As a follow-up to The 2020 Study, we are launching a two-part mixed methods study. 

First, during The 2020 Study (Karras et al., 2022), qualitative interviews were completed with 90 immigrant-origin youth aged 12-18 living in the U.S. from the November 2020 election through the January 2021 inauguration. As the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election was central to our research study, we plan to reach back out to the original 90 youth to conduct follow-up interviews between the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election in November and the January 2025 inauguration. The original participants will now be ages 16-22. The follow-up interviews will replicate and expand upon the original study domains regarding youth's: (1) sociopolitical development; (2) identity development; (3) mental health and wellbeing; (4) sense of community and belonging; (5) engagement with political content on social media; and (6) critical consciousness development. 

Second, to further investigate the themes identified through The 2020 Study, we plan to recruit a new sample of 250-500 youth to complete an online survey that will include a mixture of close-ended survey questions and plus a small number of open-ended written questions that will mirror the qualitative interview domains of interest. Our inclusion criteria will be: youth aged 16-22 years old, who identify as immigrant-origin, and live in the U.S. 

PI

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard 

Co-PIs

Dr. Guadalupe López Hernández, Psychology, Loyola University Chicago

Dr. Elena Maker Castro, Psychology, Bates College

The goal of this study is to examine how adolescents (aged 12-17) in three Caribbean countries—Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago—understand their socioeconomic rights and issues of economic inequality. By elevating children’s voices on economic inequality, findings from this study can help improve the strategies used by researchers, policymakers and educators invested in fostering a more socially just and equitable world. 

PI

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard

Co-PIs

Dr. Martin D. Ruck, Developmental Psychology, The Graduate Center City University of New York

Dr. Christopher Charles, Department of Government and Political Psychology, University of the West Indies. 

Pre-pandemic the goal was to develop, pilot, and scale up climate assessment regarding how inclusive (or not) learning environments are for immigrant-origin students by triangulating multiple perspectives from stakeholders across the educational ecology (i.e., students, educators, staff, administrators, family, community).

Our pandemic pivot for this project was to undertake a systematic literature review of global research regarding how immigrant-origin, K-12 students experience their school climate (e.g., safety, relationships, teaching & learning). The goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of I-O students’ lived experiences across their learning environments with an emphasis on recommendations for future work towards improving school climate for I-O youth—which has become increasingly relevant as xenophobia has increased in recent years alongside global migration patterns which are projected to further increase in the coming decades (e.g., climate refugees; Karras et al., under review).

PI

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard 

Co-PI

Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco, Professor in Residence & Director of  Immigration Initiative at Harvard, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Collaborators

Patricia Cabral, Human Development & Psychology, UCLA

Elena Maker Castro, Human Development & Psychology, UCLA

Stephanie Nguyen, Human Development & Psychology, UCLA

Alfredo Novoa, Human Development & Psychology, UCLA

In the multi-phase mixed-methods project, Making the Invisible Visible (MIV), 610 videos of diverse 4th-9th grade urban classrooms from the Measures of Effective Teaching study were systematically coded. We developed and applied a multidimensional video-based observational framework documenting a repertoire of teacher-student interactions which have been identified as influential to children’s well-being, both academically and socioemotionally including dimensions of: classroom management, teacher-student relationships, and cognitive instruction. 

Dr. Karras helped lead the MIV study to examine classroom enactments of bias and the dissemination of research findings by: (1) qualitatively theorizing and identifying distinct classroom typologies using the video-based observational protocol through a "whole" classroom perspective (Karras et al., 2021); (2) using an iterative approach to systematically observe culturally responsive practices (Larios et al., 2022); and (3) conducting a multi-region examination of the presence, absence, and antithesis of culturally responsive practices across 610 classrooms (Karras et al., under review).

Currently latent profile analysis is being conducted to: (1) identify classroom profiles regarding the MIV-coded dimensions; (2) examine classroom and teacher characteristics that distinguish between profile membership; and (3) link classroom profiles and the sociodemographic characteristics that distinguish between them with student socioemotional outcomes.

PI

Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco, Professor in Residence & Director of  Immigration Initiative at Harvard, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Co-Investigator

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard

Collaborator

Jasmine Johnson, Doctoral Candidate, Applied Developmental Psychology, Fordham University

The 2020 Study (aka Sociopolitical Development amidst Mass Mobilization against Systemic Racism: Examining the Lived Experiences of Immigrant-Origin Youth) launched in the Fall of 2020. Using a phenomenological qualitative approach this study qualitatively examined how n=90 immigrant-origin (I-O) youth experienced and engaged with the 2020 election season in light of economic, political, and social consequences from the pandemic and the social movements against systemic racism. 

Findings have expanded our understanding of how I-O youth engage as political actors by examining how the sociopolitical development (SPD) of I-O youth evolved during and after an election year as shaped by the development of their ethnic-racial identity (ERI) and critical consciousness (CC) (Emuka et al., 2023; Karras et al., 2022).

PI

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard 

Co-PI

Dr. Elena Maker Castro, Psychology, Bates College

Funding

Awarded: Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), 2021 Small Grants Program for Early Career Scholars - The 2020 Study: Elevating Immigrant-Origin Youth Voices During and After a Year of Social Unrest. P.I. Juliana Karras, Ph.D. - $7,482

From 2016-2018, a multi-study, multi-method examination of sociocultural variability in the ethnic-racial socialization processes used by Black immigrant and Black American parents to prepare their children to deal with inequality and how these processes related to their children’s civic development from early childhood through adolescence. In Study I, person-centered trajectory modeling was employed to examine how socialization trajectories relate to civic indicators across multiple ecological contexts (Karras et al., 2020). In Study II, an in-depth grounded theory investigation triangulated the perspectives of parents and their children on inequality and civic development.

PI

Dr. Juliana Karras, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University

& Partner of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard