Research

Culturally Responsive Advising and Teaching in Higher Education

Collaborators: Dr. Amado Padilla, Paitra Houts, Dr. Patricia Gumport, Dr. William Damon, Dr. Anthony Antonio

  • As higher education diversifies, international and immigrant students find themselves on campuses unprepared to support them or steeped in cultural norms of Whiteness. Culturally responsive advising can cultivate student success or reify a “cultural mismatch” students feel when their personal norms do not match their institution's norms. Specifically, my mixed methods dissertation explores cultural mismatches in academic advising for Chinese international and immigrant students.

    In addition to publishing multiple articles on this work, I have shared this research through multiple conference presentations and professional development workshops across the U.S., including at Grinnell College, West Valley College, and to the National Academic Advising Association’s Western region.

    Although not part of my dissertation, I also have explored this question of cultural responsiveness in pedagogy through an empirical study of multiple years of a service learning course. I examined the ways in which service learning pedagogy provided a uniquely empowering space for immigrant students and a generative opportunity for all students to find common ground across different experiences.

    • Schell, E.P. (2023). Understanding and Remedying the Cultural Mismatch Between Chinese Diaspora Students and Their Advisors. NACADA Journal. [Linked here]

    • Schell, E.P., Padilla, A., & Houts, P. (2022). “Finding Common Ground:” Experiences of Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Students in a Community Engaged Learning Course. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. [Linked here]

    • Schell, E.P. (2022) Passion, Parenting, or Something Else? A Cross-Cultural Analysis of University Students’ Academic Decision-Making. In: Glass C.R., Bista K. (eds) Reimagining Mobility in Higher Education. Springer. [Linked here]

    • Schell, E.P. (in progress). “Every Student Has Their Own Hopes for College:” The Role of an Advisor for Diverse First-Year Students. (Dissertation work)

    • Schell, E.P. (in progress). The Source of the Spark: The Complex Role of Autonomy Across Cultures.

Cultural Taxation and “Tax Credits” in Higher Education

Collaborators: Dr. Amado Padilla, Oswaldo Rosales, Clarissa Gutierrez

  • Research documents the burden that higher education imposes on faculty of color engaging in diversity-related labor. This burden is called cultural taxation. While scholarship on cultural taxation of faculty is robust, the effects of cultural taxation on students of color are less understood. In our first paper for this project, we explore cultural taxation in the student context and expand the discussion to articulate a novel concept of a “cultural tax credit.” Cultural tax credits occur when some students benefit from labor for which others are taxed based on their intersections of privileged identities. Our current papers explore the implications of cultural tax credits through qualitative inquiry. For example, how can universities reduce cultural taxation and increase “creditable” opportunities for students of color? How can universities change at a structural level to remove the need for such diversity-related labor?

    • Rosales, O., Schell, E.P., Gutierrez, C., & Padilla, A. (2022). Cultural Taxation or “Tax Credit”? Understanding the Nuances of Ethnoracially Minoritized Student Labor in Higher Education. Ethnic and Racial Studies. [Linked here]

    • Schell, E.P., Gutierrez, C., Rosales, O., & Padilla, A. (under review). Beyond “Diversity on Paper:” Students’ Perspectives on Authentic Higher Education Change. Journal of College Student Development.

    • Schell, E.P., Gutierrez, C., Padilla, A., Rosales, O. (in progress). “We Can Do Better:” Understanding University Students’ Motivations for Diversity Labor.

Development of Purpose in Higher Education

Collaborators: Dr. William Damon, Dr. Anne Colby, Dr. Heather Malin

  • College is a critical time in the development of emerging adults. This research, housed in Stanford’s Center on Adolescence and funded by the Mellon Foundation, seeks to understand how college can help students develop their purpose. For my first qualitative paper for this project, I ask: how do extra- and co-curricular activities help students develop their purpose? What does “purposeful engagement” look like in college students, and can student affairs leaders identify and nurture that form of engagement? For my second qualitative paper for this project, I examine students’ perceptions of their institution’s culture(s) and how those cultures impact their educational experiences.

    • Schell, E.P. & Joshi, S.V. (in press) First-generation College Students. (A chapter for APA's second edition of Student Mental Health)

    • Schell, E.P. & Colby, A. (under review). What’s in a Culture? Students’ Perceptions of and Experiences with U.S. Higher Education. AERA Open.

    • Schell, E.P. (under review). More Than Just Academics: The Power of Purposeful Engagement. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.