Area of Interest: Civic Engagement

Merhawi Tesfai

August 3, 2022/in Social Welfare Child and Family Well-Being, Civic Engagement, Education, Mental and Behavioral Health, Racial Disparity PhD PhD Students /by Ervin Huang

Merhawi Tesfa is an incoming first year doctoral student in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He received his Bachelor of arts in African American Studies as well as his Masters of Social Work and a Masters of Public Policy from UCLA. He is a former McNair Research Scholar and has engaged in a variety of research around race and inequality through the Bunche Center, the Million Dollar Hoods policy team, and the Black Policy Project.

In his doctoral studies, Merhawi is interested in working with students from underrepresented groups to understand the barriers they face outside of the classroom that hinder their educational progress. He is also interested in how these barriers factor into their ability to progress from K-12 to higher education.

Merhawi is also currently serving as student regent-designate on the UC Board of Regents to represent the needs of students across the University of California system.

David C. Turner III

July 26, 2022/in Social Welfare Civic Engagement, Criminal Justice, Social Movements All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Dr. David C. Turner III is an Assistant Professor of Black Life and Racial Justice in the Department of Social Welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and the Million Dollar Hoods Project on campus. As an activist scholar from Inglewood, California, his research broadly focuses on youth-based social movements, political identity, and resistance to the prison regime. More specifically, Dr. Turner examines the ways that Black boys and young men work to resist the carceral landscape alongside their peers in community-based educational spaces. He has published numerous articles and book chapters, including manuscripts in the American Educational Research Journal, Theory Into Practice, Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics, The Journal of Research on Adolescence, and others. As a community organizer, Dr. Turner brings over a decade of movement-building experience to the classroom, having worked to negotiate and win demands for racial justice, secure funding, divest resources from carceral and harmful institutions, and coordinate actions across the state of California and the nation, all while teaching at both the K-12 and the postsecondary level.

Dr. Turner worked across LA County with boys and men of color as the manager of the Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition, where he co-led campaigns to change school discipline practices, support investments in youth development, and end policies and practices that lead to criminalization in communities of color. For his commitment to both advocacy-based research and grassroots leadership, Dr. Turner was selected as an inaugural fellow in the John W. Mack Movement Building Fellows Program with the Weingart Foundation, and a Data Fellow with the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color through PolicyLink and the Tableau Foundation.

Dr. Turner has participated in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) as a political education and research specialist, helping organizations with teach-ins, designing curricula, and community-based participatory action research surveys, most notably as a member of the research team with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and the People’s Budget. Dr. Turner has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, NBC BLK, the Los Angeles Times, Spectrum 1 News, and the New York Times for his activism and applied scholarship. To learn more about Dr. Turner and his work, please visit davidcturner.com for more information.

In the News

Tableau Conference 2022 Feature – Dr. David C. Turner III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLMEEUQaJ0U

City Rising – Youth and Democracy. PBS Southern California. Aired 10/20/2020 https://www.pbssocal.org/programs/city-rising/city-rising-youth-democracy-xkjbp5/

Reflections on Race: A Closer Look at Racial and Social Equity. Aired 7/7/2020

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/human-interest/2020/07/29/reflections-on-race–a-closer-look-at-racial-and-social-equity

Sara Wilf

October 4, 2019/in Social Welfare Adolescence, Civic Engagement, Critical Consciousness, Digital Organizing and Activism, Emerging adulthood, Social media, Sociopolitical Development PhD PhD Students /by Oliver Ike

Sara Wilf is a third-year doctoral student in Social Welfare. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to explore youth civic engagement and youth-led change, with a focus on social media as a context. In her research, she seeks to amplify young people’s agency in creating sociopolitical change and imagining better futures. Her work has been supported by the Frank D. Gilliam Jr. Social Justice Award (2020, 2021), the Bedari Kindness Institute Summer Fellowship (2020), and the Graduate Research Mentorship (2021). She is an affiliate with the UCLA Race, Ethnicity, Politics & Society (REPS) Lab, and co-founding member of UC Survivors + Allies.

Previously, Sara worked in research and evaluation with youth-focused nonprofits in India, Chile, and the U.S. Sara graduated with an MPA in Social Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and she also holds a BA in Comparative Literature – Spanish and English from Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude.

You can follow Sara on Twitter at @SaraBWilf or learn more about her research at www.sarawilf.com.

Carlos Santos

August 23, 2018/in Social Welfare Activism, Adolescents, Children and Families, Civic Engagement, Educational Attainment, Ethnic-Racial Identity, Gender Identity, Heterosexism, Mental Health, Racism, Sexual Identity Carlos Santos All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Mike Alvarez

Carlos E. Santos is Associate Professor of Social Welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He holds an undergraduate and doctoral degree in developmental psychology from NYU. He completed his master’s in education at Harvard University. His research focuses on ethnic-racial, gender, and sexual minority identity in relation to various developmental outcomes using an intersectional approach. He employs developmental theories and empirical methodologies in order to study the contexts within which identities are formed, develop, and change over time among primarily Latinx youth. His research has also explored legal consciousness among Latinx youth and the development of these youth in state level contexts that are socially and politically hostile towards immigrants. His empirical contributions with colleagues were recognized as “pioneering” (Jugert et al., 2020, p. 949, Child Development) in showing the effects of peers and peer networks on ethnic-racial identity. He was awarded multiple early career awards for achievement in research from three different national professional associations. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Santos is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Forum on Children’s Well-Being. He is a principal grant reviewer for the US Dept of Ed/IES, an ad hoc reviewer for NSF, and a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research. His co-edited book, Studying Ethnic Identity: Methodological and Conceptual Approaches Across Disciplines, was published by the American Psychological Association Press in 2015.

Jason Anthony Plummer

July 17, 2018/in Social Welfare Civic Engagement, Critical Race Theory, Political Behavior, Sociopolitical Development, Youth Development PhD PhD Students /by Mike Alvarez

Mr. Jason Anthony Plummer, MSW, MUP research focuses on political social work and sociopolitical youth development, with an emphasis on how race, election laws, and policing shape the political behavior/civic engagement of youth. He received his B.A. in psychology from Baruch College, CUNY, and both his master’s in social work and urban planning are from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Urban Social Work and author of Families in the Urban Environment: Understanding resiliency (Cognella, 2018). Currently, he is a doctoral student in social welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Laura Wray-Lake

May 10, 2016/in Social Welfare Adolescents, Children and Families, Civic Engagement, Education, Empowerment, Equity, Political Behavior, Social Responsibility, Youth Development Laura Wray-Lake All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Les Dunseith

Dr. Wray-Lake’s research is grounded in lifespan developmental theory and draws from multiple disciplines to understand optimal social development among youth. A driving question of her research is how and why individuals become engaged in society. Thus, her research is centrally focused on youth civic engagement.

Civic engagement consists of behaviors, values, knowledge, and skills that comprise political and prosocial contributions to community and society. Wray-Lake’s research documents patterns of developmental change in civic engagement across adolescence and young adulthood. Findings are showing that developmental trajectories vary across individuals and differ by type of civic engagement. A primary interest is identifying how relationships and experiences in everyday contexts such as families, schools, and neighborhoods foster growth in youth civic engagement. She is interested in examining mechanisms that explain socioeconomic inequalities and understanding ethnic and cultural differences in youth civic engagement. Dr. Wray-Lake also conceptualizes civic engagement as a malleable lever that can promote youth thriving, and has interests in linking civic engagement to socioemotional competencies and psychological well-being. Her program of research uses mixed methodologies and has both conceptual and applied implications.

Dr. Wray-Lake received her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University, a master’s degree in Psychology from Bucknell University, and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Wake Forest University.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

The Roots of Engaged Citizenship Project: This project is a five-year longitudinal study of civic development spanning childhood and adolescence, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Aaron Metzger at West Virginia University and Dr. Amy Syvertsen at Search Institute. With these data, we will newly document patterns of age-related change in multiple types of civic engagement. Longitudinal analyses aim to identify different contextual supports that promote civic engagement among elementary, middle, and high school youth. We are also investigating bidirectional associations between civic engagement and socioemotional competencies as they unfold over time. We conduct this research in school settings with valuable school partners in California, Minnesota, and West Virginia. For information and updates, visit our project website: www.civicroots.org.

Civic Engagement across the Transition to Adulthood: Funded by the Spencer Foundation, this project examines developmental, contextual, and historical effects of civic engagement across ages 18 to 30. Using nationally representative longitudinal cohort sequential data from Monitoring the Future, we aim to: (1) describe complex, meaningful patterns of developmental change in multiple forms of civic engagement (i.e., social responsibility, volunteering, political actions), (2) identify experiences in high school and across young adulthood that predict developmental change in civic engagement, and (3) investigate variations in developmental patterns and correlates of civic engagement across social groups (e.g., socioeconomic status, ethnicity) and three decades of historical cohorts. Findings are expected to inform applied research and policy efforts to improve civic education during the transition to adulthood.

Youth Voice Study: Youth in urban contexts are vastly under-researched, particularly in terms of their civic engagement. This study aims to understand the factors that motivate, facilitate, and empower youth to engage in their communities and address social issues as well as the obstacles to empowerment and contributors to disengagement among urban youth. We conducted one-on-one interviews with 90 urban and primarily ethnic minority youth. Hearing from youth in their own voices will jumpstart new thinking to invigorate this field of research and shed more light on the ways that communities can support youth’s authentic contributions to their community.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Wray-Lake, L., Metzger, A., & Syvertsen A.K. (2016). Testing multidimensional models of youth civic engagement: Model comparisons, measurement invariance, and age differences. Applied Developmental Science.

Wray-Lake, L., Syvertsen, A.K., & Flanagan, C.A. (2016). Developmental change in social responsibility during adolescence: An ecological perspective. Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 130-142.

Wray-Lake, L., Rote, W., Gupta, T., Godfrey, E., & Sirin, S. (2015). Examining correlates of civic engagement among immigrant adolescents. Research on Human Development. 12(1-2), 10-27.

Wray-Lake, L., & Sloper, M. (2015). Youth civic engagement and the role of experiences across contexts. Applied Developmental Science.

Wray-Lake, L., Rote, W., Victorino, C., & Benavides, C.M. (2014). Examining developmental transitions in civic engagement across adolescence: Evidence from a national U.S. sample. International Journal of Developmental Science, 8, 95-104.

Wray-Lake, L., & Flanagan, C. A. (2012). Parenting practices and the development of adolescents’ social trust. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 549-560.

Wray-Lake, L., Flanagan, C. A., & Maggs, J. L. (2012). Socialization in context: Exploring longitudinal correlates of mothers’ value messages of compassion and caution. Developmental Psychology, 48(1), 250-256. doi:10.1037/a0026083

Wray-Lake, L., & Hart, D. (2012). Growing social inequalities in youth civic engagement? Evidence from the National Election Study. PS: Political Science and Politics, 45, 456-461.

Wray-Lake, L., Maggs, J. L., Bachman, J., Johnston, L., O’Malley, P., & Schulenberg, J. 2012). Associations between community attachments and adolescent substance use in nationally representative samples. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51, 325-331.

Contact

Campus Resources

Follow

Archive for: Civic Engagement

Contact

Campus Resources

Follow