Dalal Katsiaficas

Undocumented Undergraduates on College Campuses: Understanding Their Challenges and Assets and What It Takes to Make an Undocufriendly Campus

In this article, Carola Suarez-Orozco and colleagues investigate how to improve undocumented undergraduate student experiences across a variety of US campuses. The authors draw on a national survey of diverse undocumented undergraduates attending two- and four-year public and private institutions of higher education. Using an ecological framework that accounts for risk and resilience, Suarez-Orozco and colleagues provide insights into the challenges undocumented undergraduates face and the assets they bring as they navigate their educational contexts. The authors also consider the role of campuses in shaping these experiences and make recommendations, based on quantitative data and the perspectives of students, for creating undocufriendly campuses.

Toxic Rain in Class: Classroom Interpersonal Microaggressions

In this article we share exploratory findings from a study that captures microaggressions (MAs) in vivo to shed light on how they occur in classrooms. These brief and commonplace indignities communicate derogatory slights and insults toward individuals of underrepresented status contributing to invalidating and hostile learning experiences. Our aim is to expand the ways in which we research and think about MAs in educational settings. Our data are drawn from structured observations of 60 diverse classrooms on three community college campuses. Our findings provide evidence that classroom MAs occur frequently—in nearly 30% of the observed community college classrooms. Although cultural/racial as well as gendered MAs were observed, the most frequent types of MAs were those that undermined the intelligence and competence of students. MAs were more likely to be delivered on campuses with the highest concentration of minority students and were most frequently delivered by instructors. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these events for classroom climate and make recommendations for both future research and practice.

Everyday Hyphens: Exploring Youth Identities with Methodological and Analytic Pluralism

Taking seriously the call for methodological and analytic pluralism, we advance three key assumptions of theory and method: 1) young people develop “hyphenated selves” in shifting social and political contexts and in everyday circumstances; 2) pluralistic methods and research designs have the potential to capture identity movement across time and space; and 3) a pluralistic approach to analysis, specifically using a dialogical framework, allows hyphenated selves to be heard and interpreted in a way that neither pathologizes contradiction nor privileges coherence but presents a skillfully woven narrative about the self. To take up these questions, we draw upon the visual and textual narratives produced by three adolescents participating in a longitudinal, multimethod study designed to document social and academic engagement among urban youth.

“When Do I Feel Like an Adult?” Latino and Afro-Caribbean Immigrant-Origin Community College Students’ Conceptualizations and Experiences of (Emerging) Adulthood

The aim of this study was to understand how Latino and Afro-Caribbean immigrant-origin community college students conceptualize adulthood and understand their adult identities. The data are drawn from semi-structured group interviews with 17 low-income immigrant-origin students from three diverse community college campuses in an urban center in the Northeast. The The authors organized the results as a series of dialectic tensions that highlight the contradictions present in the everyday lives of participants. Results reveal that the central task of emerging adulthood is to navigate the multiple divergent messages about what it means to be an adult between home and school contexts. For low-income immigrant-origin community college students, adulthood was defined both by individual responsibility and by social responsibility. Emerging adulthood becomes a time of assuming responsibility for oneself as well as for other loved ones. These findings suggest that developmental pathways vary for immigrant-origin emerging adults and provide avenues for further research to explore how this population emerges into adulthood.

Religiosity, Discrimination, and Community Engagement: Gendered Pathways of Muslim American Emerging Adults.

The attacks on September 11, 2001, changed the lives of all Americans. For many immigrant Muslims in the United States this meant dealing with an elevated amount of discrimination. This study investigated how perceived discrimination influenced levels of community engagement among Muslim American emerging adults and whether it varied by gender. Data were gathered from 134 Muslim American immigrant participants aged 18 to 28. Surprisingly the findings showed no significant gender differences in terms of religiosity, perceived discrimination, and community engagement. Those who wore traditional religious dress, as expected, reported higher degrees of discrimination than those who did not. Further analysis also showed that for young women deep religious commitments led to community involvement when perceiving higher levels of discrimination. On the other hand, for young men, perceived discrimination did not have any effect in mediating the role of religiosity on community engagement. The results showed that gendered pathways of the role perceived discrimination may play in increasing community engagement in young women but not for young men.

Liminal Bodies: Clinical Implications for Unauthorized Women and Girls

The current estimate of the unauthorized population in the United States is 10.8 million people (with nearly half (42%) of that population being women and girls). Unauthorized women and girls face unique challenges not only as immigrant women but also as a result of their legal status. Situated in an ecological perspective, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the unique challenges faced by unauthorized women and girls, including the unique challenges of acculturation, discrimination and trauma and the presenting mental health problems that may arise from these challenges. Further, we also delineate barriers to treatment including structural obstacles, differences in perceptions of mental health, preferred sources of help, and alternate coping styles which have been thought to contribute to the underutilization of mental health services by immigrants. Lastly, treatment considerations for mental health professionals will be discussed when working with this unique population.

“I Know I’m an Adult When…I Can Care for Myself and Others”: The Role of Social Responsibilities in Emerging Adulthood for Community College Students

Growing populations of emerging adults are demographically diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and immigration history in the United States and many attend community colleges. Yet, we still do not fully understand the developmental experiences of emerging adults in community colleges which mostly serve low-income, ethnically diverse immigrant-origin commuter populations. This descriptive mixed-method study examined the ways in which (N = 645) 18- to 25-year-old students at three community college campuses in the Northeast United States perceive adulthood and identify criteria for adulthood. Participants responded to measures of subjective sense of adulthood and responsibilities for family, community, and work, as well as provided an open-ended response to criteria for adulthood. Subjective sense of adulthood significantly increased with age. Participants listed responsibilities for themselves and others, independence, and role transitions as the three most important criteria characteristic of adulthood. Findings revealed that as community college students emerge into adulthood, they engage in multiple social responsibilities as they navigate community college. Furthermore, engaging with community responsibilities was associated with higher levels of subjective sense of adulthood. These data point to the possible existence of a sixth pillar of emerging adulthood, caring for others. Community colleges need to take into account the various social responsibilities present in students’ lives, not only as a competing responsibility on the road to degree attainment but as a resource to be drawn upon. We must find ways for these youth to contribute to both the institutional and economic structures that they find themselves embedded within.