the importance of school as a place for interaction; vulnerability, emotional distress and uncertainty about the future; health concerns and sense of caring for others; and worries and concerns related to financial hardship. These reports show that the changes to everyday life that were introduced by public responses to the pandemic generated feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, and emotional distress, as well as increased sense of togetherness with family. Conclusions The everyday lives of adolescents and young people were restricted and affected more by the consequences of the pandemic than by the COVID-19 virus. These experiences had various impacts on well-being and mental health, where some individuals felt more exposed and vulnerable to emotional distress and loneliness than others. Family and peer relationships could be protective and support a sense of togetherness and belonging. Hence, social relationships are important to provide emotional support. Support for adolescents and young people should be tailored accordingly around social and emotional concerns, to encourage health and well-being.

In this “ethnographically-oriented” study, authors Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Lu Liu, and Sophia L. Ángeles examine the learning experiences expressed in the diaries of thirty-five families from diverse ethnicities/races, cultures, national origins, and social classes living in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring participants’ reflections on the learning they engaged in during this time and attending to what families prioritized as they reorganized their daily lives, the authors identify several common themes that emerged as participants figured out new ways of “reinventing themselves” during this unprecedented time by centering their cultural heritage, creativity, health, well-being, and connections to nature and to others and by using technology in creative and innovative ways. In offering the life lessons and richness of learning the families experienced as a counter to the current focus on pandemic learning loss, this study has implications for reimagining education in culturally sustaining ways.

The UCLA Labor Center used a combined participatory action research and research justice approach to study the challenges faced by workers and learners. Workers and learners are students who work while studying throughout their college careers. This research project has been carried out with the assistance of undergraduate students and college partners. We outline in detail the process we undertook to involve more than 500 students, beginning with the study design and ending with the dissemination of study results. We discuss the ways in which we, as researchers, were able to intentionally engage participants and honor their knowledge throughout the research process in order to advance policy reforms. This work entails of incorporating tenets of participatory action research (PAR) and Research Justice (RJ) to build the capacity of partners to produce knowledge. To this end, the work involves participants in every step of the knowledge lifecycle so that research across varying disciplines can impact education and employment policies that improve conditions for workers and learners in workplaces and universities and colleges.