Skip to main content
Home

UMD College of Education

Main menu

  • About
    • College Profile
      • Accreditation
      • Rankings
    • Office of the Dean
    • Strategic Plan
    • Leadership
      • Educational Technology Services
      • Assessment Office
      • Board of Visitors
      • Dean's Business Office
      • Innovation and Partnerships
    • Shared Governance
    • Contacts
    • Visit
    • COE Centennial
    • EdTerpsEngage
  • Academics
    • Departments
      • Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education
      • Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
      • Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership
    • Programs
      • Undergraduate
      • Masters
      • Doctoral
      • Teacher Certification
      • Certificate Programs
      • Off-campus Programs
    • Program Spotlights
      • Counseling Psychology
      • Educational Administration
      • Education Policy
      • Educator Preparation
      • Educational Psychology
      • Equity and Justice in Education
      • Higher Education & Student Affairs
  • Admissions
    • Financial Aid & Scholarships
    • Programs
      • Undergraduate
      • Masters
      • Doctoral
      • Teacher Certification
      • Certificate Programs
      • Off-campus Programs
  • People
    • Faculty Spotlight
    • Faculty
    • Staff
    • Students
    • Find an Expert
  • Research
    • Research Spotlight
      • COE at AERA 2019
    • Centers and Institutes
    • Labs
    • Faculty Resources
    • Research News
    • Find an Expert
  • Student Resources
    • Student Services
      • Graduate Studies
      • Undergraduate Studies
      • Commencement
      • Contact Us
    • Student & Campus Resources
    • Student Groups
      • Graduate Student Organization
      • Undergraduate Student Ambassadors
  • News
    • Events
    • Office of Communications
      • Internal Communication Resources
    • Publications
  • Alumni
    • Giving
      • Make a Gift
    • Alumni Book Club
    • Alumni News
      • Benjamin Bulletin
      • COE Alumni Class Notes
    • Alumni Events
      • Annual College Events
    • Donor Spotlight
    • Retirees Association
      • COERA Plan of Organization
      • COERA Links
      • COERA Events
    • Office of Advancement
  • Diversity

Secondary menu

  • Give
  • Apply
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Sophia Rodriguez

Assistant Professor

Ph.D.
Loyola University Chicago
(2014
)
  1. Home
  2. People
  3. Sophia Rodriguez
Sophia Rodriguez
Department: 
  • Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership
Division: 
EPL
Email Address: 
srodrig4@umd.edu
Research Interests
Immigration/Immigrants and education; Education policy; Racial/Ethnic identity; Youth activism; School-based personnel advocacy for immigrant students; Community-school partnerships
Bio

Sophia Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor in the Minority and Urban Education specialization in the Teaching, Learning, Policy, and Leadership department. Dr. Rodriguez's interdisciplinary scholarship, drawing on tools from education, anthropology, and sociology, asks questions about the social and cultural contexts of education policy and practice. Her integrated research agenda addresses issues related to racial equity, urban education and policy, and centralizes minoritized youth voices. Her two current longitudinal projects, funded by the Spencer and W.T. Grant Foundations (2018-2022) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), utilize mixed-methods and ethnographic designs to investigate how community-school partnerships, teachers, and school-based mental health professionals promote equity and advocate for undocumented (im)migrant and refugee youth. The IMLS project that focuses on newcomer migrant youth belonging was recently awarded the prestigious Library of Congress Literacy Award. Her scholarly work has appeared in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Educational Policy, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and is forthcoming in Teachers College Record and Urban Education.

