Documenting attitudes toward undocumented immigrant access to public education: A multi-level...

Documenting Attitudes toward Undocumented Immigrant Accessto Public Education: A Multilevel Analysis

Felisha A. Herrera, Juan C. Garibay, Gina A. Garcia, Marc P. Johnston

The Review of Higher Education, Volume 36, Number 4, Summer 2013,pp. 513-549 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/rhe.2013.0043

For additional information about this article

Access provided by UCLA Library (3 Dec 2013 18:39 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhe/summary/v036/36.4.herrera.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhe/summary/v036/36.4.herrera.html

Herrera et al. / Undocumented Immigrant Access to Education 513

The Review of Higher Education Summer 2013, Volume 36, No. 4, pp. 513–549 Copyright © 2013 Association for the Study of Higher Education All Rights Reserved (ISSN 0162–5748)

Documenting Attitudes toward Undocumented Immigrant Access to Public Education: A Multilevel AnalysisFelisha A. Herrera, Juan C. Garibay, Gina A. Garcia, and Marc P. Johnston

One of the most compelling debates facing American higher education today is the issue of access for undocumented students. On the one hand, some may focus on issues of “legality” and argue that public education should be reserved only for those with legal authorization to be in the country. Others may look to the democratic purpose of higher education within a country founded on the ideals of freedom and equality and argue that no one should be denied the opportunity to further their education. In any case, most would agree that this issue has major implications for a large number of potential college students. The Urban Institute estimates that while 65,000 undocu-mented students graduate from U.S. high schools every year, only 5–10% of them continue on to college (Passel, 2003).

FELISHA A. HERRERA is Assistant Professor in the College of Education at Oregon State University. JUAN C. GARIBAY is a doctoral student and GINA A. GARCIA is a doctoral can-didate, both in Higher Education and Organizational Change, at the University of California, Los Angeles. MARC P. JOHNSTON is Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at the Ohio State University. Address queries to Felisha Herrera, 104A Furman Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-3502; telephone: (541) 737–2998; fax: (541) 737–8971; email: [email protected].

514 The Review of higheR educaTion Summer 2013

Although causes of this leaky pipeline are numerous, the political environ-ment undoubtedly has an effect on undocumented students’ access to public education. Despite some progressive policies at the institutional and state level (Feder, 2010), federal legislation has failed to keep pace with the economic struggles of undocumented students (Flores, 2009), especially given that one third of undocumented immigrant children born to unauthorized immi-grants live in poverty—a poverty rate that is nearly double that of children of U.S.-born parents (Passel & Cohn, 2009). Furthermore, a record number of undocumented immigrants continue to be deported every day (Preston, 2011), while some states have enacted laws prohibiting undocumented stu-dents from gaining admission into public colleges altogether (Hebel, 2010), and others have passed acts promoting public perceptions of undocumented persons as criminals (e.g., Arizona’s SB 1070, Alabama’s HB 56, and Geor-gia’s HB 87). This criminalization diminishes the ability for even the most talented undocumented students to be seen as anything other than “illegal.”

Within this anti-immigration context, the decade-old Development, Re-lief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was again voted down in 2010 despite its potential to open the doors to higher education (through conditional permanent residency and the ability to receive federal student loans and work study) and to provide a pathway to citizenship for many un-documented students. Given the DREAM Act’s reintroduction to the Senate in May of 2011 and President Obama’s recent policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to stop the deportation of and grant work permits to “DREAMers” who qualify, college students will increasingly be called upon to voice their opinions, not only on these key policies, but on the larger debate surrounding undocumented immigrants’ access to public services. A December 2010 Gallup poll suggests that Americans with higher levels of education are more likely to vote for the DREAM Act, with 59% of college graduates in favor versus 44% of those with a high school education or less (Gallup, 2010). This finding suggests that a college education may influence support for legislation such as the DREAM Act, but it is unclear how and why.

Building from a large literature base demonstrating the impact of college on students’ attitudes (see Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), this study examines the campus and sociopolitical contexts associated with students’ support for access to public education for undocumented students. Supporting access is important, since Plyler v. Doe (1982) mandates undocumented youths’ ac-cess to public K-12 education, and increasing their access to public higher education would represent an extension of our investment and prevent a loss of civic and intellectual talent within U.S. society (W. Perez, 2009, 2010).

In line with the civic and democratic mission of higher education where institutions uphold the democratic principle of nondiscrimination (Gut-mann, 1999; Hurtado, 2007), colleges should want their students to support


undocumented immigrants’ access to public education toward the broader goal of educational access as a universal human right. If colleges want to increase this attitude in their students, we must first understand how college experiences and contexts predict changes in student attitudes toward social and political issues. In this study, we specifically investigated how student background characteristics, institutional contexts and college experiences, and sociopolitical contexts influence undergraduate student views on whether or not undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public educa-tion. By documenting these sentiments we seek a better understanding of how attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access change during college in hopes of informing the way institutions think about their role in shaping students’ understanding of this compelling issue.

Review of the LiteRatuRe

Background Characteristics and Immigration Attitudes

Despite the lack of higher education scholarship focusing on college students’ attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education, the background characteristics influencing attitudes toward im-migration policy, including race/ethnicity, gender, religion, income, political affiliation, and education level, have been thoroughly investigated within dis-ciplines such as the social sciences, public policy, and migration studies. The literature stemming from these areas, therefore, serve as a multidisciplinary foundation from which we developed this study. In general, White people are more likely than people from other racial groups to have restrictionist attitudes toward immigration (Berg, 2009; Brader, Valentino, Jardina, & Ryan, 2010; Citrin & Wright, 2009), with some indication that contextual factors, including the residential area’s concentration of undocumented immigrants (Hood & Morris, 1997) and the size of the U.S.-born Latina/o population (Rocha, Longoria, Wrinkle, Knoll, Polinard, & Wenzel, 2011), drive more exclusionary views. However, Palmer and Davidson (2011) recently found that being White does not predict attitudes toward access to postsecondary education for undocumented students. This finding may simply indicate that White people are more supportive of specific immigration policies, such as those focused on education, than others.

By racial/ethnic group, research has also shown that Latinos are less sup-portive of restrictive immigration policies, although attitudes about mul-ticulturalism may mitigate the effect (Fennelly & Federico, 2008; Facchini, Mayda, & Puglisi, 2009). Some studies have found that Black Americans are less likely to support restrictive immigration policies when compared to Whites (e.g., Brader et al., 2010). However, a study conducted by the Pew Research Center (2006) found that, while Blacks were 10 percentage points


less likely than Whites to believe that the children of illegal immigrants should not be allowed to attend public schools, they were eight percentage points more likely than Whites to believe that “illegal” immigrants take away jobs from Americans. Brader et al. (2010) argue that, although White people form their views toward immigration based partially on economic decisions, they are also guided strongly by racial attitudes, nationalist beliefs, and ideologies about American identity. Similarly, E. O. Perez (2010) found that people with ethnocentric values are more opposed to both legal and illegal immigration; and Citrin and Wright (2009) concluded that a strong American identity in-fluences a preference for immigration restriction. Overall, race and ethnicity are important characteristics that predict attitudes toward immigration but their effects may be altered by contextual factors and views on race, group identity, and multiculturalism.

Variation has also been found in attitudes toward immigration policy based on gender and religion. Some studies have found that gender does not predict attitudes toward immigration policies (Berg, 2009; Facchini et al., 2009; Fennelly & Federico, 2008; Palmer & Davidson, 2011) while others found that males are more opposed to immigration than women (Chandler & Tasi, 2001; E. O. Perez, 2010).

Although it has not been studied extensively, religion may also predict attitudes. For example, White evangelical Protestants (51%) see immigration as a bigger problem than do White non-Hispanic Catholics (41%) and those who identify as secular (33%) (Pew Research Center, 2006). Knoll (2009) found that members of religious minority groups, including Jews and Latter-day Saints (Mormons), are more supportive of liberal immigration policies.

Income is another characteristic that has been studied by scholars look-ing at attitudes toward immigration policy. Some studies have found that income has no effect on attitudes (Berg, 2009) while others have concluded the opposite (Facchini et al., 2009; Palmer & Davidson, 2011; E. O. Perez, 2010). Facchini, Mayda, and Puglisi (2010) contend that economic and non-economic factors affect people’s preferences for restrictive immigration policies, proposing that the more competition that people sense within the labor market, the more likely they are to support restrictive policies.

Residential context may also affect people’s attitudes toward immigra-tion policy. The Pew Research Center (2006) reveals that 55% of Phoenix residents view immigration as a “very big” community problem versus 19% of Chicago residents. These metropolitan differences may have to do with the concentration of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, living in different parts of the country (Hanson, 2005; Hood & Morris, 1997; Hood, Morris, & Shirkey, 1997; Rocha et al., 2011), but could also be due to the differences in political discourse within these residential areas. These findings suggest that the social environments in which individuals live and interact have an influence on attitudes toward immigration.


The research on the effects of political orientation has revealed that there is less variation within political parties and more variation based on other factors such as political ideology, education, and socioeconomic well-being (Pew Research Center, 2006). For example, Fennelly and Federico (2008) found that partisanship does not have a significant effect on support for restrictive immigration policies but conservative ideologies do significantly predict these attitudes. Chandler and Tsai (2001) found conservative politi-cal ideology to be the strongest factor in opposition toward immigration, along with E. O. Perez (2010) who also found that having a more conserva-tive ideology increases support for restrictive policies toward immigration. Palmer and Davidson (2011), however, found that neither political party nor political ideology predicts attitudes toward access to postsecondary education for undocumented students.

