Education
Ph.D. Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2018
Biography
Karina Chavarria is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University Channel Islands. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating frameworks from Sociology, Education, and Ethnic Studies to examine the educational, social, and structural experiences of undocumented and U.S. born Latina/o youth/young adults. Dr. Chavarria is member of the Undocumented Student Equity Project research team, a collaborative research initiative that investigates how immigration policies disrupt the educational experiences and wellbeing of undocumented college students and students from mixed-status families. Her research demonstrates how immigration policies converge with educational practices to mediate the consequences of shifting policies on undocumented students’ educational pathways.
Dr. Chavarria is committed to working with and advocating for undocumented immigrant communities. Over the 10+ years of working with high school Chicanx/Lanix and diverse undergraduate students within and outside of the classroom, she foregrounds the connections between community ways of knowing and academic knowledge to analyze social inequalities and potential avenues for addressing practices that reproduce inequity in society. She collaborates closely with Channel Islands’ undocumented students services center, University-Wide Taskforces to improve undocumented student services, and Southern California immigrant rights non-profits in disseminating resources and information.
Scholarship
Keywords
Immigration, Education, Undocumented Youth