On September 22, 2021, Chandler Miranda, term assistant professor of education and urban studies, co-authored a recently published article, along with Adriana Villavicencio, Jia-Lin Liu, and Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, in the Harvard Education Review. The work, titled “What’s Going to Happen to Us?” Cultivating Partnerships with Immigrant Families in an Adverse Political Climate,” examines how educators frame the current political climate at schools that primarily serve immigrant communities.
The increasing numbers of immigrant and refugee students in the primary and secondary education system, combined with the rising tensions surrounding issues related to immigration, makes this a crucial time to study educators and the school system. This research finds that in light of the political context, educators shifted towards proactively forging relationships with families, creating new alliances within the community, and mediating with families regarding challenges related to work and higher education to benefit their community. In doing this, these school leaders have shifted the norms of parental engagement, and centered the focus on the perspectives, voices, and experiences of immigrant families