11th Annual Breakthroughs in Education

Roberto G. Gonzales is Professor of Education at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. His research centers on contemporary processes of immigration and social inequality, and stems from theoretical interests at the intersection of race and ethnicity, immigration, and policy. In particular, his research examines the effects of legal contexts on the coming of age experiences of vulnerable and hard-to-reach immigrant youth populations. Since 2002 he has carried out one of the most comprehensive studies of undocumented immigrants in the United States. His book, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (University of California Press), is based on an in-depth study that followed 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles for twelve years. To date, Lives in Limbo has won seven major book awards, including the Society for the Study of Social Problems C. Wright Mills Award, the American Education Research Association Outstanding Book Award, the Law and Society Association Herbert Jacob Book Award, and the Society for Social Work and Research Book Award. It has also been adopted by several universities as a common read and is being used by a couple dozen K-12 schools in teacher and staff training. In addition, Professor Gonzales’ National UnDACAmented Research Project has surveyed nearly 2,700 undocumented young adults and has carried out 500 in-depth interviews on their experiences following President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This fall, he is teaming up with several colleagues to investigate educator responses to school climate issues stemming from immigration policies.

Professor Gonzales’ work has been has been featured in top journals, including the American Sociological Review, Current Anthropology, and the Harvard Educational Review as well as in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and Chronicle of Higher Education.

Professor Gonzales is an associate editor for the journal Social Problems and a research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also participates in a transition to adulthood research network.  Prior to his faculty position at Harvard, Professor Gonzales held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and at the University of Washington. He received his B.A. from the Colorado College, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California Irvine. His research is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WT Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation.

Dr. Leider is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Language Education and the Program Director of Bilingual Education at Boston University. Professor Leider’s work focuses on supporting both student teachers and practicing teachers in developing the theoretical foundations, critical perspectives, and research-based instructional tools for working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. Her research focuses on bilingual language and literacy practices, developing bilingual models of reading comprehension, contexts of bilingual and immigrant student development, and re-conceptualizing the field’s understanding of how we assess measure, and understand bilingualism & biliteracy.

Dr. Leider collaborates with teacher educators and practicing teachers in Massachusetts around advocating for bilingual students at the classroom, school, and policy level.  Dr. Leider is an elected member of the MATSOL Board of Directors and an appointed member of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education English Learner / Bilingual Advisory Council. She also serves as the Faculty Advisor for the Bilingual Education Student Group at BU Wheelock.Dr. Leider’s current research projects include the ICMEE Project, a federally funded National Professional Development grant on which she serves as the Lead Evaluator; she is also the Co-PI on a project examining Massachusetts classified/reclassified English Learner’s access to four-year college. Dr. Leider’s engaged scholarship includes professional development and collaboration with classroom teachers in the Greater Boston Area on developing anti-racist, culturally/linguistically responsive, and inclusive curricular and instructional practices that support bilingual students’ language and literacy development.  Dr. Leider also collaborates with teacher educators and advocates on addressing issues of equity and diversity in ESL and SEI Teacher Education.