Santos Co-Chairs Workshop to Help Gender-Diverse Youth

On April 25, Carlos Santos, associate professor of social welfare, co-chaired an event by the National Academies of Sciences regarding oppressive policies that have affected the livelihoods of gender-diverse youth. The workshop, part of the Forum for Children’s Well-Being, focused on steps needed to ensure that queer people of color are supported and valued in all environments. “We hope to spotlight gender-diverse scholars, practitioners and those doing work directly with these populations,” Santos said. “We also want to underscore the need for an intersectional lens in doing this work as gender-diverse youth live at the intersection of various forces that can impact their lives, be it racism, heterosexism, ableism, classism and nativism.” The workshop highlighted research surrounding the health and well-being of gender-diverse youth as well as evidence-based guidance on the most effective ways to support them. Organizers also shared the voices of gender-diverse individuals, their parents and community leaders who are working to create a more inclusive community. They spoke about the challenges that youth deal with and what they need most to improve their health and well-being. Federal and state policies on health care for gender-diverse youth were reviewed at the workshop, which also emphasized the importance of breaking binary classroom structures that place students into male and female categories. Moving past these binary conventions will create a more inclusive environment for gender-diverse youth and will promote trans liberation, participants said. — Aminah Khan


 

Santos Takes Leadership Role at Hub for Latinx Scholars

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos has been named associate director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. The center, part of UCLA’s Institute of American Cultures, supports intersectional research, programming and advocacy related to Chicano, Latino and Indigenous communities. “For decades, UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center has been a central hub for Latinx scholars and those studying issues affecting Latinx communities,” Santos said. “As part of UCLA’s commitment to become a Hispanic Serving Institution by 2025, we will help administer the hiring of several faculty, post-doc fellows and seed research grants. I am honored to support these and other exciting CSRC efforts intended to uplift Latinx communities.” Santos’ research explores ethnic-racial, gender and sexual minority identity among Latinx youth and young adults using an intersectional approach. He studies the contexts within which identities are formed, develop and change over time as well as the impact of discrimination and oppressive forces associated with these identities. Santos has received several early-career awards for achievement in research. He earned a doctorate in developmental psychology from New York University, a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from New York University. The Chicano Studies Research Center was established in 1969 to have a systemic impact on UCLA’s campus, within higher education and across society through original research on the Chicano and Latino communities in the United States. The center is now home to one of the most robust archives of Latino and Chicano materials in the country.


 

Santos on Making Language More Inclusive

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos spoke to Univision about the growing use of the term “Latinx” to refer to people of Latin American origin or descent. “Latinos” and “Hispanos” are commonly used to refer to people of Latin or Hispanic origin, and both terms are masculine, leaving many women and nonbinary individuals feeling excluded. Curiosity about the term “Latinx” spiked in 2015, with an increase in Google searches inquiring about its meaning. Santos said the term “is a way to speak about ourselves as a group that includes various individuals, including those who may not identify with the gender binary.” An informal survey of Spanish-speaking students at UCLA found that different students identify with the terms Latino, Hispanic and Latinx. “One of the biggest misunderstandings is that people think that they have to identify themselves as Latinx,” Santos explained, noting that the term is part of an effort to make language more inclusive over time.


Study Co-Authored by Santos Earns Award from Council on Social Work Education

Assistant Professor Carlos Santos of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare will be honored with a 2019 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression Scholarship (SOGIE) award for recent research at the 65th annual meeting of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) this October in Denver, Colorado. Santos will share the award with co-author Rachel A. VanDaalen, a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Arizona State University, for their paper, “The Associations of Sexual and Ethnic-Racial Identity Commitment, Conflicts in Allegiances, and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Racial and Ethnic Minority Adults,” published by the American Psychological Association in the Journal of Counseling Psychology. “This study offers evidence in support of the assertion that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) racial and ethnic minority adults who perceive a conflict between their LGB and ethnic-racial identities may experience psychological distress,” assert the authors. They add, “It shows that having a strong sense of commitment to one’s LGB identity may buffer the positive association between this conflict and psychological distress among LGB racial and ethnic minority adults.” The SOGIE award recognizes “excellent scholarship that addresses issues of importance to the LGBTQ community and has important implications for social work practice and education,” said Pam Bowers, chair of the SOGIE Scholarship Award Committee, in announcing the award. This is the eighth year that the SOGIE has been awarded by CSWE, which is the accrediting agency for social work education in the United States.

A Research Spotlight on the World’s Vulnerable People UCLA Luskin launches international outreach to identify strategies to empower women and children

By Mary Braswell

In Tanzania, programs aimed at improving women’s health have been in place for decades, but rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among adolescents remain high.

In El Salvador, several comprehensive centers for women needing health care, job training, legal help and protection from domestic violence have opened. Why aren’t more women taking advantage of these services?