In general, research has found that college-educated Americans have more favorable views toward immigration (Fennelly & Federico, 2008; Facchini et al., 2009; E. O. Perez, 2010; Hanson, 2005). The Pew Research Center (2006) reports that college-educated Americans are less likely to see immigrants as a burden on the country or a threat to traditional values. A more nuanced look at the role of a college education on predicting people’s attitudes toward immigration policy revealed that, although college graduates as a whole are less supportive of restrictionist immigration policies, they show significant stratification, with those having graduate and professional degrees being less supportive of restrictive policies than those having only a bachelor’s degree (Janus, 2010).

The Impact of College on Attitudes

While previous research suggests that those who have attained higher education levels tend to be less supportive of restrictive immigration policies, there are no known studies to date that have used data from a national and longitudinal college student survey to specifically examine the impact of the college experience on changes in attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. However, several studies have examined changes over the college years in attitudes about other sociopolitical views that may be used to further develop this study. Astin (1993) and Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) found that students shifted to a more liberal stance between their freshman and senior years. Several studies have noted that students became more cognizant about the implications of inequality for marginalized groups and are more supportive of equality across genders (Astin, 1993; Bryant, 2003) with others documenting gains in cultural awareness and acceptance of racial diversity (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).

While a large body of literature argues that greater exposure to higher education generally promotes egalitarianism (e.g., Astin, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), other studies explore how this may differ among academic


disciplines (e.g., Baer & Lambert, 1990; Guimond & Palmer, 1996; Sidanius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). Many scholars suggest that students self-select into disciplines that best reflect their own beliefs and values (Hastie, 2007; Guimond, 1997; Sidanius, Pratto, Sinclair, & van Laar, 1996). Differ-ences across disciplines have been explained through Social Dominance Theory (SDT), positing that societies are hierarchical and that some groups in the society therefore have more power than other groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and that more powerful groups will want to maintain the hierarchy (Sidanius, van Laar, Levin, & Sinclair, 2003).

Several studies have used SDT to categorize academic majors into two groups—hierarchy attenuating (HA) and hierarchy enhancing (HE)—to explain belief differences among disciplines (Gage, Zick, Tully, & Simon, 2010; Kemmelmeier, Danielson, & Basten, 2005; Peterson & Lane, 2001; Sidanius et al., 2003). Majors classified as HE are those with underlying ideologies providing intellectual or moral justification for unequal relation-ships between groups (e.g., business), while HA majors tend to be associated with supporting policies that reduce social inequities (e.g., social sciences) (Gage et al., 2010; Sidanius et al., 2003). When individuals perceive that most students and faculty within a discipline share the same values and attitudes, they may see these majors as more congruent with their current social val-ues and ideologies (sociopolitical orientation) or at least their propensity to develop orientations consistent with that discipline (Hastie, 2007; Sidanius et al., 2003).

The literature describing the impact of college on students’ attitudes suggests the importance of normative influence (Astin, 1993; Feldman & Newcomb, 1969; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), positing that social groups exert an influence on their members (Guimond, 1997). Therefore, the college peer group is seen as an important reference group by which students not only seek out shared values in their chosen disciplines and the on-campus experiences they elect to participate in, but one in which they also modify their attitudes, conforming to the norm of the peer group (Guimond, 1997; Renn & Arnold, 2003). Utilizing this socialization hypothesis, one might argue that students become more congruent with the norm of their peer group or academic discipline over the college years because of the conformity to social norms within each reference group (Chatard & Selimbegovic, 2007). Additionally, an informational influence may occur when students receive newly acquired knowledge through their course content or other college experiences.

The college years represent a formative time in one’s life as students are exposed to new information and perspectives. Most colleges and universi-ties, however, make little formal effort to shape student values, in spite of general agreement about the need to do so (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).


This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of how higher educa-tion, and specifically college experiences and contexts, may shape students’ attitudes toward a current sociopolitical issue: undocumented immigrants’ access to public education.

theoReticaL fRamewoRk

Given the many potential influences on student attitudes toward un-documented immigrants’ access to public education, we use the Unified Instrumental Model of Group Conflict (UIMGC; Esses, Jackson, Dovidio, & Hodson, 2005) to help guide our study, as it provides a comprehensive framework for understanding prejudice specifically toward immigrants. The UIMGC suggests that individuals’ ideologies, along with situational factors, initiate the process of perceiving group competition and conflict for resources. This perception, then, influences individuals’ desire to remove the source of competition. Within this framework, the background characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, religion, income, political orientation, etc.) are important individual-level variables that influence attitudes toward immigrants since they are associated with group-based status differentials. The UIMGC sug-gests that, with the introduction of an outgroup (e.g., immigrants) into a society with an unequal distribution of resources (e.g., United States), groups with fewer resources may perceive that they now have even less access to society’s resources, while higher-status groups may perceive the outgroup as a threat to the resources and advantages they already hold.

Additionally, the UIMGC incorporates individuals’ personalities and ideologies in predicting attitudes toward immigrants. For instance, an indi-vidual’s acceptance of multiculturalism has been shown to predict favorable attitudes toward immigrants (Berry, 2006; Mayda, 2006). Other studies cite the significance of an individual’s belief in promoting group dominance and inequality among social groups. Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, and Malle (1994) found that an individual with a higher social dominance orientation (SDO), or “the extent to which one desires that one’s in-group dominate and be superior to outgroups” (p. 742), will favor hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and policies. The UIMGC posits that individuals with higher SDO will likely perceive that there are not enough valued resources for every group resulting in increased perceptions of group competition, and subsequent attempts to eliminate the source of threat, often by decreasing the competitiveness of the outgroup (Esses, Jackson, & Armstrong, 1998; Esses, Jackson, & Armstrong, 2005). One method often utilized to decrease the competitiveness of the outgroup is the opposition of social policies and programs that may benefit the other group (i.e., undocumented immigrants’ access to publicly funded education (Esses et al., 1998).


The UIMGC also acknowledges the importance of contextual variables in understanding attitudes toward immigrants. Situational factors that impact the perceptions of competition include instability and changes to the status quo (Esses et al., 2005). In regard to undocumented immigrants, perceptions may change as a result of an economic downturn, a lack of sufficient public funds, or an increase in the discourse that undocumented immigrants drain societal resources (Chavez, 2008), which may be used to justify exclusionary practices and policies toward undocumented immigrants. Moreover, accord-ing to the UIMGC, a relevant and noticeable outgroup (e.g., immigrants) is necessary for perceptions of group competition to emerge (Esses et al., 2005). Those groups that are large, or increasing in numbers, and clearly distinguishable from the ingroup, are perceived as capable of diminishing the success of members of the ingroup and subsequently are more likely to be perceived as potential competitors (Esses et al., 2005). Despite the fact that we cannot test the specific conditions of the UIMGC, we use it as a guiding perspective toward understanding some of the dynamics associated with views toward immigrant groups.

methodoLogy

We hypothesize that student-level variables influence views toward un-documented immigrants’ access to public education, considering the body of literature and theory that has identified individual demographics (e.g., Brader et al., 2010; Esses et al., 2005; Palmer & Davidson, 2011) and precol-lege experiences, such as residential context (Rocha et al., 2011), as significant predictors of views regarding immigration policy. Furthermore, the wealth of scholarship devoted to understanding the impact of college (Astin, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005) points to the association of many educational experiences with less restrictive views (Janus, 2010). College campuses also serve as an influential context that must be accounted for because peer group norms (Chatard & Selimbegovic, 2007) and institutional structures (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005) contribute to the environment of a student’s formative years. Drawing from the theoretical underpinnings and previous empirical research, this study seeks to address the following research ques-tions:

• Whatstudent-levelvariables,relatedtostudentcharacteristicsandpre-dispositions, precollege experiences, and college experiences and involve-ment, influence changes in students’ attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education?

• What institutional characteristics and contexts influence changes instudents’ attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education?


Sample

This study analyzes a longitudinal sample that comes from the 2005 Freshman Survey (TFS) and 2009 College Senior Survey (CSS), both of which were administered by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute. CIRP’s TFS and CSS are administered annually to college students nationally and collect a wide range of information on students at two key points of time in their collegiate experiences. The 2005 TFS collected information about students’ background characteristics, precollege experiences, expectations for college life, and educational and career goals. Administered four years after students first entered college, the 2009 CSS inquired about students’ college experi-ences, their satisfaction with various dimensions of campus life, and their educational and career aspirations. (For more information on these surveys, see Franke, Ruiz, Sharkness, DeAngelo, & Pryor, 2010).

Situated within the literature investigating attitudes toward immigration policy, these longitudinal data provide a unique contribution to scholarship across disciplines through several strengths. First, this study has a clear as-sociation with higher education since these data allow for an explicit exami-nation of individuals who are participating in postsecondary institutions. Second, the majority of respondents are within the age range of 18–24. Third, the longitudinal design of the survey serves the interest of postsecondary scholars and educators in examining the impact of college and changes in student attitudes over four years. These features are unique when compared to studies found within disciplines such as the social sciences, public policy, and migration studies, which tend to use large datasets focused on public opinions such as the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) or election-related data such as the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Additionally, scholars within these disciplines tend to sample adults beyond the college years.

The sample for this study is limited to students who had data available for the dependent variable. Given our interest in understanding students’ views toward undocumented immigrant students we included only students who marked “U.S. Citizen” on the TFS. We also limited the sample to those institutions with more than 10 students to obtain more reliable estimates of peer aggregate measures. This selection, coupled with the loss of three institutions and 22 students due to missing institutional data, results in a final analytical sample of 12,388 undergraduates at 89 institutions.

Variables

The dependent variable is a senior-year variable that measured the ex-tent to which students in 2009 agreed with the statement: “Undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public education.” For ease of inter-


pretation we reverse-coded the dependent variable (and its complementary 2005 pretest variable, in addition to the aggregate pretest variable) so that it ranged on a four-point scale from 1 meaning “strongly agree” to 4, meaning “strongly disagree.” Thus, opposition to the statement, which is rated higher, demonstrates more favorable opinions toward undocumented immigrant students’ access to public education.

