Grad Student - CER

Ashley Zhou

Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley

Ashley Zhou is a student of the Joint Doctoral program in special education with UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on structures of race, class, gender, and disability in special education through the role of the paraprofessional. Analyzing historical archives, she examines the labor formation of paraprofessionals and special education teachers in the aftermath of Brown. Her work also incorporates ethnography to examine the consequences of this labor formation for contemporary challenges in special education. Through this investigation of educational...

Raquel Zitani-Rios

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Raquel Zitani-Rios (she/they) is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines how housed residents make sense of and respond to homelessness, focusing on the cultural frames that shape perceptions, civic engagement, and everyday actions. Using a mixed qualitative approach that combines in-depth interviews with participant observation at city council and community meetings, Raquel explores how people's experiences, observations, and concerns influence their views and actions toward homelessness. Her work shows how residents’...