Honors & Awards

Latinx Research Center, Research Fellow, Santa Clara University (2020-2023)

Visiting Scholar, Center for the Social Organization of Schools and School of Education, Johns Hopkins University (2020) 

Recipient, Library of Congress Literacy Award for "Linking Learning and Belonging" project (2019)

Member, Scholar Network for the Study of Immigration, Colorin Colorado (from 2018)

Nominee, Early Career Award, Division G, Social Context of Education, American Educational Research Association (2018)

Recipient, North Carolina Association for International Educators Professional Development Scholarship (2018)

Visiting Scholar, Sociology/Interdisciplinary Studies, Vassar College (Summer, 2018)

 

Publications

(*Denotes graduate student co-author)

Books

  • Rodriguez, S. & Conchas, G. Race Frames: Structuring Inequality and Opportunity in a Changing Educational Landscape. (Under contract, Teachers College Press). 

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

  • Rodriguez, S. (In Press). "They let you back in the country?": Racialized inequity and the miseducation of Latinx undocumented students in the New Latino South. The Urban Review. 
  • Rodriguez, S. & McCorkle, W. (In Press). Levels of nationalism among middle and high school social studies teachers: Implications for promoting equity for immigrant students and with educators. Equity & Excellence in Education.
  • McCorkle, W. & Rodriguez, S. (In Press). When nationalism supersedes belief in religious freedom: An analysis of teachers’ beliefs. Educational Studies. 
  • Rodriguez, S., Roth, B., & Villareal Sosa, L. (In Press). “Sometimes, it’s about breaking rules.”:  School social workers’ role as nepantleras and equity for undocumented students. Social Service Review.
  • Rodriguez, S. & Acree, J.* (In Press) Discourses of belonging: Intersections of truth, power, and ethics in research with migrant youth. American Journal of Evaluation. 
  • Rodriguez, S. (2020). Community-school partnerships as racial projects: Examining belonging for newcomer migrant youth in urban education. Urban Education. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920959126
  • Rodriguez, S. & McCorkle, W. (2020). On the educational rights of undocumented students: A call to expand teacher awareness and empathy. Teachers College Record. 123(5). Online first: 
    https://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=23502&fbclid=IwAR0vBxN-ge...
  • Rodriguez, S. (2020). “I was born at the border, like the ‘wrong’ side of it”: Undocumented Latinx youth experiences of identity, belonging, and racialized discrimination in the U.S. South. Anthropology & Education Quarterly. 51(4), 496-526. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12357
  • Rodriguez, S. & Acree, J.* (2020). Biopolitical power in evaluation research with transnational migrant youth. Evaluation. 26(4), 456-473. Online first:  https://doi.org/10.1177/1356389020914314
  • Rodriguez, S. (2019). “You’re a sociologist, I am too”: Theorizing disruption in fieldwork with undocumented youth. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 49(2), 257-285. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241619882075.
  • Rodriguez, S. (2019). “We're building the community; it’s a hub for democracy”: Lessons learned from a library-based program for newcomer immigrant and refugee youth. Children and Youth Services Review, 102, 135-144.
  • Rodriguez, S. & McCorkle, W.* (2019). Examining teachers’ awareness of immigration policy and its impact on attitudes toward undocumented students in a southern state. Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, 31(1), 21-44.
  • Rodriguez, S. (2018). ‘Good, deserving immigrants’ join the Tea Party: How South Carolina policy excludes Latinx and undocumented immigrants from educational opportunity. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 26(103). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.26.3636.
  • Rodriguez, S., Monreal, T.*, & Howard, K.J. (2018). “It’s about hearing and understanding their stories”: Teacher empathy and socio-political awareness toward newcomer undocumented students in the New Latino South. Journal of Latinos and Education. DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2018.1489812.
  • Rodriguez, S. & Monreal, T.* (2017). “This state is racist”: Policy problematization and undocumented youth experiences in the New Latino South. Educational Policy, 31(6), 764–800.
  • Rodriguez, S. (2017). “People hide, but I’m here. I count”:  Examining undocumented youth identity formation in an urban community-school. Educational Studies, 53(5), 468-491.
  • Rodriguez, S. (2017). “My eyes were opened to the lack of diversity in our best schools”: Re-conceptualizing competitive school choice policy as a racial formation. The Urban Review, 49(4), 529-550.