Around the world, when well-intentioned policies to improve the lives of people fall short of expectations, researchers mobilize to investigate and advise.

This is the mission of a new initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs called the Global Lab for Research in Action.

The Global Lab’s focus on health, education and economic empowerment comes at a critical time, said Manisha Shah, professor of public policy and founding director of the initiative.

“There is so much need right now,” said Shah, whose extensive research as a development economist in Africa, Asia and Latin America has guided governments and agencies seeking effective, evidence-based policies.

Shah cites this sobering statistic: Of all new adolescent HIV cases in the world, three out of four are in sub-Saharan Africa. Of those cases, 80% are girls.

Tanzanian boys peek into a clubhouse for girls launched as part of a health education campaign. Photo by Jennifer Muz

She is currently evaluating a safe-sex campaign in Tanzania, where 60% of teen girls are sexually active by age 18. Fewer than 10% of girls ages 15 to 19 use any modern contraception, however. And adolescent girls there experience high rates of violence by their intimate partners.

Shah said policies grounded in research can bring about improvements in the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents during the next decade — which in turn would create better educational and employment opportunities.

“There is a great need to look at some of these subpopulations that aren’t historically targeted by the average intervention or policy being implemented in lower-income countries,” she said. “Part of what’s exciting at Luskin right now is the number of faculty who are doing this type of international work.”

The Global Lab integrates their efforts, puts a spotlight on their findings, builds a network of international stakeholders, and acts as a springboard for advocacy, Shah said.

“There is so much potential in bringing our international findings back to the United States, too, by identifying how our research can inform programs and policy here,” she added.

The initiative will also create opportunities for students of public policy, social welfare and urban planning who are drawn to international development issues, Shah said.

The health of an entire community hinges on the well-being of women and children, the researchers at the Global Lab have established. They have studied teachers in Pakistan, caregivers in rural Colombia, sex workers in Indonesia and young HIV patients in South Africa, among many other populations.

In Shah’s Tanzania research, advocating for girls means also reaching out to boys. The boys come to play soccer and stay to hear about health risks and violence against girls — part of an international program that combines sport with sex education.

Shah’s research team is measuring the relative impact of empowering girls, turning boys into allies and simply providing access to contraceptives. The goal is to identify and invest in the most effective policies — to find some way to curb adolescent pregnancy, the spread of disease and intimate partner violence. The Tanzania project is being conducted in collaboration with the international development organization BRAC.

Shah is also helping design strategies to promote El Salvador’s Ciudad Mujer women’s resource centers.

“These are safe spaces where women can come if they need a lawyer, health services, employment services. But take-up rates for the domestic violence services have been relatively low, and they don’t understand why,” Shah said. “I’m working with the Inter-American Development Bank and the government of El Salvador to do the research and to figure out what is going on.”

This is the kind of practical impact that powers the Global Lab, which is launching this summer with support from UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura.

“We have so many great professors across all departments working internationally,” Shah said. The Global Lab “speaks to some of our newer strengths, bringing it all together to foster research, support faculty, and advocate for better policies through our findings and our relationships abroad.”

Editors Note: A previous version of this story referred to the Global Lab for Research in Action by its former name, International Development and Policy Outreach.

Growing to Meet the Challenge of a Changing World UCLA Luskin faculty additions bring new expertise to help keep pace with a rapidly evolving society

By Stan Paul

Retreating coastlines. An information revolution. The ever-evolving ethnic makeup of the United States. These are times of rapid change, presenting new challenges to how and where we live and work.

Meeting the challenges of this new normal and finding solutions to shifting problems and populations, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs has undergone unprecedented growth. In fall 2018, nine new scholars joined Luskin’s faculty in positions that cross disciplinary lines within the School and across the campus. This follows the addition of six other new faculty members since 2016. Four more are being recruited.

This expansion is partly tied to the launch of a new undergraduate major in public affairs, but it’s about more than filling out a schedule of classes. The School has become one of the most diverse and interdisciplinary units in the University of California system, Dean Gary Segura said. The additions were designed to expand “expertise and social impact,” making the school “profoundly well-positioned to engage, educate, study, and contribute to California’s diverse and dynamic population.”

Among the new faculty, six are women and four are Latino.

Some already have strong interests in Los Angeles as well as ties to UCLA and the region, and others will have the opportunity to incorporate Los Angeles into their work.

“I’m extremely excited to be coming home, living on the Eastside and working on the Westside,” said Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy and Chicana/o studies. Zepeda-Millán, a political scientist who grew up in East Los Angeles, studies how mass protest impacts public opinion, policy preferences, identities and political participation. His book, “Latino Mass Mobilization, Immigration, Racialization, and Activism,” received awards this year from the American Political Science Association and the American Sociological Association.

Zepeda-Millán is thrilled to be at UCLA: “It’s truly a dream come true.”