Student-level variables include background characteristics, precollege ex-periences, collegiate experiences, and institutional contexts. As a direct pretest measure of the dependent variable, students’ precollege level of agreement with the statement on denying undocumented immigrants access to educa-tion was measured at the beginning of their freshman year to account for change over the college years. We measured racial/ethnic background with five different racial/ethnic identifications, which were dummy-coded. The group for which a coefficient is not calculated in the analyses and to which each of the racial/ethnic variables measured in the analyses is compared to is White, which represented the largest group in the sample and reflected the most consistency in our framing and discussing of the results. In addi-tion, gender and religion are taken into consideration with a similar coding structure. (See Appendix A for details.)

Students’ concerns with financing college and socioeconomic status are also included in the analyses to account for the hypothesized “perceived group threat” posited in the UIMGC framework. We examined political involvement before college with variables indicating students’ participation in organized political activities and through a factor measuring the extent to which students engage in political discussions with family, friends, and in the classroom. This factor had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.79 and was identified through principal axis factoring with promax rotation. Appendix A provides the factor loadings for each of the three items comprising the factor (and other factors used in the analyses). We also took into account several precol-lege variables measuring students’ predispositions on social values.

The academic normative influence (Astin, 1993; Feldman & Newcomb, 1969; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005) is accounted for with the inclusion of the major that the student declares in his or her senior year, which we cat-egorized into five broader disciplines. Other student experiences included in the model are students’ participation in structured diversity initiatives (e.g., workshops, student organizations, ethnic studies courses), social experiences (e.g., sorority or fraternity), and civic engagement opportunities (e.g., com-munity service). We also included constructs scored by CIRP in the model: positive cross-racial interactions, negative cross-racial interactions, and social agency. The items composing these constructs and the methodology used to generate these factors are explained in detail by Sharkness, DeAngelo, and Pryor (2010).


We examined whether institutional structural characteristics (selectivity, control, and type) and measures of peer context can explain variation across colleges in students’ views toward undocumented immigrants’ educational access. The influence of the peer group is represented by the calculated mean score of student responses to an item within a given institution. We included an aggregated measure of entering students’ political orientation and an ag-gregated measure of students’ initial 2005 responses to the pretest variable regarding attitudes toward undocumented students.

Given empirical findings suggesting that political orientation impacts im-migration attitudes (Chandler & Tsai, 2001; Fennelly & Federico, 2008; E. O. Perez, 2010), paired with the scholarship on contextual influences on college student views (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), we find it important to control for political context. To account for the political context of the residential areas where students may experience influential interactions, we created two separate variables to measure political liberalism for the following locations: (a) the student’s home, and (b) the institution. The Cook Political Partisan Voting Index (PVI) provides an indicator of how Republican or Democratic each congressional district is with respect to the nation as a whole. The PVI is calculated using the two most recent presidential popular vote percentages for Democrats and Republicans and then comparing that national average to the Democratic and Republican share of the presidential vote within a particular congressional district (Cook Political Report, 2009). Positive PVI values reflect a more Democratic-leaning district compared to the nation, and negative values indicate a more Republican-leaning area.

Following the work of other scholars seeking to examine the influence of the sociopolitical contexts in which students live and interact (Millora & Eagan, 2011), we used the zip codes for students’ homes and institutions to reference the appropriate district for the 111th Congress in creating these variables. We then merged the measure with the respective home and institu-tional PVIs into the dataset. When a zip code spanned multiple congressional districts, we used the average PVI value.

Analyses

In dealing with missing data, we first utilized listwise deletion to remove all cases for which no information was available on the outcome variable, key demographic characteristics, and/or institutional variables. For the re-maining variables in the model, we applied the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, which uses maximum likelihood (ML) estimates to replace missing values when a small proportion of data for a given variable is missing (McLachlan & Krishnan, 1997). Overall, very few data were missing; no vari-able had more than 12% of cases missing; therefore, we used ML estimates to impute values, as it is a more accurate method of dealing with missing data than listwise deletion or mean replacement (McLachlan & Krishnan, 1997).


A multi-level analysis allowed for the examination of the student charac-teristics and experiences and institutional contexts that may uniquely influ-ence student views on undocumented immigrant access to public education. This study used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), which accounts for the homogeneity of errors within groups and provides robust standard errors, thus helping researchers avoid Type-I statistical errors (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). In this case, because students are nested within institutions, they have greater homogeneity in their responses than if they had been selected ran-domly from the entire population (e.g., individually from all institutions).

HLM enables the researcher to decompose the variability in an outcome by partitioning variance between Level 1 units (students) and Level 2 units (colleges/institutions); therefore, we can more accurately identify significant predictors of the dependent variable for multiple levels of observation and analysis (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).

To ensure that the use of HLM was warranted, we began by constructing a fully unconditional model to assess the proportion of variance at each level. This step allowed us to determine whether students’ average likelihood of supporting access to education for undocumented immigrants varied across the sample institutions. The between-institution variance was found to significantly vary across institutions. We then used the between-institution variance component to calculate the Intra-Class Correlation (ICC), the proportion of variance between institutions, which is given by the following formula (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002):

iCC = ρ = _________ (1)

where τ00 is the variability between level 2 units (institutions) and σ2 is the variability between Level 1 units (students). The results of the ICC showed that 7% of the variability in students’ average likelihood of supporting access to education for undocumented immigrants is between-group variability. While this is not an extremely large ICC, it presents a concern with a large number of cases, as it has been shown that an ICC of any size in large samples can increase the probability of making a Type-I statistical error (Barcikowski, 1981; de Leeuw & Meijer, 2008).

Considering the ICC results, we proceeded to appropriately model the dependency among Level 2 units (institutions) with a conditional HLM. Utilizing Raudenbush and Bryk’s (2002) levels formulation for presenting HLM, the Level 1 equation is represented as:

Yi j = β0 j + β1 j (Demographic Characteristic)ij + β2 j (Precollege Experiences)ij

+ β3j (College Experiences)ij + eij eij = N (0,σ2) (2)

τ00

(σ2 + τ00)


Yi j represents the outcome measure of more positive views on undocumented

immigrants’ access to public education for student attending institution j ; β

3j ; is the mean of the outcome measure for institution j ; and eij is the Level 1 residual which is assumed to be normally distributed with a mean of zero and a constant variance of σ2.

Noting the centering considerations for the multi-level model, this study uses grand-mean centering for all variables except for the dichotomous variables. Grand-mean centering adjusts for between-institution differences in student-level variables by subtracting the mean value of a variable for the entire sample from that variable’s value for each individual observation (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). This centering option facilitates the interpre-tation of the intercept in the model, considering that we are interested in conclusions about the overall sample of students (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). Equation 2 is simplified, presenting the general form of the Level 1 equation rather than giving the specific equations for each of the three variable blocks. Thus, when referring to the specific equation β

1 j can be interpreted as the change in the outcome measure of more positive views when the Level 1 predictor (i.e., Xij ,) changes by one unit, holding all else constant. The Level 2 model is presented as:

β0j = γ00 + γ01 (Institutional Characteristics)j + и0j = N (0,τ00) (3)

where γ00

is the overall mean of the outcome measure and и0j is the Level 2

residual which is assumed to be normally distributed with a mean of zero and a constant variance of τ

00. Similar to the Level 1 equation (2), equation

3 is simplified, with the vector “institutional characteristics” referring to that variable block rather than giving the specific equation. Hence, when referring to the specific equation, γ

01 can be interpreted as the change in the intercept

(which reflects the average institution with variables utilizing grand-mean centering) when the Level 2 predictor (i.e., Ζj ) changes by one unit, holding all else constant.

Limitations

Before discussing the results, it is important to note that this study has its limitations. There are several challenges in attempting to utilize quantitative analysis to uncover influences on students’ attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ educational access. Although this study draws from a national sample of 12,388 students at 89 institutions, the generalizations of these find-ings may be limited as the sample is overrepresented by White (82%), and female (62%) students, and private institutions (84%). Additionally, the TFS and CSS are limited in variables that might provide more specific information about the development of student attitudes on this issue. While we measure several college experiences as predictors of attitudes, these experiences can-


not be considered interventions as students self-select participation in these activities. The type of data available does not allow for an experimental design with a controlled intervention; therefore, our results should be interpreted accordingly—as exhibiting an association rather than a causal inference.

Particularly in examining the impact of college, researchers must ac-knowledge the confounding effects of student’s normal maturation (aging) and the influence of the historical changes occurring in the larger society. Within this four-year time period (2005–2009), students experienced many economic, social, and political events, including the Iraq War, the economic downturn, and the election of the first African American-identified president. Guided by the theoretical frameworks, we extended our research to examine sociopolitical contexts beyond the student and the institutional-level data immediately available in the dataset; however, the data limited the exploration of other variables indicated in the literature, such as specific state and regional differences (Hanson, 2005; Hood & Morris, 1997; Hood et al., 1997; Rocha et al., 2011) or the effect of institutional policies related to undocumented students (Mokher, Mclendon, & Flores, 2011). While we make a concerted effort to control for several background and precollege characteristics, along with institutional and sociopolitical contexts, it is impossible to fully account for all of the external influences on student views and stress the importance of future research informed by pertinent theoretical perspectives to more fully explore potential factors.

ResuLts

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for all variables included in the analysis. The racial/ethnic composition of the sample was 82.5% White, 5.8% Asian, 6.2% Latino/a, 3.1% African American, 1.4% American Indian, and 1.0% students who marked “other.” In terms of gender, the sample was 62.1% female. Students’ homes are located in slightly more Democratic districts than the entire United States. Approximately 84% of institutions in the sample were private; and overall, institutions were located in Congressional districts that were slightly more Democratic than the nation at large.

