Paula, how would you describe the key focus and goal of your research?
My research focuses on memory sites such as museums and memorials in Colombia. I am studying how these sites are envisioned and what their potential and limitations are in educating for peacebuilding. In exploring non-formal spaces of education and the way students and teachers engage with them in school visits, my goal is to understand how these sites are used to teach about the past and for the future. Focusing on sites that memorialize a difficult past but that at the same time are used to teach about peace, I want to understand the connection between how we view past violence and what we think is possible or impossible about a peaceful future.
What inspired this research focus, and what contribution do you hope it makes?
As a Colombian researcher (but most importantly as a Colombian citizen), I hope to contribute to peacebuilding in my country and I genuinely believe that education has an important role in this process. One of the main ideas that ground my research is that memory works as a lens through which we see the future. This idea is crucial to the Colombian context because, after six decades of continuous conflict and three decades of piecemeal peace negotiations, one important barrier to peace is that people don’t necessarily agree on what peace looks like or what we should do to achieve it. The question about what we expect from peace and how that is informed by our memories is at the heart of the continuation of conflict. These memories may be informed by personal experiences, by intergenerational conversations, by collective memories, and other layers of memory that may be in conversation or even in opposition to one another. But memories are always selective and are often intertwined with structures of power.
Analyzing how violence is memorialized, how memories are transmitted to younger generations, and the challenges that emerge can help us do a better job of transcending violence. It is important to recognize the voices of students in these processes because understanding how youth situate themselves as historical and political subjects is necessary to be able to truly engage them in peacebuilding processes. In contexts of transition like Colombia, the struggles over memory are central to both education and memorialization efforts. But these two aspects of peacebuilding are usually seen as two separate issues. What is interesting about school visits to memory sites is that they illustrate the connection between formal and non-formal education, so part of what my research is trying to do is bridging this gap to contribute to a broader view of education for peacebuilding that goes beyond the school.
You have won the Spencer, how significant is this for you and what does it allow you to do?
The Spencer is an amazing opportunity. This fellowship allows me to focus on writing my dissertation and working on some dissemination strategies that I hope will reach a broader audience. The Spencer will also connect me to wonderful group of scholars working on education to learn from them and build a network that will help amplify the impact of my work. I am truly honored to have been selected as part of this year’s cohort.
Corinne, how would you describe the key focus and goal of your research?
My research explores how mixed-status immigrant families navigate the transition from high school to postsecondary life. I am specifically interested in how family experiences of migration influence students’ roles in their families, and how their responsibilities at home affect their goals for the future. While I began my dissertation research by focusing on questions of motivation, access, and educational pursuit, over the last few years I have also explored what happens when people begin to work actively to realize their dreams – zeroing in on how families renegotiate internal caregiving responsibilities as older children grow up, graduate, and pursue the things that matter to them and their loved ones (e.g. a job, higher education). We often hear that educational opportunity is a key motivation for migration, but the story doesn't stop there. My research looks to understand how families collectively pursue academic and professional opportunities in light of the constraints they face as immigrants in the United States. At the same time, I am interested in how members of mixed-status families get involved in one another's education, traversing institutional boundaries as they pursue learning everywhere from the preschool to the college (or postgraduate!) campus.
What inspired this research focus, and what contribution do you hope it makes?
When I first started my Ph.D., I planned to investigate how mixed-status families engaged in political activism through the public school system. While conducting my first summer of field work (sited at a preschool that doubled as a parent organizing forum for undocumented mothers in south Los Angeles), I started to meet and grow close to older siblings who were coming to pick up their younger relatives at the end of the school day. Our brief conversations illuminated two things for me. One, I realized just how much carework these older siblings were doing. Two, I noticed that they were having drastically different experiences in their own schools, where they were seen as students, as compared with their siblings' schools, where they were seen as brokers, caregivers, and advocates. Students talked to me all the time about their goals for the future, which usually included plans for college and graduate school.
This made me wonder: how were the various experiences people had in formal learning environments influencing what they wanted to do with their lives, and what would happen as they began pursuing these dreams? When I returned to New York to finish my coursework, I started a research job at the City University of New York, and my first project there centered on high school to college pathways. Everything started to click, and I realized that I could combine insights from my work on the east and west coast to explore the questions that had begun bubbling up in my different projects. All this was framed by conversations I had with my own family, especially my mother, who is herself an educator and a fierce advocate for higher education access.
In terms of a contribution, I hope that this project encourages people to broaden their conception of who is involved in conversations about college. Often, we think of higher education as a solo-endeavor, but that's not really true. I hope my research helps readers to see how entire families are impacted by the decisions shaping the landscape of higher education in the present day. At the same time, I hope to show how one's simultaneous experiences in a variety of institutions, from pre-K to graduate school, are shaped by membership in community.
You have won the Spencer Fellowship, how significant is this for you and what does it allow you to do?
Winning the Spencer Fellowship is so significant that I can barely put it into words. The financial support from this fellowship will allow me to continue my research in southern California and, hopefully, to publish this work in collaboration with the students who participated in the project (we are working on some articles and multi-modal presentations - stay tuned!). The Fellowship will give me much-needed time to finish writing the dissertation manuscript, which will include data from ethnographic fieldnotes, interviews, archival research, photo elicitation, and textual analysis. I have a lot of data to work with, and this support will allow me to really think through it all and figure out how to tell the stories that have been shared with me.
Receiving the Spencer also signifies the importance of this work to the education community. This project has always mattered a great deal to me, but now I know for sure that this work also matters to my colleagues. I am most excited for the opportunity to connect with other researchers. Spencer does a fantastic job establishing mentoring relationships among its awardees, which can help you envision the next stages of your scholarship. I have been so lucky to find wonderfully supportive advisors throughout my time at TC, and I am excited to grow that community! I cannot wait to meet the other dissertation fellows and to connect with new mentors through the organization, which will help me expand this project as I progress in my career.