Film Spotlights Students Pushed From School System
As a young man growing up in a disadvantaged community, Victor Rios was a repeated school dropout, and was involved in drugs, crime and gang activity. Today, he holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is a tenured professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara. Rios’ inspirational story is shown in the documentary “The Pushouts,” which was presented at the Fowler Museum’s Lenart Auditorium on Jan. 24. Following the screening, which was co-sponsored by UCLA Luskin, Associate Professor of Public Policy Chris Zepeda-Millan moderated a Q&A with many of the people featured in the film. They included a group of students in the Yo! Watts high school program, which gives disadvantaged youth the tools, including mentors like Rios, that they need to find success. Victims of what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline, these students are labeled “dropouts.” The documentary argues that they should instead be called “pushouts,” since they are often pushed from an educational system that is often geared against them. “The Pushouts” is trying to begin a dialogue about why this is happening and what can be done about it. As Rios said during the Q&A, “There’s a conversation that’s being had around the nation, but this film is just one of the conversation starters.” — Jackson Belway
Filmmakers and supporters gather at a reception before the “Pushouts” screening.
Tilly’s ‘Where Bad Jobs Are Better’ Earns 2018 Bowen Award
Professor of Urban Planning Chris Tilly and co-author Françoise Carré received the 2018 William G. Bowen Award for their jointly published work on retail job quality, “Where Bad Jobs Are Better.” The William G. Bowen Award for the Outstanding Book on Labor and Public Policy, named after the 17th president of Princeton University, is presented annually to the book making the most important contribution toward understanding public policy related to industrial relations and the operation of labor markets. “Where Bad Jobs Are Better” offers an empirically based account of the retail sector and the factors contributing to declining job quality. The book identifies room for improvement in the retail sector by comparing working conditions in the United States to Western European countries and Mexico. The authors argue that the low wages, unpredictable work schedules and limited opportunities for advancement that are often considered characteristic of retail jobs are not in fact inevitable. By illustrating the differences in “bad jobs” in different countries, Tilly’s “Where Bad Jobs Are Better” sets the foundation for improving working conditions in the retail sector.
Shah Publishes on Sanitation Practice Improvement
Public Policy Professor Manisha Shah’s research on improving sanitation practices in Indonesia has been published in the Journal of Development Economics. Shah and two co-authors measured the effects of scaling up both the construction of toilets and the education of communities about the negative health consequences of open defecation. Poor sanitation habits can have dire consequences: Worldwide, an estimated 1.7 million people die each year because of unsafe water, hygiene and sanitation practices, according to the World Bank. The researchers studied Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), a program active in 60 countries, to determine its effectiveness when scaled up over large sections of rural Indonesia. Among their findings:
- CLTS led to modest increases in toilet construction and decreased community tolerance of open defecation.
- Roundworm infestations in children declined, but there was no impact on anemia, height or weight.
- When the program was implemented by local governments instead of agency teams, its effectiveness declined.
- The poorest households chose not to build toilets, highlighting the potential advantages of offering financing or subsidies through the program.
As Shah’s research illustrates, interventions that work on a small scale face challenges when implemented on a large scale. “Currently, there are very few studies that explicitly examine the scale-up process through the lens of a rigorous quantitative evaluation,” wrote Shah and co-authors Lisa Cameron and Susan Olivia. Their findings are designed to increase the chances of success of these programs by reducing dependence on trial and error.
Newsom Appoints 2 UCLA Luskin Graduates to Policy Advisor Roles
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent announcement of appointments to his team includes two accomplished UCLA Luskin alumnae, Giannina Pérez MPP ’03 and Lande Ajose MA UP ’95. They are among the senior advisors and members of the communications team announced Jan. 11 by the Governor’s Office. Pérez, who was appointed senior policy advisor for early childhood, has experience working in state policy, advocacy and government. In her time working in the California Legislature and with organizations like Early Edge California and Children Now, Pérez has focused on women’s and children’s issues that include child care, access to educational opportunities and domestic violence. Ajose was appointed senior policy advisor for higher education. She has extensive experience in research and evaluation of higher education and postsecondary degree attainment, serving on the WASC Senior College and University Commission, the Institute for Higher Education Policy, and on the advisory committee of the Higher Education Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.
