Research

Below find a summary of some of the major questions CREA is exploring!

What does it mean to belong? What are the factors and politics shaping belonging?

Drawing from a place-belongingness and a politics of belonging framework — which describes how belonging is both an intimate feeling and bounded by intersecting social forces that serve to include and exclude various social realities — this research interrogates how questions of belonging for marginalized groups are personal and political.

Select relevant readings:

Covarrubias, R. (2024). On being accepted: Interrogating how university cultural scripts shape personal and political facets of belonging. Educational Psychology Review, 36(136), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09970-2

Covarrubias, R. (2023). What does it mean to belong? An interdisciplinary integration of theory and research on belonging. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, e12858, https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12858.

How do first-generation students of color leverage their community cultural wealth to navigate the college transition, especially as institutions delegitimize these cultural assets? How do they negotiate and maintain familial and community knowledge and relationships during the transition?

For students from marginalized backgrounds, the college transition brings about both new exciting opportunities and experiences of exclusion. This research investigates the complex reality of the cultural transition to college, including the tensions that students confront in navigating culturally-diverse home-school contexts and the cultural assets they lean on to make sense of and transform these tensions into new possibilities.

Select relevant readings:

Valle, I. & Covarrubias, R. (2024). Stories of conflict, agency, and hope: Master narratives underlying home-school mismatches for first-generation Latina students. Qualitative Psychology, 11(3), 465–490. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000302

Covarrubias., R., & Valle., I. (2023). In the in-between: Low-income Latinx students sensemaking of paradoxes of independence and interdependence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 0(0).https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231180148

Basch, S., Covarrubias, R., & Wang, S.-h. (2022). Minoritized students’ experiences with pandemic-era remote learning inform ways of expanding access. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000330

Casanova, S., Alonso Blanco, V., Takimoto, A., Vazquez, A., Covarrubias, R., London, R., Azmitia, M., & Lewis, C. (2021). Learning in the counterspace of not school. Educational Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2021.1969936

Covarrubias, R., De Lima, F., Landa, I., Valle, I., Hernandez-Flores, W. (2021). Dimensions of family achievement guilt for low-income, Latinx and Asian first-generation students. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 27(4), 696–704. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000418.

Covarrubias, R., Landa, I., & Gallimore, R. (2020). Developing a family achievement guilt scale grounded in first-generation college student voices. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(11), 1553-1566. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220908382

Covarrubias, R., Valle, I., Laiduc, G., & Azmitia, M. (2019). “You never become fully independent”: Family roles and independence in first-generation college students. Journal of Adolescent Research, 34(4), 381-410.

How can we build more holistic institutional support structures for marginalized students, rooted in their community cultural wealth?

These investigations draw from strengths-based, systems-level, and/or critical frameworks (e.g., servingess, culture cycle, mobilization of capital, intersectionality, critical race theory) to articulate practical, research-driven recommendations for improving institutional practice.

Select relevant readings:

Laiduc, G., Valle-Lujan, I., & Covarrubias, R. (2025). Straight from the source: First-generation students’ advice for improving institutional support. In S. N. Cervantes, R. Dutta, J.L. Mize, N. Moinolmolki, & A. I. Ramos Nuñez, (Eds.). Helping first-generation students succeed: Psychologically-backed strategies for campus and classroom. American Psychological Association. Forthcoming.

Covarrubias, R., & Valle, I. (2025). Reflections on intersectionality and first-generation students. In S.A. Aikiokhai, M. Daily, and L. Garrigues, (Eds.), How first-generation students navigate higher education through an embrace of their multiple identities. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003587873

Covarrubias, R. (2024). Institutionalizing a culture of inclusion to upend structural invisibility. [Invited commentary for “A leadership-level culture cycle intervention changes teachers’ culturally inclusive beliefs and practices, by L.M. Brady, C. Wang, C. Griffiths, J. Yang, H.R. Markus, & S.A. Fryberg.]. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(26), e2409561121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409561121

Covarrubias., R., Laiduc, G., Quinteros, K., & Arreaga, J. (2023). Lessons on servingness from mentoring program leaders at a Hispanic Serving Institution. Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, 9(2), 1-17.