In terms of college activities, we observed the following participation rates: 21% in fraternities or sororities; 49% in ethnic studies; 34% in racial/cultural awareness workshops; 22% in ethnic/racial student organizations; 38% in study abroad; and 63% in community service class projects.

Table 2 presents the results from the HLM analyses predicting changes in views on whether undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public education. Due to reverse coding, positive coefficients correspond to more supportive views on undocumented immigrants’ access to public edu-cation. A positive coefficient indicates a respondent’s inclination to disagree


Table 1

descRipTive sTaTisTics

Mean S.D. Min Max

2009 view: Undocumented 2.64 0.97 1.00 4.00 immigrants should be denied access to public education

2005 view: Undocumented 2.62 0.89 1.00 4.00 immigrants should be denied access to public education

Gender 1.62 0.49 1.00 2.00

Asian American or Pacific Islander 0.06 0.23 0.00 1.00

White 0.82 0.38 0.00 1.00

American Indian 0.01 0.12 0.00 1.00

Latino 0.06 0.24 0.00 1.00

African American 0.03 0.17 0.00 1.00

Other 0.01 0.10 0.00 1.00

Socioeconomic status 0.00 1.00 -3.55 1.58

Home partisan voting index 2.00 12.16 -29.00 41.00

Baptist 0.06 0.23 0.00 1.00

Buddhist 0.00 0.07 0.00 1.00

Church of Christ 0.02 0.13 0.00 1.00

Eastern Orthodox 0.01 0.08 0.00 1.00

Episcopalian 0.02 0.15 0.00 1.00

Hindu 0.00 0.06 0.00 1.00

Islamic 0.03 0.16 0.00 1.00

Jewish 0.00 0.03 0.00 1.00

Mormon 0.05 0.21 0.00 1.00

Lutheran 0.05 0.21 0.00 1.00

Methodist 0.00 0.06 0.00 1.00

Presbyterian 0.04 0.19 0.00 1.00

Quaker 0.00 0.06 0.00 1.00

Roman Catholic 0.45 0.50 0.00 1.00

Seventh-day Adventist 0.00 0.05 0.00 1.00

Unitarian/Universalist 0.01 0.11 0.00 1.00

United Church of Christ/ 0.09 0.29 0.00 1.00 Congregational

Other Christian 0.02 0.14 0.00 1.00

Other religion 0.13 0.34 0.00 1.00


Concerns about ability to finance 1.73 0.61 1.00 3.00 college education

Political orientation 2.99 0.85 1.00 5.00

Political discussions 0.00 1.00 -2.34 1.60

Act in past year: Worked on a local, 1.15 0.43 0.85 3.00 state, or national political campaign

Reason to attend: To make me a 2.41 0.66 1.00 3.06 more cultured person

Act in past year: Participated in 1.51 0.66 0.97 3.00 organized demonstrations

Act in past year: Performed 2.29 0.61 1.00 3.00 volunteer work

Goal: Influencing the political structure 1.89 0.86 0.99 4.00

Goal: Improving my understanding 2.69 0.88 1.00 4.00 of other countries and cultures

2005 social agency 49.86 8.64 24.17 76.80

Major: Arts & humanities 0.18 0.38 0.00 1.00

Major: STEM 0.24 0.42 0.00 1.00

Major: Social sciences 0.27 0.44 0.00 1.00

Major: Business 0.18 0.38 0.00 1.00

Major: Other 0.08 0.27 0.00 1.00

Joined a social fraternity or sorority 1.21 0.40 1.00 2.00

Took an ethnic studies course 1.49 0.50 1.00 2.00

Attended a racial/cultural 1.34 0.47 0.87 2.00 awareness workshop

Had a roommate of different 1.46 0.50 1.00 2.00 race/ethnicity

Participated in an ethnic/racial 1.22 0.41 0.75 2.00 student organization

Participated in a study- 1.38 0.48 0.90 2.00 abroad program

Performed community service 1.63 0.66 1.00 3.00 as part of a class

Through hard work, everybody 2.82 0.87 1.00 4.00 can succeed in American society

Change: Ability to get along with 4.05 0.78 1.00 5.00 people of different races/cultures

Civic awareness 0.00 1.00 -5.07 1.54

Mean S.D. Min Max

Table 1, cont.


There is a lot of racial tension 1.98 0.79 1.00 4.00 on this campus

I have heard faculty express stereotypes 1.94 0.73 1.00 4.00 about racial/ethnic groups in class

Campus satisfaction: Racial/ethnic 3.35 1.02 1.00 5.00 diversity of the student body

Campus satisfaction: Respect for the 3.89 0.88 1.00 5.00 expression of diverse beliefs

Positive cross-racial interaction 51.63 8.77 30.16 67.68

Negative cross-racial interaction 51.73 7.80 41.66 76.57

Institutional selectivity 1199.91 137.95 864.89 1440.20

Institution type 1.32 0.47 1.00 2.00

Institution control 1.89 0.31 1.00 2.00

Institutional partisan voting index 0.90 11.18 -26.00 38.00

Average 2005 view: Undocumented 2.62 0.16 2.16 3.55 immigrants should be denied access to public education

Average political orientation of 2.99 0.27 2.17 3.58 freshmen in 2005

Mean S.D. Min Max

Table 1, cont.

with the statement: “Undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public education.” Negative coefficients correspond to more restrictionist attitudes regarding undocumented immigrants’ access to public education.

The results corresponding to the first research question focused on student-level predictors (i.e., student background/precollege characteristics and college experiences) and will be reported in the ensuing sections, fol-lowed by a discussion of the second research question aimed at examining institutional influences.

Background/Precollege Characteristics

Not surprisingly, the pretest of students’ views toward undocumented immigrant access to public education in 2005 was a statistically significant predictor of students’ views in 2009. More specifically, U.S. citizen first-year undergraduates who had more supportive views on undocumented immi-grants’ access to public education were more likely to favor inclusive views toward access in their senior year. Latino students and students who marked “other” as their racial/ethnic identification tended to be significantly more


Table 2

hlM ResulTs

(Student N = 12,388; institution N = 89) Variable r Coef. S.E. Sig

2005 pretest: Should undocumented 0.39 0.29 0.01 *** immigrants be denied access to public education?

Background Characteristics

Gender 0.14 0.09 0.02 ***

Asian American or Pacific Islander 0.04 0.03 0.04

American Indian 0.01 0.01 0.08

Latino 0.14 0.31 0.05 ***

African American 0.05 0.06 0.05

Other 0.03 0.20 0.07 **

Socioeconomic status 0.01 -0.01 0.01

Home partisan voting index 0.10 0.00 0.00 *

Precollege Experiences

Baptist -0.05 -0.12 0.05 *

Buddhist 0.01 -0.18 0.10

Church of Christ 0.01 -0.21 0.07 *

Eastern Orthodox 0.01 0.02 0.10

Episcopalian 0.02 -0.02 0.05

Hindu 0.02 0.03 0.10

Islamic 0.03 -0.03 0.05

Jewish -0.01 -0.16 0.26

Mormon -0.04 -0.07 0.04

Lutheran -0.04 -0.06 0.04

Methodist 0.03 -0.05 0.14

Presbyterian -0.02 -0.08 0.05

Quaker 0.02 0.13 0.15

Roman Catholic 0.00 -0.04 0.03

Seventh-day Adventist -0.01 -0.20 0.17

Unitarian/Universalist 0.00 0.00 0.07

United Church of Christ/Congregational -0.01 -0.05 0.04

Other Christian 0.02 -0.06 0.06

Concerns financing college 0.05 -0.01 0.02

Political orientation 0.27 0.11 0.01 ***


Political discussions 0.08 -0.01 0.01

Act in past year: Worked on a local, state, 0.04 0.00 0.02 or national political campaign

Reason to attend: To make me a 0.13 -0.01 0.01 more cultured person

Act in past year: Participated in 0.00 -0.03 0.01 ** organized demonstrations

Act in past year: Performed volunteer work 0.07 0.01 0.02

Goal: Influencing the political structure 0.05 0.00 0.01

Goal: Improving my understanding of other 0.21 0.05 0.01 ** countries and cultures

2005 social agency 0.17 0.00 0.00 *

College Experiences

Major: Arts & humanities 0.10 0.06 0.03 *

Major: STEM -0.05 -0.01 0.02

Major: Social sciences 0.02 0.02 0.02

Major: Business -0.12 -0.10 0.03 ***

Joined a social fraternity or sorority -0.03 -0.06 0.03 *

Took an ethnic studies course 0.12 0.03 0.01 *

Attended a racial/cultural awareness workshop 0.16 0.09 0.02 ***

Had a roommate of different race/ethnicity 0.08 -0.02 0.02

Participated in an ethnic/racial 0.16 0.06 0.02 ** student organization

Participated in a study-abroad program 0.14 0.06 0.02 **

Performed community service as part of a class 0.05 0.03 0.01 **

Through hard work, everybody can succeed -0.28 -0.18 0.01 *** in American society

Change: Ability to get along with people of 0.07 0.01 0.01 different races/cultures

Civic awareness 0.11 0.05 0.01 ***

I have heard faculty express stereotypes 0.03 -0.02 0.01 about racial/ethnic groups in class.

There is a lot of racial tension on this campus. 0.09 -0.01 0.01

Campus satisfaction: Racial/ethnic diversity -0.15 -0.07 0.01 **** of the student body

Campus satisfaction: Respect for the 0.00 0.02 0.01 * expression of diverse beliefs


Table 2, cont.


Positive cross-racial interaction 0.17 0.01 0.00 ***

Negative cross-racial interaction 0.02 -0.01 0.00 ***

Institutional Characteristics

Institutional selectivity 0.12 0.00 0.00

Institution type 0.07 0.07 0.03

Institution control 0.03 0.03 0.05

Institutional partisan voting index 0.09 0.00 0.00

Average 2005 view: Should undocumented 0.18 0.48 0.13 ** immigrants be denied access to public education?

Average political orientation of 0.11 -0.22 0.08 ** freshmen in 2005

Model Statistics

ICC 0.06

Level-2 variance explained 0.85

Level-1 variance explained 0.25

Total variance explained 0.29

Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05


Table 2, cont.

supportive of undocumented immigrant access to education than their White peers. This is consistent with previous findings indicating that Latinos have less restrictive views on immigration policies (Fennelly & Federico, 2008; Facchini et al., 2009; Pew Research Center, 2006). Previous research has dem-onstrated that “other” identified students do not see themselves represented in the race/ethnicity response options provided (Johnston, Ozaki, Pizzolato, & Chaudhari, 2009) and may therefore be more open to changing current systems and policies for broader recognition and inclusion. Our results are also in line with the argument that men are more opposed to immigration than women (Chandler & Tasi, 2001; E. O. Perez, 2010) as female students tended to be significantly more likely than male students to support undocu-mented immigrants’ access to public education.

Among the variables related to religion, results indicate that students with Baptist and Church of Christ religious affiliations were significantly less sup-


portive of educational access for undocumented immigrants. We included socioeconomic status and students’ concerns for financing college in the model because they may serve as proxies related to the “perceived group competition” suggested in the UIMGC framework. However, these variables were not significant predictors of student attitudes. Students who grew up in more Democratic-leaning Congressional districts were significantly more likely to endorse access to public education for undocumented immigrants. As suggested by previous research (Chandler & Tsai, 2001; Fennelly & Fed-erico, 2008; E. O. Perez, 2010) students’ entering political orientation also mattered, as individuals with more liberal political orientations were signifi-cantly more likely to report that they support access to public education for undocumented immigrants.

Among the other precollege characteristics, the results suggest that stu-dents who reported in 2005 a goal of improving their understanding of other countries and cultures indicated significantly stronger support for undocu-mented immigrant access to education in 2009. Similarly, students exhibiting higher social agency at the beginning of college were likely to endorse access to public education for undocumented immigrants. Students who more often participated in organized demonstrations prior to college were more likely to oppose providing access to public education for undocumented immigrants. Understanding the types of organized demonstrations students participated in and the political ideologies behind the demonstrations would better help explain the negative relationship observed between participating in demonstrations and views regarding undocumented students. While we included several precollege activities including the frequency of students’ volunteerism, political involvement and engagement in political discussions, only participation in organized demonstrations was a significant predictor. These results suggest that student involvement in college may be more in-fluential than their high school experiences.

College Experiences

As expected there are differences among academic disciplines. Art and humanities majors tended to be more supportive of providing undocumented immigrants with access to public education. Business students were signifi-cantly more likely to oppose educational access for undocumented students. These findings are in line with Social Dominance Theory (SDT), which proposes that disciplines with ideologies providing intellectual or moral justification for unequal relationships between groups, such as business and economics, will promote more restrictionist views (Sidanius et al., 2003).

Several college experiences were found to be significant positive predictors of changes in student attitudes about undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. Enrollment in an ethnic studies course and participation in racial/cultural workshops and ethnic/racial student organizations were


all positively associated with higher levels of support for undocumented students’ access to public education. Perhaps these diverse environments encouraged students to critically evaluate the damaging implications of inequality for marginalized groups (Chang, 2002a; Gurin, 1999; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Milem, 1994; Nelson Laird, 2005), and they were subsequently able to apply their raised consciousness to their opinions regarding undocumented immigrants.

Similarly, college seniors who reported having positive cross-racial interac-tions were stronger supporters of access to public education for undocument-ed immigrants, as were students who participated in study abroad programs or those who performed community service as a course requirement. These findings corroborate the wealth of literature pointing to the benefits of civic engagement during college in promoting civic values (Einfeld & Collins, 2008). Therefore, it is not surprising that students who were more involved in civic awareness-raising activities over the college years were significantly more likely to have more supportive views toward undocumented students’ educational access at the end of college.

Not all college experiences and perceptions, however, predicted changes in views toward supporting undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. Students who joined a fraternity or sorority were more likely to oppose access to education for undocumented immigrants. Students who reported more agreement with the statement “through hard work, everybody can succeed in American society,” which can be considered the ethos of the “American dream,” were significantly more likely to oppose educational ac-cess for undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, we observed that students who were satisfied with the ra-cial/ethnic diversity of the student body tended to oppose undocumented immigrants’ access to public education at the end of college. Considering that many of the college campuses included in this sample have a majority White student body, satisfaction with the diversity of student body may suggest satisfaction with the unequal representation of minority groups in the college setting; therefore, also corresponding to students’ inclination to support more restrictive attitudes toward undocumented students’ access to education. While positive cross-racial interactions positively influenced changes in students’ attitudes over four years, students who experienced negative cross-racial interactions were less likely to support educational ac-cess for undocumented immigrants. Unfortunately, these variables do not indicate the groups between which these negative interactions occurred, yet we can infer that generally encountering negative situations with those of a different racial/ethnic background has an impact on students’ likelihood of supporting equitable policies for marginalized groups.


Institutional Characteristics

In addition to the student-level findings, the results in Table 2 demon-strate important differences across institutional characteristics. Institutional selectivity, type (four-year college versus university), control (private versus public), and the district partisan voting index corresponding to the institu-tion’s location were not significant predictors of changes in student views toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. We found, however, that students who attended institutions where, on average, first-year students had more positive attitudes toward the educational access of undocumented immigrants were more likely to also support immigrant access to education.

Interestingly, students attending colleges with a more liberal-leaning stu-dent body during 2005 were significantly less likely to endorse educational access for undocumented immigrants four years later. Initially, the average political orientation of an institution had a positive association with sup-portive views on undocumented immigrants’ access to education. Thus, a suppressor effect is observed as the effect of “average political orientation” changes from positive to negative when “average student views on undocu-mented immigrant access to education” are accounted for in the model. As noted in the descriptive statistics (Table 1), institutions in the sample, on average, tend to have more liberal-leaning students. In other words, more liberal campuses were also campuses where the average student body was more supportive of access for undocumented immigrants as suggested by the correlation between the two variables; therefore, once the views of the average student body were taken into account, more liberal-leaning political orientation scores appear to predict less supportive views.

The model shown in Table 2 accounted for 85% of the institution-level variance and 25% of the student-level variance. Overall, the variables in Table 2 explained 29% of the variance in the dependent variable.

discussion

Despite their dedication and significant contributions to American society, undocumented immigrants continually face immense challenges within a growing anti-immigrant climate, one element of which is prejudice from U.S. citizens (Chavez, 2008). Although scholars recognize the importance of understanding the cures, rather than just the causes, of prejudice (e.g., Esses et al., 2005), research on the types of experiences and social contexts that influence college student attitudes toward undocumented immigrants has been underdeveloped. Using the UIMGC (Esses et al., 2005) and perspectives on the influence of college on sociopolitical attitudes, this study’s findings demonstrate that individual-level characteristics and experiences as well as


the institutional structures and contexts predict changes in students’ level of agreement on whether undocumented immigrant students should be denied access to public education.

The UIMGC framework poses several group-based status differentials that may influence views of immigration. Although members of histori-cally marginalized groups may be more likely to support and sympathize with undocumented immigrants given their marginalized status, it is also possible that some members of these groups may not show any support for undocumented immigrant causes due to perceived competition over educa-tional resources and concerns for their own social mobility. Initially, all racial/ethnic groups (shown in Table 2) had significant positive correlations with more supportive views, with the exception of Whites (not shown in Table 2), which had a significant negative correlation. After controlling for all of the variables in the multi-level model, Latino students and students identifying as “other” were still significantly more likely to support a more inclusive view toward undocumented immigrants’ educational access compared to Whites. According to SDT, individuals and groups with a social dominance orientation maintain social and political ideologies that reinforce group-based hierarchy, including racism (Pratto et al., 1994).

Although the CIRP surveys do not allow us to explicitly examine the relationship between racism and views toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education, we believe that it is important to acknowledge racism as a potential explanation for having more restrictionist views toward undocumented immigrant access to public education given the “anything but racism” trend that exists among higher education researchers in inter-preting differences across racial/ethnic groups (Harper, 2012) and the fact that previous scholarship has examined the relationship between race, the historical legacy of racism, and the current discourse on undocumented immigration (Chavez, 2008; Galindo & Vigil, 2006; Perez Huber, Benavides Lopez, Malagon, Velez, & Solorzano, 2008; Sanchez, 1997).

With respect to the other racial/ethnic groups in the study, other significant background characteristics, predispositions, and college experiences explain away the initial differences between Whites and Asian American or Pacific Islanders, Whites and American Indians, and Whites and African Americans. In this study, women (compared to men) were significantly more likely to support a more inclusive view toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education, which is consistent with previous research (e.g., Chandler & Tasi, 2001; E. O. Perez, 2010).

Students who identified as more politically liberal, had the goal of im-proving their understanding of other countries and cultures (which could be operationalized as a proxy for a students’ multicultural ideology), were dedicated to improving society, and who valued being active citizens (higher


social agency) were more likely to endorse undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. Students who had a stronger belief in what could be considered the ethos of the “American dream,” which could be operational-ized as a proxy for students’ American identity, were significantly less likely to support educational access for undocumented immigrants. This find-ing supports previous research indicating that individuals with a stronger American identity or ethnocentric values often see immigrants as a threat to the economic, cultural, and sociopolitical fabric of the United States (Citrin & Wright, 2009; E. O. Perez, 2010).

Additionally, past studies have found that religious beliefs may influence one’s political ideology and opinions toward public policy (Feldman, 1988; Knoll, 2009; Welch & Leege, 1988). In this study, identifying as a member of the Baptist religion or Church of Christ negatively predicted support for access to public education for unauthorized immigrants. Religion as a background characteristic influencing attitudes toward immigration policy has largely been unexplored in previous scholarship, making this finding important for future exploration.

