Victor Rios

Last updated

Victor M. Rios is a professor, author, and speaker. [1] His research examines how inequality plays a determining role in the educational and life outcomes of marginalized populations. [2] Rios is of Mexican American origin. [3] He has written several books and is known for developing the theories of the youth control complex, [4] Cultural Misframing, [5] Legitimacy Policing, [6] Masbloom, [7] and Educator Projected Self-Actualization. [8]

Contents

Early life

Rios grew up in a single mother household in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland, California where he was surrounded by drugs and gangs. Rios dropped out of school starting in the eighth grade and ended up in Juvenile Hall by the age of fifteen. [9] After multiple negative life experiences he decided to resume his schooling with the help of one of his high school teachers, Flora Russ and various other mentors. [1]

In 1995 Rios began attending California State University, East Bay, with the condition that he take part in a summer program that would teach him basic college academic skills. [10] He graduated from East Bay in 2000 and by 2005, had earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. [10]

Career

Rios is currently employed by University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has been an Associate Dean of Social Sciences and is currently MacArthur Foundation Professor of Sociology. [11] He is the winner of various book awards, including the 2013 Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for his book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, [12] and is the creator of the sociological theories, "The Youth Control Complex", "Racialized Punitive Social Control", and "Cultural Misframing." [13] In the youth control complex theory Rios argues that the prison and education systems work together to "criminalize, stigmatize, and punish young inner city boys and men." [13] He opposes terms such as "at risk youth", as he feels that the term "at risk" has damaging affects on children. He recommends the term "at-promise" instead. [10] [14]

Based on over a decade of research, Rios created Project GRIT (Generating Resilience to Inspire Transformation), a human development program that works with educators to refine leadership, civic engagement and personal and academic empowerment in young people placed at-risk. This program is featured in The Pushouts a documentary funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. [15]

In June 2015, Rios was invited to the White House for a discussion related to “Exploring Issues and Solutions at the Intersection of Gun Violence, Policing and Mass Incarceration.” [16] He met with the Obama Administration's Domestic Policy Council to give his insight on his research with youth who have experienced gun violence, aggressive policing, and the school-to-prison pipeline. This event was organized by the Joint Center and the Joyce Foundation. [17]

In 2017, Rios was awarded the Public Understanding of Sociology Award by The American Sociological Association. He was one of eight major award recipients from an association of over 13,000 members.

By 2019, Rios and other advocates had convinced school districts and educators across the U.S. to change the way they labeled at-promise young people. In April 2019 the State of California passed a bill, AB 413, changing the label of “at-risk” to “at-promise” in education code, policy, and practice. For years, Rios and other education reformers had advocated for this change. In his 2011 book, Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Rios wrote: “At-promise youth are those youth who have traditionally been labeled “at-risk”—youth who have been marginalized, have marginalized themselves, or both. An issue with labeling young people as “risks” is that this may generate the very stigma that I am analyzing in this study. Therefore, I am calling them what many community workers call them: at-promise.” [3]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicano</span> Ethnic identity of some Mexican Americans

Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry. Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture. In the 1960s, Chicano was widely reclaimed in the building of a movement toward political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of indigenous descent. Chicano developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity. Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into the mainstream American culture and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance. The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.

A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior, with such behavior often constituting a form of organized crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">America's Promise</span> Foundation in the United States

America's Promise Alliance is the nation's largest cross-sector alliance of nonprofit, community organizations, businesses, and government organizations dedicated to improving the lives of young people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Santa Barbara</span> Public university in Santa Barbara, California

The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is part of the University of California university system. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the ancestor of the California State University system in 1909 and then moved over to the University of California system in 1944. It is the third-oldest undergraduate campus in the system, after UC Berkeley and UCLA. Total student enrollment for 2022 was 23,460 undergraduate and 2,961 graduate students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Bratt</span> American actor (born 1963)

Benjamin Bratt is an American film and television actor. He is most known for playing Paco Aguilar in Blood In Blood Out. He had supporting film roles in the 1990s in Demolition Man (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and The River Wild (1994). From 1995 to 1999, he starred as Detective Reynaldo Curtis on the NBC drama series Law & Order.

The Colonia is a neighborhood located in the central portion of the city of Oxnard, California, USA. The neighborhood was laid out by the Colonia Land Improvement Company in close proximity of the sugar factory and beet fields to house workers just east of the city's downtown business district. Long a Latino barrio, it is home to lower-income families, former resident César Chávez once lived there, also known worldwide as Boxnard because of La Colonia Youth Boxing Club, which has produced notable fighters such as Fernando Vargas, Robert Garcia, Miguel Angel Garcia, Victor Ortíz, Brandon Rios and Mia St. John.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sudhir Venkatesh</span> American sociologist and urban ethnographer

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is an American sociologist and urban ethnographer. He is William B. Ransford Professor of Sociology & African-American Studies at Columbia University, a position he has held since 1999. In his work, Venkatesh has studied gangs and underground economies, public housing, advertising and technology. As of 2018, he is the Director of Signal: The Tech & Society Lab at Columbia University.

An at-risk student is a term used in the United States to describe a student who requires temporary or ongoing intervention in order to succeed academically. At risk students, sometimes referred to as at-risk youth or at-promise youth, are also adolescents who are less likely to transition successfully into adulthood and achieve economic self-sufficiency. Characteristics of at-risk students include emotional or behavioral problems, truancy, low academic performance, showing a lack of interest for academics, and expressing a disconnection from the school environment. A school's effort to at-risk students is essential. For example, a study showed that 80% to 87% of variables that led to a school's retention are predictable with linear modeling. In January 2020, Governor Newsom of California changed all references to "at-risk" to "at-promise" in the California Penal Codes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gevirtz Graduate School of Education</span> Graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara

The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education is a graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara which specializes in the field of education and counseling, clinical and school psychology, founded in 1961. It is located in technology-enabled Education Building which has been built in 2009 on the UCSB campus. In 2013, the Gevirtz School was once again named one of the best graduate schools of education in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its graduate programs, it also contains the Koegel Autism Center, Hosford Counseling & Psychological Clinic, the Psychology Assessment Center, and the McEnroe Reading & Language Arts Clinic. The Gevirtz School has a pre-K – 6 laboratory school, The Harding University Partnership School, in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

Juvenile delinquency in the United States refers to crimes committed by children or young people, particularly those under the age of eighteen.

Jan Nederveen Pieterse is a Dutch-born scholar whose work centers on global political economy, development studies and cultural studies. He currently serves as the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Distinguished Professor of Global Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Asian Boyz, also known as ABZ, AB-26, or ABZ Crips, are a street gang based in Southern California. They were founded in the late 1980s to protect Cambodian refugees from other American gangs. According to the FBI, the gang has about 12,000 members, who are predominantly Southeast Asian and especially Cambodian. Many Asian Boyz are also members of the U.S. military, some of whom use their position to traffic drugs. According to the FBI's 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment, the Asian Boyz are active in 28 different cities in 14 different states across the U.S.

<i>Crips and Bloods: Made in America</i> 2008 American film

Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a 2008 documentary by Stacy Peralta that examines the rise of the Crips and Bloods, prominent gangs in America who have been at war with each other. The documentary focuses on the external factors that caused African-American youth to turn to gangs and questions the political and law enforcement response to the rise of gang culture.

In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due to educational inequality in the United States. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero-tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools in creating the "pipeline". This has become a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century.

Dawn Valadez is a Mexican-American documentary filmmaker and fundraiser based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. She directed and produced the documentary film, Going On 13 (2008) and co-directed The Pushouts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedro Noguera</span> American sociologist and university administrator

Pedro Noguera is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is recognized as a leading scholar of urban public education, equity, and school reform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Romero</span> American sociologist

Mary Romero is an American sociologist. She is Professor of Justice Studies and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, with affiliations in African and African American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Asian Pacific American Studies. Before her arrival at ASU in 1995, she taught at University of Oregon, San Francisco State University, and University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Professor Romero holds a bachelor's degree in sociology with a minor in Spanish from Regis College in Denver, Colorado. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado. In 2019, she served as the 110th President of the American Sociological Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cholo (subculture)</span> Mexican-American subculture

A cholo or chola is a member of a Chicano and Latino subculture or lifestyle associated with a particular set of dress, behavior, and worldview which originated in Los Angeles. A veterano or veterana is an older member of the same subculture. Other terms referring to male members of the subculture may include vato and vato loco. Cholo was first reclaimed by Chicano youth in the 1960s and emerged as a popular identification in the late 1970s. The subculture has historical roots in the Pachuco subculture, but today is largely equated with anti-social behavior, criminal behavior and gang activity.

