Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles by Sophia Rodriguez
Educational Researcher, 2023
This brief reports findings from a survey with middle and high school youth in a midsize district... more This brief reports findings from a survey with middle and high school youth in a midsize district in the Mid-Atlantic. We find that belonging varies by race and ethnicity for young people. Overall, Black and Latino/x youth report lower belonging when compared to their White peers in a pro-diversity and inclusion district. Implications for policy and practice are addressed to improve sense of belonging for racially/ethnically and linguistically diverse youth.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, 2022
This three-year multi-site ethnographic study centers undocumented high school youth’s (N = 53) p... more This three-year multi-site ethnographic study centers undocumented high school youth’s (N = 53) perspectives on citizenship. Challenging legal conceptions of citizenship, the article advances the notion of racialized citizenship, which is grounded in youth experiences and argues that deeper racial meanings and hierarchies undergird categories of citizenship. By highlighting a nuanced context of reception in the U.S. Southeast, the authors document how youth are racialized in school-community contexts and their perceptions of citizenship. This ethnographic work humanizes undocumented student’s experiences and urges educators and policymakers to reject pervasive anti-immigrant discourses and practices.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Teachers College Record, 2022
Background/Context: Undocumented youth navigate unwelcoming and challenging federal, state, and l... more Background/Context: Undocumented youth navigate unwelcoming and challenging federal, state, and local contexts in the United States. Although previous research shows the significant impact of immigration policy and enforcement on educational outcomes and social-emotional well-being, this study sheds light on the multiple, intersecting policy and school contexts that hinder social and educational mobility. The article specifically addresses the processes of racialization, criminalization, and exclusion that structurally and symbolically decrease belonging and mobility.
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to elicit Latinx undocumented immigrant youth experiences in a southern state to contribute to evolving research on their experiences in K–12 schools in an understudied geographic location. Additionally, the purpose was to understand how undocumented youth: (1) talk about the policies that impact their daily lives, (2) perceive the organizational-level structures that exist to support them in school and community contexts, and (3) articulate a sense of belonging through their community and school interactions in relation to processes of racialization and its impact on immigration status. Conceptually, the paper utilizes a multilevel, interactional framework to show the impact of racialization and racialized othering of Latinx undocumented immigrants in policy, school and community, and relational contexts.
Research Design: The study is a three-year critical ethnography of two Title I high schools in a focal state in the U.S. South that maintains particularly restrictive policies toward immigrants. The ethnographic data included 800+ hours of fieldwork across the two school sites and semistructured interviews with 63 undocumented youth, as well as additional school and district personnel and community-based organization staff in the schools. Centering youth voices deepens our understanding of their status of illegality—specifically how their material lives are impacted by policy and institutional-level dynamics and constraints.
Conclusions/Recommendations: From these data, the author shows how youth voice through ethnographic evidence counteracts anti-immigrant policies and criminalization of Latinx immigrants; the youth critique policies and practices as they are entrenched in them. Despite the negative schooling and societal encounters, youth critique social policy and institutions that seek to limit their progress in society. The implications for policymakers, educators, and school-based personnel is significant because they are also in an anti-immigrant political and societal (and global) climate as migration remains a feature of our global world, more recently due to civil unrest, violence, natural disasters, and global poverty. Centering youth voices and experiences provides potential “policy windows” of opportunity to disrupt processes of racialization at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although legal status may impose certain limitations on undocumented students’ educational opportunities, their educational trajectories are still highly determined by school structures. Knowing this, educators can respond effectively to ensure educational rights and equitable educational practice.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
AERA Open, 2022
This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, inc... more This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, including their perceptions of immigration enforcement and school climates that support or hinder immigrant student experiences. We conceptually expand understandings of nested contexts of reception and racialized organizations across macro, meso, micro levels, and how they affect immigrant students’ educational experiences, mobility, and belonging. Utilizing open-ended responses from a unique national survey data set, we examine school social workers’ perceptions of the macro, meso, micro racialized contexts that immigrant students encounter, how school social worker perceptions reflect racial attitudes as part of the racialized organization of schools in which they work, and how such racial attitudes influence their actions and potentially disrupt racial inequality in schools. Discussion of the impact of school social workers’ racial attitudes, and perceptions of racialized contexts and how they influence school social workers’ advocacy for immigrant students is offered.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2021
