Urban Studies Departmental Research Program 2023

About: The laws and policies that govern who is allowed to enter the United States, and under what conditions they may remain, constitute this country’s immigration system. Since the mid-1980s, this system increasingly has relied on punitive laws and policies that do not mention race to limit immigrants who are racial minorities from becoming full members of society. Immigrant-serving organizations, which identify, mobilize around, and contest this system at various levels of government, are at the vanguard of efforts to combat the racial inequalities that these laws and policies create. Yet, little is known about how these organizations understand their role in challenging a system that generally has exacerbated racial inequality over time. This research draws on analyses of immigrant-serving organizations’ mission statements, as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of these organizations nationwide, to examine how they understand their work against this backdrop and what impact, if any, they believe their efforts have on challenging the racial inequalities built into the immigration system.

Research Tasks: Students working on this project would be engaged in two primary tasks: 1) qualitatively coding and analyzing transcribed interview data; 2) helping produce a report that summarizes key findings for immigration advocates.

About: Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law (2017), argues that there is no such thing as “de facto” segregation; all housing segregation in the US, he argues, has been supported by the government in a myriad of ways, and is thus “de jure.” He substantiates this with examples from cities across the country, including many in the Bay Area. Cities in the Bay Area are beginning to wrestle with the deep history of structural racism in their housing markets, and are becoming aware of how this history underpins the current crises of homelessness and housing (un)affordability. This project will examine the history of race and housing in Mountain View, CA, in support of a proposed public event sponsored by the Mountain View Human Relations Commission and the Mountain View Historical Association.

Research Tasks: Transcribing completed oral histories, according to accepted protocols in the field. Communication with oral history participants to confirm the contents of their transcript. Collaboration with the Mountain View Public Library and the Mountain View Historical Association to archive the transcribed interviews.

About: Our Voice is a global research initiative that aims to provide community members from all backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life with the skills and support to help improve local environments to advance health equity. The Our Voice research method consists of 4 steps (Discover, Discuss, Activate, and Change) and starts with an easy-to-use multilingual mobile app that allows users to record geotagged photos, comments and ratings about community features impacting health and health behaviors. After using the app to gather physical and social environmental data, Our Voice “citizen scientists” work with others in a facilitated process, to review collective data and identify and prioritize areas for change, focusing on feasibility. They then share their findings and recommendations with local decisionmakers and work together to make change happen. This citizen science method has been successfully adapted for projects on the Stanford campus, across the Bay Area and the US, and in more than 20 other countries. The focus of individual Our Voice projects spans food access; walkability/bikeability; safe routes to school; age-friendly communities; access to parks and other green spaces; gender-based violence; and general well-being and inclusiveness in diverse communities.

Research Tasks: The Our Voice Initiative, housed in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, is currently supporting over 30 local and global Our Voice projects. In gaining exposure to the full range of projects, students who work with us build knowledge about project planning and implementation as well as community-based participatory research methods; digital health data capture and visualization; working with diverse populations and cultures across the socio-economic continuum; and interdisciplinary and inter-cultural research. Our group is multi-cultural, collaborative, and supportive of all members, including students. We often find that we learn as much from students as they learn from us!

About: The purpose of this project is to study school closures in California, with an eye toward generating insights and tools that can help district leaders prioritize racial equity, including the needs, rights, and preferences of Black students and communities when making decisions about if, how, when, and where to close school sites. With this project, we propose to explore the issue of school closures in California through a racial equity lens. We intend to build upon existing and emerging research, exploring the answers to the following research questions: What are historical patterns of school closures in California, and which student groups and neighborhoods, by racial demographics, have closures most impacted? Which districts and communities are at greatest risk of school closures given current and projected enrollment trends? What policy alternatives exist for districts considering school closures?

Research Tasks: RAs will assist in conducting literature searches, writing literature reviews, and will help conduct descriptive analyses.

