Scholar Mentors

Patricia Gandara Ph. D

Patricia Gándara received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles, her Master of Science degree in Counseling from California State University, Los Angeles, and her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

She is a Research Professor and Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. She is also Chair of the Working Group on Education for the University of California-Mexico Initiative in which she is spearheading a number of California-Mexico education projects.

Gándara’s most recent books include The Latino Education Crisis (2009) with Frances Contreras, from Harvard University Press; Forbidden Language: English Learners and Restrictive Language Policies (2010) with Megan Hopkins, from Teachers College Press, and The Bilingual Advantage: Language, Literacy, and the U.S. Labor Market (2014), with Rebecca Callahan), a compilation of studies that demonstrates the economic value of biliteracy in a rapidly globalizing world. Her recent reports include “Making Education Work for Latinas” (2014, Civil Rights Project with Eva Longoria Foundation) and “Fulfilling America’s Future: Latinas in the U.S. 2015” (2015, Civil Rights Project and the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics).

Gándara is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Academy of Education, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy, the French-American Association at Sciences Po Graduate Institute, Paris, and an ETS fellow at Princeton, New Jersey. In 2011, she was appointed to President Obama’s Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, and in 2015 received the Distinguished Career Award from the Scholars of Color Committee of the American Educational Research Association.