Nikki Jeanette Jones is an American sociologist. She is an associate professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youth control complex</span>

The youth control complex is a theory developed by Chicano scholar Victor M. Rios to describe what he refers to as the overwhelming system of criminalization that is shaped by the systematic punishment that is applied by institutions of social control against boys of color in the United States. Rios articulates that there are many components of this complex which are enacted upon youth throughout their daily lives. For example, "while being called a 'thug' by a random adult may seem trivial to some people, when a young person is called a 'thug' by a random adult, told by a teacher that they will never amount to anything, and frisked by a police officer, all in the same day, this combination becomes greater than the sum of its parts." Scholars trace the origins of the youth control complex back to the mid-1970s. In addition, the criminalization and surveillance of Black and Latino bodies increased in the post-9/11 era.

References

  1. 1 2 "One Man's Journey From Gang Member to Academia". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  2. ↑ Rios, V. (2012-11-16). "Reframing the Achievement Gap". Contexts. 11 (4): 8–10. doi: 10.1177/1536504212466324 .
  3. 1 2 Rios, Victor M. (2011). Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York University Press. p. 178. I would like to note that I am a dark-skinned Chicano.
  4. ↑ Rios, Victor M. (2007). "The Hypercriminalization of Black and Latino Male Youth in the Era of Mass Incarceration". In Steinberg, I.; Middlemass, K.; Marable, M. (eds.). Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: The Racism, Criminal Justice, and Law Reader. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 17–21. ISBN   9780230607347.
  5. ↑ Rios, Victor M. (10 March 2017). Human targets : schools, police, and the criminalization of Latino youth. Chicago. ISBN   978-0-226-09085-6. OCLC   953792591.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ Rios, Victor M.; Prieto, Greg; Ibarra, Jonathan M. (2020-01-30). "Mano Suave–Mano Dura: Legitimacy Policing and Latino Stop-and-Frisk". American Sociological Review. 85: 58–75. doi:10.1177/0003122419897348. S2CID   213659099.
  7. ↑ From Risk to Promise: A School Leader's Guide to Prosperity Based Education. Scholar System. 2021. ISBN   979-8788995106.
  8. ↑ My Teacher Believes in Me: The Educator's Guide to At-Promise Students. Five Rivers. 2019. ISBN   978-1722600013.
  9. ↑ Group, Scooty Nickerson | Bay Area News (2024-03-01). "From Oakland gang-member to renowned California academic, Dr. Victor Rios opens up about childhood". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2024-05-30.
  10. 1 2 3 Tijero, Evelyn. "From East Oakland to Ph.D." The Pioneer. Retrieved 2017-02-09.
  11. ↑ "Victor Rios | Sociology". www.soc.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  12. ↑ "Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Past Award Recipients". American Sociological Association. 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  13. 1 2 Wade, Lisa; on, PhD (November 10, 2010). "Victor Rios and the Youth Control Theory". Sociological Images. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  14. ↑ "At Promise Youth | UCSB Sustainability". www.sustainability.ucsb.edu. 2015-08-11. Retrieved 2017-02-09.
  15. ↑ Public Broadcasting Service, Public Broadcasting Service. "Trailer: The Pushouts". PBS .
  16. ↑ Issues Lab, Issues Lab. "Convening" (PDF).
  17. ↑ Rios, Victor (March 15, 2024). Street Life: Poverty, Gangs and a Ph.D. (2nd ed.). California: Five Rivers Press. ISBN   979-8883466242.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  18. ↑ Monaghan, Peter (2011-07-17). "A Sociologist Returns to the Mean Streets of His Youth". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN   0009-5982 . Retrieved 2017-05-31.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.