Dissertation Proposal Announcement Ed.D. Program: Emily Pereira “Taking Steps to Explore the Lives of New Jersey Undergraduate Students from Immigrant Families from Financially and Educationally Disadvantaged Backgrounds”

In New Jersey, undergraduate college students from financially and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds can apply to the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) program for academic and financial support. The existing literature on EOF students primarily focuses on retention and the causes of withdrawal. Instead, this study draws on humanizing research approaches (Paris, 2010; Paris & Winn, 2014) to unearth students’ counterstories.

This dissertation seeks to learn how EOF students from immigrant families (first through third generations) navigate their experiences in higher education and their sense of belonging during the current sociopolitical and economic climate. Events such as increased cost of living, higher unemployment, reduced financial support services, heightened fear brought on by immigration policies/enforcement, and additional traumatic stress affect this already marginalized student population.

The study is guided by the following research questions: (1) How do EOF students from immigrant families describe the current socioeconomic and political climate, and how it impacts them? (2) How do the perceptions of EOF students from immigrant families shape their sense of belonging in college and their academic engagement? and (3) What suggestions do they have for the EOF program to better understand their lived experiences, notably in this challenging time?

To understand students’ experiences, I draw upon a Critical Race approach to Trauma Resilient Communities (TRC). TRC emphasizes acknowledging the longstanding, repeated traumas and systemic injustices faced by certain populations and how communities process them as they move forward (Vides et al., 2022). This resilience-based framework fosters community healing from trauma and systemic violence.

Data collection methods include 20 testimonial interviews as well as a subset (10) of walking interviews, to provide a window into students’ counterstories that often get overlooked. Both testimonios and counterstories are grounded in LatCrit, challenging dominant narratives that uphold social inequalities by centering the lived experiences of marginalized groups (Green, 2021; Pérez Huber & Aguilar-Tinajero, 2024).

The findings will add to the existing literature by providing an updated glimpse into the lives of college students from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds from immigrant families in the current sociopolitical climate to inform how college programs can better support these realities.