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Social Work Research, 2021
Anti-immigrant rhetoric increasingly depicts immigrants as undeserving, but schools are social in... more Anti-immigrant rhetoric increasingly depicts immigrants as undeserving, but schools are social institutions where these perceptions can be challenged and, ideally, where inequities confronting immigrant students can be ameliorated. Existing research suggests that teachers and administrators are central to this task, but it also raises questions about the role of other personnel in immigrant-serving schools. Drawing on the concept of nepantlera, this study examines how school social workers (SSWs) pursue equity for immigrant students by challenging intersecting power structures. The authors present preliminary findings that attest to the importance of nepantleras for SSWs and the importance of SSWs for immigrant-serving schools.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2021
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
American Journal of Evaluation, 2021
This article problematizes methodological practices, specifically the use of surveys as tools of
... more This article problematizes methodological practices, specifically the use of surveys as tools of
measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we
investigate the knowledge created about particular minoritized groups through the author’s current
evaluation, the power relations involved, and the ethical dimensions of evaluation. We argue that
ethical questions for evaluators are entangled in an era of neoliberal, audit culture in educational
research. We offer a theoretical orientation for productive critique of methodological practice.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Immigration Initiative Harvard, 2021
Key facts: 1.) Anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of immigration
enforcement in the United States... more Key facts: 1.) Anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of immigration
enforcement in the United States negatively impact
academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to resources, cultivate
a more welcoming climate in schools, and provide traumainformed interventions for immigrant students. 3.) Many school social workers
advocate for immigrant students and take action to connect with their families, develop trust, and be a bridge between schools and families.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Urban Review, 2021
This 3-year multi-site critical ethnography in a focal state in the New Latino South provides ins... more This 3-year multi-site critical ethnography in a focal state in the New Latino South provides insight into the everyday experiences of racism, racialization, and racial inequality that undocumented students face. Specifically, the study showcases how undocumented students' interactions with their teachers manifest in racialized organizations such as schools. Drawing on interviews and participant observations in two Title I public high schools with rising numbers of Latinx undocumented students, including recently arrived youth, the article illustrates the challenges of racialization in particular, and the resulting lack of belonging these youth experience. Leveraging a framework of racialization, including how schools are racialized organizations (Ray in Am Sociol Rev 84(1):26-53, 2019) where racialized microaggressions devalue Latinx undocumented youth experiences, resistance also allows for interrupting these damaging practices toward this population.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Urban Education, 2020
The article conceptualizes community-school partnerships (CSP) as racial projects. Drawing on dat... more The article conceptualizes community-school partnerships (CSP) as racial projects. Drawing on data from a mixed-methods study of how CSPs increase belonging for migrant youth, the article reveals existing tensions in CSPs from migrant youth (N = 63) and stakeholder perspectives. Viewing CSPs through a racial project lens allows researchers and practitioners to identify, in both design and implementation, spaces of tension where attempts to disrupt the existing status quo and structure opportunity can ultimately reproduce inequality, especially given the "commonsense" logic of racial projects and coherence of neoliberal ones about belonging and immigrant integration. Implications for understanding CSPs as racial projects are discussed.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 2020
This article provides ethnographic evidence of how Latinx undocumented youth navigate racializati... more This article provides ethnographic evidence of how Latinx undocumented youth navigate racialization processes. The research occurs in a focal state in the New Latino South, a highly restrictive and hostile context toward immigrants broadly and undocumented ones specifically. The author situates this research in Rogelio Sáenz and Karen Douglas' call for the racialization of immigration studies, considering notions of race and racism in the study of undocumented youth experiences of identity, discrimination, social isolation, and belonging, and how processes of racialization mark the bodies of undocumented youth in negative, punitive ways in school and societal contexts in a restrictive policy context like South Carolina. Drawing on data from a three-year, multisite ethnography in two Title I public high schools in South Carolina, the study shows how youth are racialized in their schools and communities. Their narratives provide moments when undocumented youth elaborate their experiences in schools, which the author argues is an act of resistance where they broker, dismantle, and overcome their position of marginality. This cultural elaboration by undocumented youth positions them as active agents and re-centers and humanizes their experience of racism and racialization in order to make visible the systemic oppression they encounter. It is through their cultural elaboration of their undocumentedness that they can powerfully critique immigration policy and schools' roles in perpetuating deficit discourses about the "problems" the undocumented subjectivity presents. [Immigrant, New Latino South, Racialization, Undocumented, Youth] "I am overdetermined from without. I am the slave not of the 'idea' that others have of me but of my own appearance." Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Social Service Review, 2020
