Patricia Gandara
Moore Hall 3329
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521
Patricia Gándara has been a bilingual school psychologist, a Social Scientist with the RAND Corporation, she has directed education research in the California Legislature, and since 1990 she has been a Professor of Education in the University of California system. She has also served as Commissioner for Post-secondary Education for the State of California. For nine years she was Associate Director of the Linguistic Minority Research Institute and is currently Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.
Positions
- Research Professor of Education
- Co-director The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Education
- Ph.D., Educational Psychology, UCLA, 1979
- M.S., Counseling/School Psychology, California State University, Los Angeles, l972
- B.A., Sociology/English Literature, UCLA, l969
- Certificate in Spanish Language and Literature, Universidad Menéndez-Pelayo, Spain 1974
Awards, Honors, Fellowships
Fellow, Sudikoff Family Institute for Education & New Media – 2009-10
Teaching & Research Interests
- Educational equity and access for low income and ethnic minority students, language policy, and the education of Mexican origin youth
- Examination of the impact of restrictive language policies on students, schools, and communities in the US
- Pathways through California community colleges for underrepresented students
- Addressing the educational needs of secondary English learners
Select Publications
- Gándara, P. (2012) From González to Flores: A return to the Mexican room? In Santa Ana, O. & Bustamante, C. (eds). Arizona Firestorm. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield Publishers.
- Maxwell-Jolly, J. & Gándara, P. (2012) Teaching all our students well. Teachers and teaching to close the academic achievement gap. In Timar, T. & Maxwell-Jolly, J. (eds) Connecting the Dots and Closing the Gap: Multiple Perspectives for Closing the Academic Achievement Gap. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.
- Gándara, P. & Orfield, G. (2012) Historical, legal, and political contexts of Arizona’s instructional policies for English learners, Language Policy, 11, 1
- Martinez-Wenzl, M., Pérez, K., & Gándara, P. (2012) Is Arizona’s approach to educating its English learners superior to other forms of instruction? in Horne v. Flores and the Future of Language Policy: Special Issue. Teachers College Record, 114, 9
