Lucrecia Santibañez: Expertise on Language Learners, Student Mobility to be Highlighted at AERA
Key findings by UCLA Associate Professor of Education Lucrecia Santibañez on teachers’ language and cultural skills, emergent bilingual students, and educational outcomes impacted by family mobility will be showcased at the annual meeting of the American Educational Reseearch Association (AERA), held remotely April 8-12.
Santibañez, a faculty member of the Urban Schooling Division of the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, will take part in a roundtable session on April 8, 10-11 a.m. PDT, on “Variation in the Extent of School Mobility Among Vulnerable Students in California,” based on longitudinal data from California school districts on the impact of changing schools upon homeless, low-income, and English learner students.
On Friday, April 9, Clémence Darriet, a graduate student in the UCLA Department of Education, will present “Predicting Dual-Language School Emergence in Los Angeles County,” a paper she co-wrote with Professor Santibañez. The paper examines the emergence of elementary dual language schools in Los Angeles County between 2005 and 2019. Guided by previous research that finds dual language programs as gentrifying forces within schools and their communities, the co-authors used discrete-time survival analysis on 15 years of panel data of school and neighborhood level variables, and found evidence of neighborhood gentrification where schools are had opened dual language programs. Their paper discusses the implications of these findings and use of this method and data for the field.
On Monday, April 12, 11:50 a.m. – 1:20 p.m., Santibañez’s co-written paper on “Language and Cultural Skills of U.S. Teachers: Informing Policy to Meet the Needs of Transnational Bilingual Students” will be presented. The paper explores how pre-service training can better prepare teachers of ELs with the knowledge of the culture, history, national contexts, and educational expectations that shape their transnational students.
Professor Santibañez’s research encompasses educational equity, quality, and access for low-income and linguistic minority students in the United States and Mexico; the impact of restrictive language policies on bilingual teacher supply and preparation; and teacher preparation and support for teachers of English learners.
Santibañez’s recent work includes a co-authored research brief on, “English Learners: Charting Their Experiences and Mapping Their Futures in California Schools,” for Getting Down to Facts II, a PACE project. Last fall, Santibañez co-authored a study, “The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19” for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE).
Professor Santibañez earned her PhD in education, her M.S. in economics, and an M.A. in Latin American studies at Stanford University. Prior to arriving at UCLA, she was an associate professor in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University and an assistant professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, and worked as an Education Economist at the RAND Corporation.
Santibañez has conducted research and evaluation work in Mexico, Colombia, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador, and Mozambique. As a principal investigator or co-principal investigator, she has received research grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund, The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Professor Santibañez’s work has been published in both English- and Spanish-language journals including Economics of Education Review, Teachers College Record, Review of Educational Research, Education Policy Analysis Archives, the International Journal of Educational Development and Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa. She serves on the editorial board of the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the International Journal of Educational Development, and Comparative Education Review.
Santibañez has made regular appearances in media throughout the United States and Mexico including NPR’s “All Things Considered,” BBC’s “The World,” Univision, Ed Source, Education Next, The Christian Science Monitor, Education Week, Reforma, El Universal, and Milenio.
To view upcoming AERA presentations highlighting Professor Santibañez’s work, visit this link.