The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity ... more The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity and advocating for immigrant students in K-12 settings. The authors explore and conceptualize the notion of nepantlera from Anzaldúa’s work and draw from qualitative data to support how SSWs function as nepantleras in service and advocacy roles for undocumented immigrant students. We argue for the importance of expanding the conceptual framework to describe the kind of work SSWs need to do within the borderlands of schools. As part of our conceptual exploration we ask: What is a paradigm for SSW practice with immigrant students that is informed by the concept of nepantlera? How do we begin to think about and understand such a paradigm in a way that honors the complexity of Anzaldúa’s work? These are questions we explore throughout the paper alongside our qualitative data with a national sample of school workers. We offer implications for a nepantlera-informed paradigm in school social work practice.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Evaluation, 2020
In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and o... more In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of evaluation, theorize it as a truth-telling practice that aims to control populations and futures, and consider the implications of this for a current evaluation project with transnational newcomer migrant youth in the United States. The authors raise the following questions about evaluation as a social practice: Who/what knowledge is produced in the process? What mechanisms/technologies are deployed to reason, compare, and quantify migrant youth experiences, and at what cost? What are the ethical imperatives underlying this truth-telling process? The article offers a productive critique of current evaluation practices, providing theoretical and methodological implications of this analysis, arguing to expose the politics of governance embedded in evaluation.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Sociology Policy Briefs, 2019
Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social
mobility along with significa... more Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social
mobility along with significant isolation within the school context.
Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth
and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author
describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for
undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and
providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to
effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2019
The article is about a set of methodological disruptions that occur in
ethnographic fieldwork and... more The article is about a set of methodological disruptions that occur in
ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for
ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and
experiences of the ethnographic self. This article documents the process
of a minoritized youth, Queen, entering the research space and the
emergent relations among Queen and Latinx undocumented youth.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s analytics, I theorize disruption as a core
concept in this particular experience of engaging in fieldwork as part of a
multi-site critical ethnography. Presenting three frames of disruption—
relating to the research space, analyses and findings, and the
ethnographic self—I complicate who gets included and excluded from a
study and the implications for relational ethnics in ethnographic
fieldwork. Ultimately, I argue that our methodological practices and
selves need to be disrupted in order to enhance our views of who/what
gets included/excluded during our fieldwork.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Children and Youth Services Review, 2019
This community-based mixed-methods evaluation study investigates how a library-based program incr... more This community-based mixed-methods evaluation study investigates how a library-based program increases belonging for newcomer youth. This article presents the qualitative analysis from a mixed-methods study in progress. The article describes the library's community practice of advocating for newcomers with meaningful programming that increases understanding of community resources, local politics, and belonging. Key findings relate to the project leaders' perceptions of the library as a hub for democracy, how the program positively increased belonging for newcomers, and challenges and lessons learned from the first year of the program. Implications for practice demonstrate how the asset-based program through the library-school district partnership counteracts hostile political climates toward newcomers.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, 2019
This study investigates teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how it im... more This study investigates teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how it impacts their attitudes toward undocumented students using an explanatory mixed-methods design in a focal state in the New Latino South, i.e., South Carolina. Data were collected in 2016-2018 during the height of post-Trump anti-immigrant rhetoric and a flurry of xeno-phobic initiatives. The article shares descriptive survey data results (n = 101) that reveal an insignificant correlation between teachers' awareness and attitudes but illustrate an alarming lack of awareness of policies related to immigration and a range of attitudes regarding these policies. Qualitative interviews showcase more deeply teachers' attitudes about immi-grants/immigration policy. The paper argues for increasing teacher awareness in the form of sociopolitical knowledge of policy contexts and a nuanced conceptualization of teacher empathy. The significance of this study is that to date there has not been a large-scale study that examines teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how that awareness shapes attitudes toward undocumented students specifically, yielding practical knowledge for teacher preparation programs and professional development. Implications suggest that teachers who lack sociopolitical awareness are more likely to believe in false or inaccurate narratives about immigrants, which negatively impacts undocumented students.