UCLA School of Education and Information Studies

Historically, scholars have researched and discussed Central Americans in fields such as sociology, migration studies, and anthropology. However, there is a limited amount of literature in the field of education and more so in higher education, that addresses the unique experiences of Central Americans in the U.S. educational system (Torres, 2004). As an part of a larger study, this paper documents and analyzes the testimonios of thirty-five first and second generation Central American youth who have attended high school and college in the U.S. By applying a Critical Race Theory (CRT) analysis (in conjunction with other frameworks) to the testimonios of the thirty-five youth, we find that amidst severe class, race, and gender discrimination in schools, the youth are able to be extremely resilient. Through their testimonios, we also argue that it is important for education systems to pay closer to attention to the heterogeneity of the Latinx population in the U.S. to not further marginalization already marginalized communities.

Guided by a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study examines the resilience and cultural wealth of Latino men as they navigate the transfer process at a two-year community college. This study conducted four semi-structured interviews to highlight how, despite facing difficult circumstances, individual factors along with their aspirational and navigational capital positively impact Latino men in higher education. Ultimately, this study aims for four things (a) to add to the limited amount of research of Latino men in community college (b) to display the success of Latino men in higher education (c) to challenge deficit notions of Latino men in higher education and (d) to provide findings that will inform the community college sector of the Latino men transfer experience.

U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance is a critical anthology focusing on the narratives, experiences, and complexities of the Central American diaspora. Historically, scholarly work has addressed Central Americans through the eyes of “outsiders”, trauma, war, and violence; while this anthology highlights those very real and traumatic histories, it also centralizes the histories of Central American resilience and resistance. At a time when Central American youth are migrating to the U.S. alone and the presidential administration sees Central American youth and their families as bargaining chips in immigration policy, this anthology presents us with a critical examination of the U.S. interventions that have propelled migration to the U.S. Within a U.S. context, the contributing authors examine questions of identity, cultural production, gendered experiences, and transnationalism. Although the anthology is not grounded in the field of education, it is a valuable contribution to any scholar who is invested in Latinx student success and equity by providing the language and analysis necessary to understand the complexities and heterogeneity of Latinxs in the U.S.

EDUCACIÓN is a piece that brings my work as an artist, educator, activist, and scholar together. It is a re-interpretation of the original border crossing sign displayed on the Interstate 5 near the San Diego-Tijuana border.

Through in-depth archival research, David G. García offers a historical narrative on the educational inequalities in Oxnard, CA in between 1903 and 1974.

Working memory is an important skill for school success, and it involves holding information in our memory while using it to solve complex problems. However, autistic children often have difficulties with working memory tasks. Also, kindergarteners on the autism spectrum tend to be less school-ready compared with their peers. In addition, children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to struggle more with working memory and school readiness skills. All preschool-age children on the autism spectrum in the United States are entitled to pre-kindergarten (pre-K) education. However, it is unclear whether attending pre-K helps with childrens working memory development in the long run. This study tested whether attending pre-K benefits childrens working memory development in the long run. It also tested whether pre-K is especially helpful for autistic childrens working memory development. It was found that children who attended pre-K outperformed their peers who did not attend pre-K during the first 2 years of elementary school. However, after first grade, such benefits diminished. Importantly, autistic children who attended pre-K did not demonstrate advanced working memory immediately in kindergarten, but they started to outperform their autistic peers who did not attend pre-K during first grade to third grade. This finding highlights the importance of pre-K education for autistic children in particular. It is also important for educators and parents to understand autistic childrens unique learning paths that may be different from non-autistic children. This article discusses specific ways for educators to take full advantage of the long-lasting benefits of pre-K education in autistic childrens working memory development.

Abstract: The ATLAS tile calorimeter (TileCal) is the hadronic sampling calorimeter covering the central region of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This paper gives an overview of the calorimeter’s operation and performance during the years 2015–2018 (Run 2). In this period, ATLAS collected proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and the TileCal was 99.65% efficient for data-taking. The signal reconstruction, the calibration procedures, and the detector operational status are presented. The performance of two ATLAS trigger systems making use of TileCal information, the minimum-bias trigger scintillators and the tile muon trigger, is discussed. Studies of radiation effects allow the degradation of the output signals at the end of the LHC and HL-LHC operations to be estimated. Finally, the TileCal response to isolated muons, hadrons and jets from proton–proton collisions is presented. The energy and time calibration methods performed excellently, resulting in good stability and uniformity of the calorimeter response during Run 2. The setting of the energy scale was performed with an uncertainty of 2%. The results demonstrate that the performance is in accordance with specifications defined in the Technical Design Report.

Program evaluation for interventions aimed at enhancing diversity can fall short when the evaluation unintentionally reifies the exclusion of multiple marginalized student experiences. The present study presents a Quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) approach to program evaluation to understand outcomes for Women of Color undergraduates involved in a national biomedical training program called the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative. Using longitudinal data, we examined the impact of participation in the BUILD Scholars programs and BUILD-developed novel biomedical curriculum on undergraduate's research self-efficacy. Employing propensity score matching and multiple regression models, we found that Black women who participated in the BUILD scholars program reported higher research self-efficacy, whereas Latine and White undergraduate BUILD scholars had lower research self-efficacy. Additionally, Latine women who participated in novel biomedical curricula reported significantly lower research self-efficacy. We contend that disaggregated and intersectional analyses of subpopulations are necessary for improving understanding of program interventions and identifying areas where systems of exclusion may continue to harm students from minoritized backgrounds. We provide recommendations for future quantitative program evaluation practices and research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) equity efforts.