About: The Educational Opportunity Project (EOP) at Stanford University uses a range of data on educational conditions, contexts, and outcomes to help scholars, policy makers, educators, and the general public learn about the landscape of educational opportunity and academic achievement in the US. The EOP houses two main initiatives: 1. The Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA): SEDA is the first 11-year national database of academic performance based on nearly 450 million 3-8th grade math and reading and language arts test scores from the 2008-2019 school years. We hope that researchers, practitioners, and policy makers will utilize SEDA to generate evidence about what policies and practices are most effective at increasing educational opportunity. 2. EOP NYSED Equity Indicators Project: We are partnering with the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to construct a series of equity indicators using longitudinal teacher, student, and staff level data. These indicators will help us better understand the landscape of educational equity across NY state and inform system-level changes to improve equitable access to educational opportunity.

Research Tasks: The EOP RA will be responsible for assisting on current projects that include the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), the EOP NYSED Equity Indicators Project, and/or work on the Segregation Index project, an initiative jointly run by Professor Reardon and Professor Ann Owens at USC. The RA may also have the opportunity to research and prepare a report on their own topic of interest related to the work of the EOP – past topics include educational opportunity in Puerto Rico, student opt-out, and broadband access. Overall, the RA will gain knowledge about the research process, learn and apply/strengthen quantitative skills, and contribute to the production of data analyses, reports, and other public dissemination products. Example duties for this position include: Conducting online background research on relevant topics and writing literature reviews; collecting, cleaning, and organizing data for preliminary analyses; producing memos and data reports for various projects; collaborating with EOP research staff, partners, and other RAs; outreach (via email, phone, and conference calls) to stakeholders; supporting the promotion of the EOP's work through social media and the EOP website.

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About: The purpose of this project is to study school closures in California, with an eye toward generating insights and tools that can help district leaders prioritize racial equity, including the needs, rights, and preferences of Black students and communities when making decisions about if, how, when, and where to close school sites. With this project, we propose to explore the issue of school closures in California through a racial equity lens. We intend to build upon existing and emerging research, exploring the answers to the following research questions: What are historical patterns of school closures in California, and which student groups and neighborhoods, by racial demographics, have closures most impacted? Which districts and communities are at greatest risk of school closures given current and projected enrollment trends? What policy alternatives exist for districts considering school closures?

Research Tasks: RAs will assist in conducting literature searches, writing literature reviews, and will help conduct descriptive analyses.

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Abstract: One reason for the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area, in particular for low- and very-low income families results from communities perceiving affordable housing in a negative light and therefore taking action to prevent affordable housing from being built. Our collaborative research seeks to answer the following questions: (1) What are people’s perceptions of what counts as affordable housing projects? (2) What aspects of building design are prevalent in the public's mental model of affordable housing? (3) Do certain perceptions of “what counts as affordable housing” and "what features affordable housing includes" differ between those who are motivated to take action (either support or resist) and those who do not? We are conducting online surveys collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, reviewing local project successes and failures, and conducting in-depth, in-person interviews.

Research Tasks: Assist in creating surveys in Qualtrics; Code qualitative data using e.g., NVivo or Dedoose; Analyze data using R and other statistical software; Review local project data through city council meeting records, social media, and news organizations.

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Abstract: The built environment shapes our lives in numerous ways. Our design choices impact numerous well-being metrics such as stress, affect, sense of belonging, pro-environmental behavior, and physical activity. In this project, we aim to understand how urban scenery may be associated with different well-being outcomes by leveraging ubiquitous computing and passive sensing. We aim to understand the hidden ties between the urban environment and a resident’s well-being metrics to inform design and maintenance choices to better support human well-being over time.

Research Tasks: The research assistant on this project will participate in the following research activities: (1) contributing to a large literature review, (2) building and launching online surveys including incorporating eye-tracking technology, and (3) preparing visualizations and conducting analyses on resulting data of interest.

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Abstract: This research project is part of a larger endeavor to create a digitized, interactive map of Latinx businesses in New York City for the years 1934 and 1964. To do so, Professor Regalado has acquired two Latinx “yellow” pages for each of those two years.

Research Tasks: The goal for the research assistant would be to create a dataset of 1964 book that would include business name, address, and type. However, I’d would also like to think with the student about how such a task could lend itself to research about advertisements, culture, business clusterings, etc that they may find interesting as it relates to Latinx migration and community-building. The only required skill is Spanish proficiency since the book is in Spanish. It would also be helpful to have some familiarity with Microsoft Excel.

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