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude r... more This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants. This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions of good immigrants in order to exclude Latinx immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility. Drawing on a content analysis of 67 policy documents from the state’s legislative database from 2003-2017, the analysis revealed examples of explicit and implicit exclusion. The main findings related to these forms of explicit and implicit exclusion, highlighting how policy discourse constructs notions of good immigrants in state policy and policy enactments restrict resources. As Latinx populations reconfigure the landscape of the U.S. South, states like South Carolina continue to embed racist, discriminatory language and actions into enacted and proposed policies. This has severe implications for undocumented children and families and their access to public and social resources.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Latinos and Education, 2018
In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to... more In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to expand the literature about how teachers understand and apply multiculturalism specifically when working with newcomer undocumented immigrant youth. The co-authors identify an implementation gap between what is known about critical multicultural education and how it is put into practice by educators, specifically in regions that can be characterized as constrained policy contexts. Findings from collective analyses of data across all three studies add to multicultural education literature by directly addressing the ways in which policies govern the everyday lives of newcomers and inform the practices of their teachers. Key findings that represent generative dispositions and practices among teachers of newcomer students were strategic teacher empathy and sociopolitical awareness. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for practice and future research.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles by Sophia Rodriguez
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to elicit Latinx undocumented immigrant youth experiences in a southern state to contribute to evolving research on their experiences in K–12 schools in an understudied geographic location. Additionally, the purpose was to understand how undocumented youth: (1) talk about the policies that impact their daily lives, (2) perceive the organizational-level structures that exist to support them in school and community contexts, and (3) articulate a sense of belonging through their community and school interactions in relation to processes of racialization and its impact on immigration status. Conceptually, the paper utilizes a multilevel, interactional framework to show the impact of racialization and racialized othering of Latinx undocumented immigrants in policy, school and community, and relational contexts.
Research Design: The study is a three-year critical ethnography of two Title I high schools in a focal state in the U.S. South that maintains particularly restrictive policies toward immigrants. The ethnographic data included 800+ hours of fieldwork across the two school sites and semistructured interviews with 63 undocumented youth, as well as additional school and district personnel and community-based organization staff in the schools. Centering youth voices deepens our understanding of their status of illegality—specifically how their material lives are impacted by policy and institutional-level dynamics and constraints.
Conclusions/Recommendations: From these data, the author shows how youth voice through ethnographic evidence counteracts anti-immigrant policies and criminalization of Latinx immigrants; the youth critique policies and practices as they are entrenched in them. Despite the negative schooling and societal encounters, youth critique social policy and institutions that seek to limit their progress in society. The implications for policymakers, educators, and school-based personnel is significant because they are also in an anti-immigrant political and societal (and global) climate as migration remains a feature of our global world, more recently due to civil unrest, violence, natural disasters, and global poverty. Centering youth voices and experiences provides potential “policy windows” of opportunity to disrupt processes of racialization at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although legal status may impose certain limitations on undocumented students’ educational opportunities, their educational trajectories are still highly determined by school structures. Knowing this, educators can respond effectively to ensure educational rights and equitable educational practice.
measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we
investigate the knowledge created about particular minoritized groups through the author’s current
evaluation, the power relations involved, and the ethical dimensions of evaluation. We argue that
ethical questions for evaluators are entangled in an era of neoliberal, audit culture in educational
research. We offer a theoretical orientation for productive critique of methodological practice.
enforcement in the United States negatively impact
academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to resources, cultivate
a more welcoming climate in schools, and provide traumainformed interventions for immigrant students. 3.) Many school social workers
advocate for immigrant students and take action to connect with their families, develop trust, and be a bridge between schools and families.
mobility along with significant isolation within the school context.
Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth
and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author
describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for
undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and
providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to
effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.
ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for
ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and
experiences of the ethnographic self. This article documents the process
of a minoritized youth, Queen, entering the research space and the
emergent relations among Queen and Latinx undocumented youth.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s analytics, I theorize disruption as a core
concept in this particular experience of engaging in fieldwork as part of a
multi-site critical ethnography. Presenting three frames of disruption—
relating to the research space, analyses and findings, and the
ethnographic self—I complicate who gets included and excluded from a
study and the implications for relational ethnics in ethnographic
fieldwork. Ultimately, I argue that our methodological practices and
selves need to be disrupted in order to enhance our views of who/what
gets included/excluded during our fieldwork.
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to elicit Latinx undocumented immigrant youth experiences in a southern state to contribute to evolving research on their experiences in K–12 schools in an understudied geographic location. Additionally, the purpose was to understand how undocumented youth: (1) talk about the policies that impact their daily lives, (2) perceive the organizational-level structures that exist to support them in school and community contexts, and (3) articulate a sense of belonging through their community and school interactions in relation to processes of racialization and its impact on immigration status. Conceptually, the paper utilizes a multilevel, interactional framework to show the impact of racialization and racialized othering of Latinx undocumented immigrants in policy, school and community, and relational contexts.
Research Design: The study is a three-year critical ethnography of two Title I high schools in a focal state in the U.S. South that maintains particularly restrictive policies toward immigrants. The ethnographic data included 800+ hours of fieldwork across the two school sites and semistructured interviews with 63 undocumented youth, as well as additional school and district personnel and community-based organization staff in the schools. Centering youth voices deepens our understanding of their status of illegality—specifically how their material lives are impacted by policy and institutional-level dynamics and constraints.
Conclusions/Recommendations: From these data, the author shows how youth voice through ethnographic evidence counteracts anti-immigrant policies and criminalization of Latinx immigrants; the youth critique policies and practices as they are entrenched in them. Despite the negative schooling and societal encounters, youth critique social policy and institutions that seek to limit their progress in society. The implications for policymakers, educators, and school-based personnel is significant because they are also in an anti-immigrant political and societal (and global) climate as migration remains a feature of our global world, more recently due to civil unrest, violence, natural disasters, and global poverty. Centering youth voices and experiences provides potential “policy windows” of opportunity to disrupt processes of racialization at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although legal status may impose certain limitations on undocumented students’ educational opportunities, their educational trajectories are still highly determined by school structures. Knowing this, educators can respond effectively to ensure educational rights and equitable educational practice.
measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we
investigate the knowledge created about particular minoritized groups through the author’s current
evaluation, the power relations involved, and the ethical dimensions of evaluation. We argue that
ethical questions for evaluators are entangled in an era of neoliberal, audit culture in educational
research. We offer a theoretical orientation for productive critique of methodological practice.
enforcement in the United States negatively impact
academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to resources, cultivate
a more welcoming climate in schools, and provide traumainformed interventions for immigrant students. 3.) Many school social workers
advocate for immigrant students and take action to connect with their families, develop trust, and be a bridge between schools and families.
mobility along with significant isolation within the school context.
Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth
and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author
describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for
undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and
providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to
effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.
ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for
ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and
experiences of the ethnographic self. This article documents the process
of a minoritized youth, Queen, entering the research space and the
emergent relations among Queen and Latinx undocumented youth.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s analytics, I theorize disruption as a core
concept in this particular experience of engaging in fieldwork as part of a
multi-site critical ethnography. Presenting three frames of disruption—
relating to the research space, analyses and findings, and the
ethnographic self—I complicate who gets included and excluded from a
study and the implications for relational ethnics in ethnographic
fieldwork. Ultimately, I argue that our methodological practices and
selves need to be disrupted in order to enhance our views of who/what
gets included/excluded during our fieldwork.