Book Chapters

  • Rodriguez, S., Naficy, H., & Russo, M. (In press). “It’s a hub for democracy”: How a library-based program increases belonging for newcomer immigrant and refugee youth. In Ana Ndumu (Ed). Borders & belonging: Critical examinations of LIS approaches toward immigrants. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books/Library Juice Press. [Co-authored with community partners]
  • Rodriguez, S., Bonezzi, D.,* & Koehler, K.* (2020). “How long do we have to wait?: Examining school choice, selective enrollment schools, and the reproduction of racial inequality in a southern community. In Gilberto Conchas, Briana Hinga, Miguel N. Abad, & Kris Gutierrez (Eds). The Complex Web of Inequality in North American Schools. NY, NY: Routledge. 23-45.
  • Rodriguez, S. (2017). “They called us the revolutionaries”: Immigrant youth social identity formation and community organizing as a Deleuzian event. In Ares, N. Buendia, E. & Helfenbein, R.J. (Eds). Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing: Critical Geographies of Educational Reform. The Netherlands: Sense Publishing. 77-97.

Guest Edited Journals

  • Rodriguez, S. & Blum, D. (2021, projected). “I’ve never cried with a stranger before”: Pedagogies of renewal and research dilemmas with/by undocuscholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.

Book Reviews

  • Rodriguez, S. (2020). Migranthood: Youth in an era of deportation by Lauren Heidbrink. Anthropology & Education Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12363
  • Ramos, D. & Rodriguez, S. (2020). Invited book review, Measuring Race: Why disaggregating data matters for addressing educational inequality by Robert Teranishi et al. Teachers College Record.
  • Rodriguez, S. & Thompson, E.A.* (2019). Invited book review, Fragile families: Foster care, immigration, and citizenship by Naomi Glenn-Levin Rodriguez. Anthropological Quarterly, 91(1).

Public Scholarship

  • Rodriguez, S. 2019. “Educator and school-based personnel’s advocacy for undocumented youth in K-12 settings.” Policy Brief No. 06-2019, Sociology Policy Briefs, Retrieved November 1, 2019. https://www.policybriefs.org/briefs
  • Rodriguez, S. (2019). A space to belong: Newcomer migrant youth in Hartford, CT. Online: http://www.youthcirculations.com/blog/2019/1/9/a-space-to-belong-newcomer-migrant-youth-in-hartford
  • Rodriguez, S. & Monreal, T.* (2017). “Why the ‘bad hombre’ Trump is the least of our worries:  How state policies criminalize immigrant and undocumented youth.” Online: http://www.youthcirculations.com/blog/southcarolina

Other Publications

  • McCorkle, W., Rodriguez, S., & Monreal, T.* (2018). Appendix on Teaching Immigration Issues. Confronting false narratives in the immigration debate. Social Education. 82(6). 353- 354.
Grants & Projects
  • William T. Grant Foundation, Officer's Research Grant (Principal Investigator, Funded, $50,000). "School-based personnel and equity for undocumented students in K-12 schools" (2020-2022).
  • Spencer Foundation, Small Grants Program (Co-PI with Ben Roth and Leticia Villarreal Sosa, equal contributors; Funded $49,661). "Promoting equity for immigrant students: Examining the influence of school social workers in K-12 settings" (2018-2021). See: https://www.immigrantequityproject.org/
  • Institute for Museum and Library Services (Co-PI; Funded, $595, 204.; subaward $60,000). "Linking learning and belonging: A collaborative approach to narrowing the achievement gap for new arrival immigrant teens" (2016-2021). 
Courses

TLPL 788: Immigration and Education

TLPL 770: Black and Latinx/o Education: History and Policy

  • Contact Us
  • Faculty & Staff Resources
  • Make a Gift
  • Search
  • Sitemap
  • Web Accessibility
  • Privacy Policy

University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Copyright © 2021 University of Maryland

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube