About

Lisa García Bedolla is Berkeley's Vice Provost for Graduate Studies, Hitchcock Dean of the Graduate Division, and Chancellor's Professor of Education. She uses the tools of social science to reveal the causes of educational and political inequalities in the United States, considering differences across ethnorace, gender, class, geography, and other social categories. She believes an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach is critical to recognizing the complexity of the contemporary United States. Her research employs a variety of social science methods, including in-depth interviewing, survey research, field experiments, and geographic information systems (GIS), to shed light on these issues. Professor García Bedolla has published six books and dozens of research articles, earning five national book awards and numerous other recognitions. She has consulted for presidential campaigns and statewide ballot efforts and has partnered with over a dozen community organizations working to empower low-income communities of color. Through these partnerships, she has developed best practices for engaging and mobilizing voters in these communities, becoming one of the nation’s foremost experts on political engagement within communities of color. She earned her PhD in political science from Yale University and her BA in Latin American Studies and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Due to her appointment as Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division effective July 1, 2019, she is not accepting new graduate students at this time.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Political economy
• Criminology
• History
• Gender studies
• Social psychology
• Public relations
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• 6. Race, Equity, and Civic Education

  New York University Press eBooks · 2024-07-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Civics on the Move: The Politics of Latinx Civic Integration

  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  article

  Throughout the U.S., Latinx communities represent a growing and critical segment of local, regional, and national electorates, but they are underrepresented at the polls. Their political disengagement stems from their historical sociopolitical marginalization and a lack of investment in their political integration. To foster more civic engagement among Latinx students, we propose recognizing their communities’ past and present “lived civics,” which are the actions that address community concerns but are often forgotten or not considered as political. The conception of lived civics that we propose provides a road map for fostering Latinx agency and political efficacy, and our “civics on the move” framework aims to strengthen democratic institutions, ensuring that they represent the needs of this critical segment of the U.S. population.

  PublisherDOI

• 7. English Language Learners

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 3 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• The Impact of Political Discussion Networks on Civic and Political Engagement

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-05-07

  book-chapterSenior author

  Chapter 6 examines the association among our network characteristics - partisan homogeneity, discussion frequency, and network size - and, civic engagement, self-reported political engagement, and validated voter turnout across our various social groups. Of course, we cannot causally distinguish between selection and social influence with our data. However, we uncover important associations nonetheless. We find that regardless of social position, across all groups, those who discuss politics more frequently are more politically engaged, but network size and partisan homogeneity are not uniformly associated with engagement. With regards to validated turnout, we observe that network size and discussion frequency are positively associated with voting for U.S.-born respondents, but none of the network characteristics are associated with voting among our foreign-born respondents.

  PublisherDOI

• So-called ‘Latino vote’ is 32 million Americans with diverse political opinions and national origins

  2020-11-09

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Precursors to Political Engagement

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-05-07

  book-chapterSenior author

  In this chapter, we investigate the extent to which discussion network characteristics are associated with feelings of political efficacy and trust, which are essential precursors to political participation. We explore these factors by of ethnorace, nativity, and gender. We compare levels of trust and efficacy across these groups descriptively, then use ordinary least squares reg ression models to examine how network characteristics are associated with efficacy and trust. We supplement these empirical findings with evidence from our qualitative interviews. We find that network characteristics do not influence political trust and political efficacy among the foreign born as much as they do among the U.S. born. We observe limited differences in these relationships between men and women. We also find substantial variation among ethnoracial groups; for example, we find that partisan homogeneity is positively associated with political trust for Blacks and Latinos, but not for Whites or Asian Americans.

  PublisherDOI

• On the Ballot in 2020: Will the United States (finally) embrace civil rights?

  The Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics · 2020 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract This article situates the 2020 presidential election within the context of U.S. history, specifically the longstanding relationship between white supremacist views and what types of U.S. citizens were considered capable of exercising democratic citizenship. I argue that President Trump's use of racialized, nativist tropes must be understood within that context and the ongoing backlash to the advancement of civil rights in the United States. White resistance to racial progress is not new, nor is the violence associated with it. Only by looking at the intersection of white racial resentment and modern sexism can we fully understand the durability of the Trump coalition. The article closes by considering what political scientists should be learning from this moment in order to better explain American political dynamics moving forward.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Discussion Networks and Information

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-05-07

  book-chapterSenior author

  Chapter 5 examines the relationship among network characteristics, political knowledge, and policy attitudes by ethnorace, nativity, and gender. While we are unable to distinguish between selection and social influence, we uncover some interesting patterns. Network size is positively associated with political knowledge for both men and women, but we observe variation by ethnorace and nativity. Network size is not associated with political knowledge among Latinos, and discussion frequency is not associated with political knowledge among Blacks, Latinos, or Whites. Discussion frequency is positively associated with political knowledge among both the U.S. and foreign born, but network size is only associated with political knowledge among the U.S. born. For policy attitudes, we explored two issues that are important for marginalized ethnoracial group members: environmental policy and social justice policy. We find substantial variation in the relationship between network characteristics and policy preferences among the ethnoracial groups in the sample.

  PublisherDOI

• Talking Politics

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020 · 33 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Individuals arrive at meaning through conversation. Scholars have long explored political conversations in the United States, and the vast majority of this research suggests that political discussion has important effects on political attitudes and engagement. However, much of this research relies on samples of White respondents, making it potentially difficult to generalize these findings to our increasingly diverse electorate. In this book, we seek to understand how political discussion networks vary across groups who have vastly different social positions in the United States, specifically along the lines of ethnorace, nativity, and gender. We build upon seminal work in the field as we argue that individuals with different social positions likely discuss politics with different groups of people and, as a consequence, their discussion networks have different effects on their political behavior. We use a novel discussion network data set with an ethnoracially diverse sample, paired with qualitative interviews, to test this argument. We assert that this book makes three central contributions: (1) expanding the scope of the political discussion network literature by providing a comparative analysis across ethnorace, nativity, and gender; (2) demonstrating how historical differences in partisanship, policy attitudes, and engagement are reflected within groups’ social networks; and (3) revealing how the social position of our respondents affects the impact that networks can have on their trust and efficacy in government, political knowledge, policy attitudes, and political and civic engagement patterns.

  PublisherDOI

• "...Go Back to Where You Came From": A Campus Climate Assessment Toward Undocumented Students

  Proceedings of the 2020 AERA Annual Meeting · 2020-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Melissa R. Michelson

  30 shared

• Marisa Abrajano

  University of California, San Diego

  12 shared

• Taylor N. Carlson

  Washington University in St. Louis

  11 shared

• Verónica N. Vélez

  11 shared

• Yasmin Ramírez

  4 shared

• María Echaveste

  4 shared

• Roderick A. Ferguson

  4 shared

• Jane Juffer

  Cornell University

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• five national book awards