The UIMGC further suggests that individuals may be more supportive of restrictive immigration policy due to a perceived threat of group competi-tion. However, in our study, students’ financial concern over their ability to pay for college (a proxy for perceived economic threat) did not predict attitudes toward access to public education for undocumented immigrants, seemingly disconfirming the UIMGC’s proposition about perceived group threat. Perhaps students interpret the dependent variable as meaning access to public K-12 education rather than public higher education. In this case, their views may not be related to their concern over their ability to finance their own college education. In other words, U.S. citizen undergraduates may not perceive undocumented students at the K-12 level as competing with them for the same resources. Furthermore, the dependent variable does not make specific reference to providing undocumented immigrants with financial support, which may have also influenced students’ responses to the question.

Many of the above individual-level views of incoming students that were significant in this study (e.g., identifying as more liberal) could relate to the public opinions of students’ home contexts, since students’ home PVI was a significant predictor. Thus, students who are from more Democratic-leaning districts were more likely to support undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. Interestingly, the institution’s PVI was not a significant predictor. These findings suggest that there may be an enduring relationship between students’ opinions and public opinions in their home neighbor-hoods. This level of influence may be maintained as students transition to college, while the influence of the campuses’ district may be weaker since the mental demands of college are likely to focus students’ attention on what is happening on campus rather than the district in which the campus is located.


Beyond background characteristics and predispositions about social values, this study provides support for the contextual effects of college on influencing students’ views toward current sociopolitical issues. After control-ling for variables posited by the UIMGC framework, various college experi-ences were associated with more supportive views toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. For example, taking an ethnic studies course, attending a racial/cultural awareness workshop, participating in an ethnic/racial student organization, performing community service as part of a class, and participating in a study-abroad program were all found to positively predict more supportive views toward undocumented students’ access to public education. Although students selectively choose to par-ticipate in most of these curricular and co-curricular experiences, they are often associated with the development of a student’s understanding of and compassion toward diverse others (Chang, 2002a, 2002b; Denson & Chang, 2008; Lopez, 2004), which could include learning about challenges faced by undocumented youth in environments that are often insensitive to their cultural background (Gildersleeve & Ranero, 2010; Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008).

Civic engagement opportunities may promote greater understanding and compassion for others, in general, thus affecting students’ egalitarian views toward social issues (Einfeld & Collins, 2008). In this study, participation in study-abroad programs had a positive association with more supportive views toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education at the end of college, which connects to previous research highlighting the influence of study-abroad experiences on students’ social awareness and other social justice outcomes (Lindsey, 2005). In relation to views toward undocumented students, participation in study-abroad programs may help many U.S. citizen students question their preconceived notions of citizenship and community membership in their experiences as “the foreigner” and develop a more nu-anced understanding about the global, economic, social, and political forces at play within immigration patterns.

Not surprisingly, some college experiences were associated with negative attitudes toward undocumented immigrants’ access to public education. One such experience included being involved in a social fraternity or so-rority during college. Past research on mainstream Greek fraternities and sororities found evidence that these organizations are exclusionary and function as “ethnic clubs” for White students (Sidanius, Van Laar, Levin, & Sinclair, 2004). According to Sidanius and colleagues (2004), “among Whites, membership in fraternities and sororities appeared to produce even more ethnocentric, conflict-inducing, and exclusionary effects than membership in ethnic student organizations produced among minority students” (p. 107). Such attitudes within these groups may also result in a type of normative


influence on views of immigrants, as observed by the sponsoring of racially themed parties, many of which have been directed toward and use negative stereotypes of immigrant communities (Garcia, Johnston, Garibay, Herrera, & Giraldo, 2011). Taken together, the findings suggest the importance of college experiences and contexts in predicting students’ views toward supporting undocumented immigrants’ access to public education.

impLications

Implications for Future Research

The results from this study offer several key areas for future research. First, future research should try to account for how interaction with undocumented immigrants may influence support for their educational access. Examining the quality of these relationships and the contexts in which they take place will provide further insight into the potential cures of prejudice toward undocumented immigrant students. This research may be difficult to do, considering the problems associated with trying to identify undocumented immigrants, but qualitative research may allow for more in-depth exploration of documented students’ potential interactions with undocumented persons. Asking students to reflect on their views associated with undocumented people and whether they think they have ever interacted with someone with-out documentation could be engaging questions within a qualitative study.

Future research should also try to disentangle some of the larger sociopo-litical attitudes associated with the dependent variable of the current study. What someone is thinking about the statement “Undocumented immigrants should be denied access to public education” may vary widely. For instance, someone might disregard any egalitarian views or alternative understandings of citizenship and immediately think about ideas associated with legality by solely blaming undocumented immigrants for “not following the laws or rules.” Others may interpret “public education” more widely, with some already understanding that public K-12 education does allow for undocu-mented students’ access, which may relate to why they agree. However, other students may immediately think of public “higher” education, deem it less of a universal right, and therefore disagree with the statement. These nuanced views of the statement call for future research that may further elucidate the reasons students agree or disagree with undocumented immigrant access to public education. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the findings from this study provide the foundation for future research that examines state-level (e.g., in-state tuition policies) and other contextual influences (e.g., Deferred Ac-tion for Childhood Arrivals executive order) on college students’ attitudes.


Implications for Policy and Practice

The results from this study offer several key implications for institutional policy and practice. First, given the increasing attention paid to immigration policies within the national discourse, college students will likely be called upon to vote on policies regarding undocumented immigrants’ access to pub-lic services, especially public higher education. Although this study did not examine a specific policy, the views toward access to public education (broadly defined) for undocumented immigrants may be good indicators for how students would vote for such policies. Moreover, views and attitudes represent a critical aspect of the campus climate (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998) and may influence behavior toward immigrants (Esses et al., 2005). Indeed, campus hate- or bias-motivated incidents adversely target-ing undocumented immigrants have occurred on college campuses (Garcia et al., 2011; Phillips, 2007). Such incidents can trigger emotional responses by the targeted group and increase the potential for conflict between those on opposing sides (Garcia et al., 2011). An institution’s failure to address its campus climate related to undocumented immigrants may inhibit its ability to foster an educational environment conducive to learning and suc-cess for such students. Therefore, colleges and universities should promote opportunities for students to reflect on issues surrounding undocumented immigration (e.g., what are the push/pull factors regarding unauthorized immigration?) and rights versus privileges toward accessing public education (e.g., is public higher education a universal right?). These types of questions can be infused into the important curricular and co-curricular experiences (e.g., ethnic studies classes, racial/cultural awareness workshops) that can help students better understand the complex issues regarding undocumented immigrants’ access to public education.

Second, given the importance of these curricular and co-curricular experi-ences, these learning opportunities should not be left up to self-selection or chance. Along with recent evidence regarding the benefits associated with taking diversity courses (Bowman, 2010; Cole, 2007), our study also supports institutional policies regarding diversity course requirements as part of the undergraduate curriculum, since taking an “ethnic studies” course likely helps students to better understand not only issues related to racial and ethnic diversity, but also larger sociopolitical issues regarding immigration and access to public education. Campus officials should support students in taking diversity courses, especially since engaging in such courses may help to promote positive campus climates for diversity, including immigration status diversity. Although campuses cannot always control whether a cross-racial interaction will be positive or negative, building a more inclusive campus cli-mate for diversity offers initial steps toward increasing the potential number of positive cross-racial interactions, which our findings show predicts more positive support for undocumented immigrant access to public education.


Third, although this study was not able to account for whether intergroup contact occurred between documented and undocumented students, it is possible that part of the reason students do not support undocumented im-migrant access to public education may be the invisibility of undocumented students. If students with documentation (i.e., the U.S. citizen students in our study) never interact with an undocumented immigrant or come to know of undocumented immigrants’ struggles, those students may walk through life without thinking about the privileges associated with their documented status. They may also never be challenged to rethink any negative concep-tions they may hold of the criminalized and dehumanized “illegal alien” stereotype often promoted by societal discourse. Therefore, colleges should help create awareness by infusing the struggles of undocumented peoples into courses, public lectures, educational workshops, training (e.g., social justice programs, intergroup dialogues, diversity training), and stories of students (e.g., student spotlights, newspaper articles).

Although the fear of deportation may be too great for undocumented students to “come out” and disclose their status, institutions can still promote awareness of the issues these students may be facing by providing potential “composites” or anonymous profiles of students. By bringing this awareness to the campus at large, institutions may break down some of the stereotypes of so-called “undocumented immigrants” (e.g., don’t pay taxes, drain away resources), which may in turn help to build solidarity across groups in sup-port of educational access.

concLusion

As we enter an era of increasing globalization, with increased unauthorized immigration being one of its signals, and the democratic mission of higher education’s calls for more civically engaged and multiculturally competent college graduates, it is imperative for students to better understand not only the struggles that undocumented immigrants face (e.g., constant fear of deportation, separation from their families, being unable to access financial aid to meet the increasing costs of college, among many others), but the ways in which their views toward undocumented immigrants may perpetuate and exacerbate those struggles. By documenting one view that U.S. citizen college students have that may relate to their larger attitudes toward undocumented immigration and beliefs about access to public education, this study begins an important investigation into the ways that college may influence changes in students’ views over four years.

Indeed, several college experiences significantly predicted changes toward more supportive views regarding undocumented immigrants’ access to pub-lic education, while other college environments and experiences influenced changes toward more restrictionist views. With the issue of unauthorized


immigration being highly contentious and polarizing, and hate- or bias-motivated incidents adversely targeting and dehumanizing immigrant popu-lations occurring on college campuses, it is our hope that colleges will take up this call to action and implement the types of experiences that suggest the possibility of fostering more supportive views. Such an approach should help undocumented students in their goals of attaining U.S. citizenship and a higher education, as well as further contributing to the country they call their home. This will also enhance the democratic mission of postsecondary education by encouraging equality and justice for all students, regardless of background and national origin.