Covarrubias, R., Laiduc, G., & Valle, I. (2022). What institutions can learn from the navigational capital of minoritized students. Journal of First-generation Student Success, 2(1), 36-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/26906015.2022.2065109

Covarrubias, R. (2021). What we bring with us: Investing in Latinx students means investing in families. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732220983855

Covarrubias, R., Vazquez, A., Moreno, R., Estrada, J., Valle, I., & Zuniga, K. (2020). Engaging families to foster holistic success of low-income, Latinx first-generation students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. In G. A. Garcia (Ed.), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

How can critical-informed diversity ideologies function as identity-safe cues for marginalized students? What contextual factors strengthen or undermine their effectiveness?

These investigations explore how critical diversity ideologies function as identity-safe cues, including how students make sense of respond to the strengths and limitations of these cues.

Select relevant readings:

Laiduc, G., Slattery, I., & Covarrubias, R. (2024). Disrupting neoliberal diversity discourse with critical race college transition stories. Journal of Social Issues, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12600

Rolon-Dow, R., Covarrubias, R., & Guerron Montero, C. (2022). Shallow inclusion: How Latinx students experience a predominantly White institution engaging in diversity work [Special issue]. Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, 8(2), 135-157. https://journals.sfu.ca/cvj/index.php/cvj/issue/view/27/77

Covarrubias, R., & Laiduc, G. (2022). Complicating college transition stories: Strengths and challenges of approaches to diversity in wise story interventions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(3), 732-751. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211006068

How can culturally-grounded approaches inform social psychological interventions and better attune to the complex realities of marginalized students?

Leveraging the rigor of psychologically-precise techniques that help students develop adaptive meaning-making systems (i.e., wise interventions), these investigations adapt these techniques to better recognize the complex social realities and strengths of marginalized students.

Select relevant readings:

Arcos, K. & Covarrubias, R., & Storm, B. (2025). Examining the potential benefits of affirming values on memory for educational information. Forthcoming in Behavioral Sciences.

Valle, I. & Covarrubias, R. (2024). A critical race culture cycle study of class inequities in higher education. Journal of Social Issues, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12653

Covarrubias, R., & Laiduc, G. (2023). Paradoxes, uncertainty, pain, and hope: Motivations for making sense of challenge. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 18(7), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12980

Laiduc, G., & Covarrubias, R. (2022). Making meaning of the hidden curriculum: Translating wise interventions to usher university change. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 8(2), 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000309

Laiduc, G., Herrmann, S., & Covarrubias, R. (2021). Relatable role models: An intervention highlighting first-generation faculty benefits first-generation students. Journal of First-generation Student Success, 1(3), 159-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/26906015.2021.1983402

Ramirez, G., Covarrubias, R., Jackson, M., & Son, J. Y. (2021). Making hidden resources visible in a minority serving college context. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 27(2), 256–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000423

Covarrubias, R., Laiduc, G., & Valle, I. (2019). Growth messages increase help-seeking and performance for women in STEM. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 22(3), 434-451.

How do structures of whiteness constrain the motivations, experiences, and opportunities of marginalized faculty? How do they resist these constraints and build more just academic spaces?

Structures of whiteness permeate higher education settings and constrain the experiences, motivations, and pathways of marginalized faculty. Through testimonios, counterstorytelling, and other narrative methodologies, these investigations document the nature of these structural contraints and the psychological experiences, including acts of resistance, of marginalized faculty navigating such constraints.

Select relevant readings:

Covarrubias, R., & Quinteros, K. (2025). Transforming structures of whiteness: The joys and pains of reimagining university leadership. In K. A. Case and L. R. Warner, (Eds.), Creating a faculty activism commons for social justice: Finding hope in the messy truth (pp. 184-196). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032700069

Quinteros, K., & Covarrubias, R. (2023). Reimagining leadership through the everyday resistance of faculty of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000471

Covarrubias, R. (2023). Rebirthing my girlhood space: What bell hooks taught me about writing and love [Special issue]. Women, Gender, and Families of Color. https://womengenderandfamilies.ku.edu/online-essays-honoring-bell-hookss-legacy/1201/

Covarrubias, R., Netwon, X., & Glass, T. (2022). “You can be creative once you are tenured”: Counterstories of academic writing from mid-career women faculty of color [Special issue]. Multicultural Perspectives, 24(3), 120-128, https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2022.2127394

Covarrubias, R. (2022). Continuing cultural mismatches: Personal reflections of a Latina first-generation faculty navigating the academy. In T. L. Buenavista, D. Jain, M. C. Ledesma* (Eds.) First-generation faculty of color: Reflections on research, teaching, and service. Rutgers University Press.

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