20 Faculty and Students Present Research at Social Work Conference
A contingent of 20 faculty and doctoral students from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs are representing the School at the 2019 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Conference Jan. 16-20 in San Francisco. Research is presented during symposia, workshops, roundtable discussions, and paper and poster presentations at the annual conference, which in 2019 is dedicated to ending gender-based, family and community violence. “We’re excited to see so many of our faculty and Ph.D. students presenting,” said Laura Abrams, professor and chair of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. The presentations cover a broad spectrum of topics within social work and research, including mental illness, gerontology, child welfare, adolescence and parenting, racial and ethnic minorities, and civic engagement. Featured UCLA Luskin Social Welfare faculty are Abrams, David Cohen, Ian Holloway, Aurora Jackson, Leyla Karimli, Ayako Miyashita Ochoa, Amy Ritterbusch, Latoya Small, Carlos Santos and Laura Wray-Lake. Presenting doctoral students from UCLA Luskin are Skye Allmang, Donte Boyd, Ryan Dougherty, Shannon Dunlap, Jianchao Lai, Gi Lee, Carol A. Leung, Jason Anthony Plummer, Alex Recault and Rachel Wells. Holloway, associate professor of social welfare, remarked, “We are very proud of our doctoral students presenting at SSWR this year. They are advancing social welfare scholarship and representing UCLA well at our premier social work research conference.”
Hecht Awarded Medal by American Geographical Society
Susanna Hecht, professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, was recently awarded the prestigious David Livingstone Centenary Medal by the American Geographical Society. Hecht is a geographer who also holds appointments in UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and the UCLA Department of Geography. She was honored by the institution, established in 1851, for her nearly three decades of pioneering research focused on land use change in the tropics, primarily in the Amazon rain forest. “Dr. Hecht is widely recognized as a preeminent authority on forest transitions and sustainable agriculture,” according to an AGS press release. “She is one of the founding thinkers of the field of political ecology, which integrates humanities, policy and social justice in its approach to issues.” The organization also noted Hecht’s “sophisticated comprehension of deforestation” and how it interacts with migration, the ecosystem and the possibilities of alternative economies. Hecht, who is also professor of international history at the Graduate Institute of International and Developmental Studies in Geneva, is the author of a number of books on the Amazon. Her 2013 work, “The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha,” won the 2015 American Historical Association’s Best Book in Environmental History Award. “Susanna’s work on the Amazon exemplifies geography’s contributions to changing tropical conditions. She understands how economics, culture and land use operate in a society to reflect and change the environment,” said Deborah Popper, AGS vice president and chair of the Honors and Exploration Committee, which bestowed the award.
UCLA Luskin Master of Social Welfare Receives Top Ranking
The Master of Social Welfare (MSW) at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs has been named the No. 1 program of its kind in California for 2019-20 by HumanServicesEdu.org, an online resource for information on education, practice and employment in the human service fields. The organization describes the MSW as a comprehensive two-year program, selected from among California schools accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), that offers the highest level of training, designed to produce the next generation of well-equipped leaders in social work and to help advance the overall knowledge base of social work policy and practice. In a news release announcing the designation, HumanServicesEdu.org noted, “When we got to the UCLA Luskin Master of Social Welfare, it was clear we had a winner. With a decided focus on experiential learning, valuable opportunities to study abroad, and a world-class faculty with lots of front-line experience, UCLA Luskin offers students something they just won’t find anywhere else.” UCLA Luskin’s MSW program was among hundreds of schools across the United States assessed by the organization in compiling a list of the best programs for each state, according to Kelly Simpson, senior editor for HumanServicesEdu.org. UCLA Luskin also was recognized for offering hands-on experience in field work placements, as well as opportunities to participate in advanced research and projects, along with concurrent degrees available with other top UCLA programs including Asian American Studies, Law, Public Health and the Master of Public Policy program at UCLA Luskin.