Situated within higher education scholarship and supported by multi-disciplinary perspectives, this study makes a unique contribution both to the literature focused on immigration policy and also to the practice of influencing students’ sociopolitical views and attitudes. Although college campuses may be grappling with a number of political issues at any one time, including affirmative action, LGBT rights, and military recruitment on campus, immigration policy will remain at the forefront of public debate as the U.S. continues to increase its international presence and global influ-ence. Understanding student attitudes toward these sociopolitical issues will continue to be of interest to scholars within and beyond higher education as well as practitioners addressing these issues on campuses across the nation.

appendix a

Table of Measures

Variable Description

Dependent Variable

2009 view: Undocumented immigrants 1 = disagree agree, 2 = agree somewhat, should be denied access to public education 3 = disagree somewhat, 4 =disagree strongly

Background Characteristics

2005 view: Undocumented immigrants 1 = disagree agree, 2 = agree somewhat, should be denied access to public education 3 = disagree somewhat, 4 = disagree strongly Gender 1 = male, 2 = female

Race/ethnicity (White reference group): 0 = no, 1 = yes Asian American or Pacific Islander, American Indian, Latino, African American, other

Socioeconomic status Factor of three items: mother’s education (0.66), father’s education (0.73), income (0.56) Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.69Home partisan voting index Continuous, min = ,-29.00 max = 41.00


Precollege Experiences

Religion (other religion reference group) 0 = no, 1 = yes Baptist, Buddhist, Church of Christ, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Mormon, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker, Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Unitarian/Universalist, United Church of Christ/Congregational, Other Christian

Concerns about financing college education 1 = none, 2 = some, 3 = major

Political orientation 1 = far right, 2 = conservative, 3 = middle-of-the-road, 4 = liberal, far left

Engagement in political discussions Factor of three items: frequency of discussing politics in class (0.62), with friends (0.78), with family (0.72) Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.79

Act in past year: Worked on a local, state, 1 = not at all, 2 = occasionally, or national political campaign 3 = frequently

Reason to attend: To be a more 1 = not important, 3 = very important cultured person

Act in past year: Participated in 1 = not at all, 2 = occasionally, organized demonstrations 3 = frequently

Act in past year: Performed volunteer work 1 = not at all, 2 = occasionally, 3 = frequently

Goal: Influencing the political structure 1 = not important, 3 = very important

Goal: Improving my understanding 1 = not important, 3 = very important of other countries and cultures

2005 social agency Continuous, min = 24.17, max = 76.80

College Experiences

Major (other reference group): Arts and 0 = no, 1 = yes humanities, STEM, social sciences, business

Joined a social fraternity or sorority 1 = no, 2 = yes

Took an ethnic studies course 1 = no, 2 = yes

Attended a racial/cultural awareness workshop 1 = no, 2 = yes

Had a roommate of different race/ethnicity 1 = no, 2 = yes

Participated in ethnic/racial 1 = no, 2 = yes student organization

Participated in a study-abroad program 1 = no, 2 = yes

Performed community service 1 = not at all, 2 = occasionally, as part of a class 3 = frequently

Through hard work, everybody can 1 = disagree strongly, 2 = disagree succeed in American society somewhat, 3 = agree somewhat, 4 = agree strongly

Appendix A, cont.



Change: Ability to get along with people 1 = much weaker, 2 = weaker, 3 = no of different races/cultures change, 4 = stronger, 5 = much stronger

Civic awareness Continuous, min = -5.07, max = 1.54

There is a lot of racial tension on this campus. 1 = disagree strongly, 2 = disagree somewhat, 3 = agree somewhat, 4 = agree strongly

I have heard faculty express stereotypes 1 = disagree strongly, 2 = disagree about racial/ethnic groups in class. somewhat, 3 = agree somewhat, 4 = agree strongly

Campus satisfaction: Racial/ethnic 1 = very dissatisfied, 2 = dissatisfied, diversity of the student body 3 = neutral, 4 = satisfied, 5 = very satisfied

Campus satisfaction: Respect for the 1 = very dissatisfied, 2 = dissatisfied, expression of diverse beliefs 3 = neutral, 4 = satisfied, 5 = very satisfied

Positive cross-racial interaction Continuous, min = 30.16, max = 67.68

Negative cross-racial interaction Continuous, min = 41.66, max = 76.57

institutional Characteristics

Institutional selectivity Continuous, min = 864.89, max = 1440.20

Institution type 1 = university, 2 = four-year

Institution control 1 = public, 2 = private

Institutional partisan voting index Continuous, min = -26.00, max = 38.00

Average 2005 view: Undocumented 1 = agree strongly, 2 = agree somewhat, immigrants should be denied access 3 = disagree somewhat, to public education. 4 = disagree strongly

Average political orientation of 1 = far right, 4 = liberal, far left freshmen in 2005

RefeRences

Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Fran-cisco: Jossey-Bass.

Baer, D. E., & Lambert, R. D. (1990). Socialization into dominant vs. counter ideol-ogy among university-educated Canadians. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 27, 487-504.

Barcikowski, R. S. (1981). Statistical power with group mean as the unit of analysis. Journal of Educational Statistics, 6, 267–285.

Berg, J. A. (2009). Core networks and Whites’ attitudes toward immigrants and immi-gration policy. Public Opinion Quarterly, 73(1), 7–31. doi:10.1093/poq/nfp011.

Berry, J. W. (2006). Mutual attitudes among immigrants and ethnocultural groups in Canada. international Journal of intercultural Relations, 30(6), 719–734. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2006.06.004.

Appendix A, cont.



Bowman, N. A. (2010). Disequilibrium and resolution: The nonlinear effects of diversity courses on well–being and orientations toward diversity. The Review of Higher Education, 33(4), 543–568. doi:10.1353/rhe.0.0172

Brader, T., Valentino, N. A., Jardina, A. E., & Ryan, T. J. (2010). The racial divide on immigration opinion: Why Blacks are less threatened by immigrants. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Associa-tion, Washington, DC.

Bryant, A. N. (2003). Changes in attitudes toward women’s roles: Predicting gender-role traditionalism among college students. Sex Roles, 48, 131–142.

Chandler, C. R., & Tsai, Y. (2001). Social factors influencing immigration attitudes: An analysis of data from the general social survey. The Social Science Journal, 38(2), 177–188.

Chang, M. J. (2002a). The impact of an undergraduate diversity course requirement on students’ racial views and attitudes. The Journal of General Education, 51(1), 21–42.

Chang, M. J. (2002b). Preservation or transformation: Where’s the real educational discourse on diversity? Review of Higher Education, 25, 125–140.

Chatard, A., & Selimbegovic, L. (2007). The impact of higher education on egalitarian attitudes and values: Contextual and cultural determinants. Social and Person-ality Psychology Compass, 1, 541–556. doi:10.1111/j.1751–9004.2007.00024.x.

Chavez, L. R. (2008). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Citrin, J., & Wright, M. (2009). Defining the circle of we: American identity and immigration policy. The Forum, 73, 1–20.

Cole, D. (2007). Do interracial interactions matter?: An examination of student-faculty contact and intellectual self-concept. Journal of Higher Education, 78(3), 248–272. doi:10.1353/jhe.2007.0015.

Cook Political Report. (2009). Partisan voting index: Districts of the 111th Congress. Retrieved on August 19, 2011, from http://www.cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/pvistate.pdf.

de Leeuw, J., & Meijer, E. (Eds.) (2008). Handbook of multilevel analysis. New York: Springer.

Denson, N., & Chang, M. J. (2008). Racial diversity matters: The impact of diversity-related student engagement and institutional context. American Educational Research Journal, 46(2), 322–353. doi: 10.3102/00028312083278.

Einfeld, A., & Collins, D. (2008). The relationship between service-learning, social justice, multicultural competence, and civic engagement. Journal of College Student Development, 49(2), 95–109. doi:10.1353/csd.2008.0017

Esses, V. M., Jackson, L. M., & Armstrong, T. L. (1998). Intergroup competition and at-titudes toward immigrants and immigration: An instrumental model of group conflict. Journal of Social issues, 54, 699–724. doi:10.1111/j.1540–4560.1998.tb01244.x

Esses, V. M., Jackson, L. M., Dovidio, J. F., & Hodson, G. (2005). Instrumental relations among groups: Group competition, conflict, and prejudice. In J. F. Dovidio, P. Glick, & L. A. Rudman (Eds.), On the nature of prejudice: Fifty years after Allport (pp. 227–243). Malden, MA: Blackwell.


Facchini, G., Mayda, A. M., & Puglisi, R. (2009). illegal immigration and media expo-sure: Evidence on individual attitudes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, Canada.

Facchini, G., Mayda, A. M., & Puglisi, R. (2010). individual attitudes towards immi-gration: Economic vs. non-economic determinants. Working paper: Sustainable Development in a Diverse World project. Retrieved on August 18, 2011, from http://www.susdiv.org/uploadfiles/DEL3.8_Facchini.pdf.

Feder, J. (2010). Unauthorized alien students, higher education, and in-state tuition rates: A legal analysis. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

Feldman, S. (1988). Structure and consistency in public opinion: The role of core beliefs and values. American Journal of Political Science, 32(2), 416–440.

Feldman, K. A., & Newcomb, T. M. (1969). The impact of college on students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fennelly, K., & Federico, C. (2008). Rural residence as a determinant of attitudes toward U.S. immigration policy. international Migration, 46(1), 151–190. doi:10.1111/j.1468–2435.2008.00440.x.

Flores, S. (2009). State Dream Acts: The effect of in-state resident tuition policies and undocumented Latino students. The Review of Higher Education, 33(2), 239–283. doi:10.1353/rhe.0.0134.

