Began his Bowdoin journey in the fall of 2022. His focus is on racial & ethnic politics and political psychology. He often relies on survey experiments to test hypotheses related to identity and politics.
He taught St. Norbert College from 2017 to 2022.
His first book, titled "Latino Identity and Political Attitudes: Why are Latinos not Republican?" focused on Latino Panethnicity and the impact it has on partisanship. In the book, the concept of dual and multiple identities helped explain how Latinos can feel attachments to their country of origin or legacy, to the United States, and to the millions of people who identify as Hispanic, Latino@, Latina, Latino and Latinx.
An extension of the concept of multiple identities was developed by researchers Marilyn Brewer and Sonia Roccas and they called it "identity complexity" which suggests people see their identity as multiple overlapping identities. But Ángel proposes that intersectionality as an identity should be conceived as a "compartmentalized" identity whereas a complex identity means that an individual coexists within many social identities that overlap in the individual.
It is this idea that furthers our interest in a lab that seeks to understand how to increase connectedness among Americans, reduce prejudice, and create more equitable policy outcomes.
Lukas was instrumental in developing the foundations of this lab at SNC. As a small Liberal Arts College, we do not have access to the lab spaces and research funds that research institutions do. Lukas helped develop a set of reading lists that serve as onboarding guides for interested students.
Here you will find a list of Student Researchers and their main research interests and projects:
Matthew Duthaler - Independent Research on the trends between rurality and the vote
Sydney Fetkenhauer SNC class of 2022
Deiondra Wussow SNC class of 2022
Political Science and Psychology
Class of 2023
Political Science
Class of 2021/2022
Dr. Saavedra recently gave a chat on his research on identities and the implications for the politization of immigration in this country at the Brite Divinity School Borderlands Webinar Series. A recording of the talk can be found below:
He Previously presented at the Green Bay STEAM Engine's Special Online Sessions on Social Justice. Here is the link to the announcement, below you can watch the video from the recorded interview.