Martin Gilens, professor of public policy, previously taught political science at UCLA. After a long stint at Princeton, he returned to UCLA, where he has multi-generational ties — his parents and grandfather are

Bruins. A native Angeleno, Gilens studies race, class, social inequality and their representational effects in the political system. He teaches courses to graduate and undergraduate students.

“I’m looking forward to the interdisciplinary environment of the Luskin School,” Gilens said. “My Ph.D. is in sociology, and I’ve taught in political science and public policy, so I’m a walking embodiment of interdisciplinarity.”

Natalie Bau adds global perspective and reach. She is an economist studying development and education, with a particular interest in the industrial organization of educational markets. She looks at cultural traditions — such as bride price and dowry practiced in some countries — and their role in determining parents’ human capital investments in their children, and how they evolve in response to the economic environment.

In Zambia, she and research colleagues are tracking the outcomes of 1,600 adolescent girls to evaluate the effects of an experiment that randomly taught negotiation skills.

“My research interests include understanding factors that impact police decision-making and public trust in police,” said Assistant Professor of Public Policy Emily Weisburst, who studies labor economics and public finance, including criminal justice and education. “I am also interested in how interactions with the criminal justice system affect individuals, families and communities.”

Amada Armenta earned her doctorate in sociology in 2011 from UCLA and returns as an assistant professor in UCLA Luskin Urban Planning.

“I am thrilled to be back, to contribute to a university that has played such a formative role in my education,” said the author of the award-winning book, “Protect, Serve and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement.” Most recently she has examined how undocumented Mexican immigrants navigate bureaucracies in Philadelphia.

“Put briefly, I study the social impacts of climate change and how cities are adapting,” says Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Liz Koslov. “My research specifically focuses on the adaptation strategy known as ‘managed retreat,’ the process of relocating people, un-building land, and restoring habitat in places exposed to flooding, sea level rise, and other effects of climate change.”

Koslov is working on a book aptly titled, “Retreat,” that follows residents of Staten Island in New York City whose houses were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy and who subsequently decided to relocate rather than rebuild in place.

Like Koslov, new Urban Planning colleague V. Kelly Turner conducts research with an environmental lens. Her work addresses the relationship among institutions, urban design and the environment through two interrelated questions: How does urban design relate to ecosystem services in cities? And to what extent do social institutions have the capacity to deliver those services?

Turner said her approach draws from social-ecological systems frameworks to address urban planning and design problem domains. She has used this approach to investigate microclimate regulation through New Urbanist design, water and biodiversity management through homeowners associations, and stormwater management through green infrastructure interventions.

Joining UCLA Luskin Social Welfare is Amy Ritterbusch, who has led social justice-oriented participatory action research initiatives with street-connected communities in Colombia for the last decade, and also recently in Uganda. Her work documents human rights violations and forms of violence against the homeless, sex workers, drug users and street-connected children and youth, and subsequent community-driven mobilizations to catalyze social justice outcomes within these communities.

“My current research contemplates the dilemmas within our social movement in terms of how to create protective environments for social justice researchers and activists in the midst of working on and against acts of violence and injustice,” Ritterbusch said.

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos draws on diverse disciplines, theories and methods to better understand how oppressions such as racism and heterosexism overlap to create unique conditions for individuals.

With a background in developmental psychology, Santos believes that developmental phenomena must be studied across diverse disciplines and perspectives. He draws on the largely interdisciplinary interpretive framework of intersectionality, which is a view “underscoring how systems of oppression overlap to create inequities.”

Social Welfare’s Santos Honored for Latinx Research

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos has been named winner of the 2019 Early Career Award by the Society for Research on Child Development Latino Caucus. The honor is the third national early career award received by Santos, who joined the UCLA Luskin faculty this year. Santos, whose doctorate is in developmental psychology, works in an interdisciplinary framework of intersectionality, focusing on how systems of oppression overlap – from heterosexism and racism to issues affecting undocumented youth. The SRCD award recognized his work on diverse groups within the “Latinx umbrella” that are often overlooked in research in the U.S. “From his early training and beyond, he has a steadfast commitment to engage in normative research with Latinx youth and families,” according to the SRCD Latino Conference awards committee. He will receive the award at the organization’s biennial conference this March in Baltimore. Santos also has been named a Rising Star by the National Multicultural Conference & Summit (NMCS), a coalition of four divisions of the American Psychological Association. The award, to be conferred in January, recognizes the efforts of early career psychologists with an interest in multicultural research, teaching, advocacy, policy or clinical care. In 2017, Santos also was honored as an Emerging Professional by the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race for outstanding research contributions in the promotion of ethnic minority issues within 10 years of graduation. “I think these recognitions affirm the need for an intersectional lens in the study of psychological issues among groups that experience multiple forms of marginalization,” Santos said. — Stan Paul