Franke, R., Ruiz, S., Sharkness, J., DeAngelo, L., & Pryor, J. P. (2010). Findings from the 2009 administration of the College Student Senior Survey (CSS): National aggregations. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute. Retrieved on August 19, 2011, from http://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/Reports/2009_CSS_Report.pdf.

Gage, R., Zick, Z., Tully, K., & Simon E. (2010). Choice of major and political atti-tudes: A study of University of Minnesota students. The University of Minnesota Undergraduate Journal of Psychology, 3, 7–11.

Galindo, R., & Vigil, J. (2006). Are anti-immigrant statements racist or nativist? What difference does it make? Latino Studies, 4(4), 419–447. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600224.

Gallup. (2010, December 8). Slim majority of Americans would vote for DREAM Act law. Retrieved on August 17, 2011, from http://www.gallup.com/poll/145136/Slim-Majority-Americans-Vote-DREAM-Act-Law.aspx.

Garcia, G. A., Johnston, M. P., Garibay, J. C., Herrera, F., & Giraldo, L. (2011). When parties become racialized: Deconstructing racially themed parties. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 48(1), 5–21. doi:10.2202/1949-6605.6194.

Gildersleeve, R. E., & Ranero, J. J. (2010). Precollege contexts of undocumented students: Implications for student affairs professionals. In J. Price (Ed.), Un-derstanding and supporting undocumented students. New Directions for Student Services, No. 131 (pp. 19–33). doi:10.1002/ss.365.

Guimond, S. (1997). Attitude change during college: Normative or informational social influence? Social Psychology of Education, 2, 237–261.

Guimond, S., & Palmer, D. L. (1996). The political socialization of commerce and social science students: Epistemic authority and attitude change. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1985–2013. doi:10.1023/A:1009662807702.


Gurin, P. (1999). Expert report of Patricia Gurin, in “The compelling need for diversity in higher education,” presented in Gratz et al. v. Bollinger et al. and Grutter et al. v. Bollinger et al. Washington, DC: Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering.

Gurin, P., Dey, E. L., Hurtado, S., & Gurin, G. (2002). Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes. Harvard Educational Review, 72(3), 330–365.

Gutmann, A. (1999). Democratic education, with a new preface and epilogue. Princ-eton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hanson, G. (2005). Why does immigration divide America? Public finance and po-litical opposition to open borders. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.

Harper, S. R. (2012). Race without racism: How higher education researchers mini-mize racist institutional norms. The Review of Higher Education, 36(1), 9–29. doi: 10.1353/rhe.2012.0047.

Hastie, B. (2007). Higher education and sociopolitical orientation: The role of social influence in the liberalization of students. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 22, 259–274.

Hebel, S. (2010, October 13). Georgia regents ban illegal immigrants from selective public colleges. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on August 18, 2011, from http://chronicle.com/article/Georgia-Regents-Ban-Illegal/124903/.

Hood, M. V., III, & Morris, I. L. (1997). Amigo o enemigo?: Context, attitudes, and Anglo public opinion toward immigration. Social Science Quarterly, 78(2), 309–323.

Hood, M. V., Morris, I. L., & Shirkey, K. A. (1997). ¿Quedate or Vente?: Uncovering the determinants of Hispanic public opinion toward immigration. Political Research Quarterly, 50(3), 627–647.

Hurtado, S. (2007). Linking diversity with the educational and civic missions of higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 30(2), 185–196.

Hurtado, S., Milem, J. F., Clayton-Pedersen, A., & Allen, W. (1998). Enhancing cam-pus climates for racial/ethnic diversity: Educational policy and practice. The Review of Higher Education, 21(3), 279–302.

Kemmelmeier, M., Danielson, C., & Basten, J. (2005). What’s in a grade? Academic success and political orientation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1386–1399.

Janus, A. L. (2010). The influence of social desirability pressures on expressed im-migration attitudes. Social Science Quarterly, 91(4), 928–946.

Johnston, M. P., Ozaki, C. C., Pizzolato, J. E., & Chaudhari, P. (2009). Which box do i check and when? Exploring students’ rationales behind racial identifica-tion. Presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Knoll, B. R. (2009). “And who is my neighbor?” Religion and immigration policy attitudes. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 48(2), 313–331.

Lindsey, E. W. (2005). Study abroad and values development in social work students. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(2), 229–249.

Lopez, G. E. (2004). Interethnic contact, curriculum, and attitudes in the first year of college. Journal of Social issues, 60, 75–94.


Mayda, A. M. (2006). Who is against immigration? A cross-country investigation of individual attitudes toward immigrants. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(3), 510–530.

McLachlan, G. J., & Krishnan, T. (1997). The EM algorithm and extensions. New York: Wiley.

Milem, J. F. (1994). College, students, and racial understanding. Thought & Action, 9(2), 51–92.

Millora, L., & Eagan, K. (2011). Muhammad, the Buddha, and the Holy Spirit: A multi-level analysis of the individual and institutional effects of religion and po-litical ideology on college students’ attitudes about same-sex relationships. Paper presented at the American Education Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Mokher, M. K., Mclendon, C. G., & Flores, S. M. (2011). Legislative agenda setting for in-state resident tuition policies: Immigration, representation, and educational access. American Journal of Education, 117(4), 563–602. doi:10.1086/660770.

Nelson Laird, T. F. (2005). College students’ experiences with diversity and their effects on academic self confidence, social agency, and disposition toward critical thinking. Research in Higher Education, 46(4), 365–387. doi:10.1007/s11162–005–2966–1.

Palmer, C., & Davidson, T. (2011). Entitled or excluded: Attitudes toward access to postsecondary education for undocumented students. Current issues in Education, 14(2), Retrieved on September 20, 2011, from http://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/715.

Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: Findings and insights from twenty years of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Passel, J. S. (2003). Further demographic information relating to the DREAM Act. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. Retrieved on August 18, 2011, from http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/dream/dream_demographics.pdf.

Passel, J. S., & Cohn, D. (2009, April 14). A portrait of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Retrieved on August 18, 2011, from http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/94.pdf.

Pérez, E. O. (2010). Explicit evidence on the import of implicit attitudes: The IAT and immigration policy judgments. Political Behavior, 32(4), 517–545. doi:10.1007/s11109–010–9115–z.

Perez, W. (2009). We ARE Americans: Undocumented students pursuing the American dream. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Perez, W. (2010). Extending our investments: Higher education access for undocu-mented students. Diversity & Democracy, 13(1), 7–9.

Perez Huber, L., Benavides Lopez, C., Malagon, M., Velez, V., & Solorzano, D. (2008). Getting beyond the “symptom,” acknowledging the “disease”: Theorizing racist nativism. Contemporary Justice Review, 11(1), 39–51. doi:10.1080/10282580701850397.

Peterson, B. E., & Lane, M. D. (2001). Implications of authoritarianism for young adulthood: Longitudinal analysis of college experiences and future goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 678–690.

Pew Research Center (2006). America’s immigration quandary: No consensus on im-migration problem or proposed fixes. Retrieved on August 18, 2011, from http://people-press.org/2006/03/30/americas-immigration-quandary/.


Phillips, A. (2007, February 22). “Find the illegal immigrant” game sparks massive protests. Retrieved on September 20, 2011, from http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2896451&page=1#.UBXlnq7WElc.

Plyler v. Doe (1982). 457 U.S. 202 No. 80–1538.Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance

orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 741–763.

Preston, J. (2011, October 18). Latinos said to bear weight of a deportation program. New York Times. Retrieved on November 29, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/us/latinos-said-to-bear-weight-of-deportation-program.html.

Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Renn, K. A., & Arnold, K. D. (2003). Reconceptualizing research on college student peer culture. The Journal of Higher Education, 74(3), 261–291. doi:10.1353/jhe.2003.0025.

Rocha, R. R., Longoria, T., Wrinkle, R. D., Knoll, B. R., Polinard, J. L., & Wenzel, J. (2011). Ethnic context and immigration policy preferences among Lati-nos and Anglos. Social Science Quarterly, 92(1), 1–19. doi:10.1111/j.1540–6237.2011.00754.x.

Sanchez, G. (1997). Face the nation: Race, immigration, and the rise of nativism in late twentieth century America. international Migration Review, 31(4), 1009–1030.

Sharkness, J., DeAngelo, L., & Pryor, J. (2010). CiRP Construct Technical Report. Higher Education Research Institute. Retrieved on August 17, 2011, from http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/PDFs/technicalreport.pdf.

Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., Martin, M., & Stallworth, L. M. (1991). Consensual racism and career track: Some implications of social dominance theory. Political Psychology, 12(4), 691–721.

Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., Sinclair, S., & van Laar, C. (1996). Mother Teresa meets Genghis Khan: The dialectics of hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating career choices. Social Justice Research, 9, 145–170.

Sidanius, J., van Laar, C., Levin, S., & Sinclair, S. (2003). Social hierarchy mainte-nance and assortment into social roles: A social dominance perspective. Group Processes & intergroup Relations, 6, 333–352. doi:10.1177/1368402030064002

Sidanius, J., van Laar, C., Levin, S., & Sinclair, S. (2004). Ethnic enclaves and the dynamics of social identity on the college campus: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(1), 96–110.

Suarez-Orozco, C., Suarez-Orozco, M. M., & Todorova, I. (2008). Learning a new land: immigrant students in American society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-versity Press.

Welch, M. R., & Leege, D. C. (1988). Religious predictors of Catholic parishioners’ sociopolitical attitudes: Devotional style, closeness to God, imagery, and agentic/communal religious identity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 27(4), 536–552.

Documenting attitudes toward undocumented immigrant access to public education: A multi-level...

Documents

Transcript of Documenting attitudes toward undocumented immigrant access to public education: A multi-level...