Jose J. Gutierrez

Welcome! I am José Gutierrez, a Tenure-Track Instructor of Ethnic Studies and Chicano Studies at Golden West College and a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Irvine.

At Golden West College, I teach courses in Chicano and Latino Studies, including Introduction to Chicano and Latino Studies. My teaching interests also include introductory sociology, Latino sociology, race and ethnicity, immigration, education, social inequality, and qualitative research methods.

My dissertation research project, Navigating Pathways to Adulthood in an Era of Precarity: Latino Young Adults on the Community College Pathway, draws on life history interviews with Latino young adults who are current and former community college students to analyze the social implications of contemporary inequality and increased access to higher education for Latinos. Through interviews with community college students, transfer students, graduates, and stop-outs, the project explores how rising economic inequality and the expansion of higher education are shaping the transition to adulthood for Latino young adults. At its core, this project asks what it means to expand access to higher education without expanding access to its rewards, and examines how this predicament shapes how Latino young adults experience and understand what it means to become an adult.

My research has been supported and recognized by UCI’s Center for Anti-Racism, Liberation, and Belonging, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

In addition to my dissertation, I have contributed to the Fulfilling the UC PromISE: Strengthening Access to Essential Needs Services for Undocumented and Immigration-Impacted Latinx UC Students research project. Using survey data, focus groups, and interviews, this project examines how essential-needs insecurity among undocumented students and U.S.-citizen children of undocumented parents is produced, experienced, and managed, with the goal of identifying barriers to support and informing more equitable institutional responses.

Outside of my teaching and research, I enjoy strength training, exploring local swap meets, and finding new books for my collection.