David Pérez II

David Pérez II received his PhD in higher education with a concentration in sociology from the Pennsylvania State University. His research, teaching, and service activities center on increasing student success in higher education.  In 2014, Dr. Pérez launched The National Study on Latino Male Achievement in Higher Education, which was awarded grants from the ACPA Foundation, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, and NASPA Foundation. His research is published in top-tier journals including the Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. The American College Personnel Association and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators recognized Dr. Pérez as an emerging scholar for his contributions to research.

Current Work:

Dr. Pérez is engaged in two large-scale qualitative studies to promote student success in higher education.  Building on his work with The National Study on Latino Male Achievement (TNSLMA), Dr. Perez developed a graduate-level course to expose aspiring scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to anti-deficit research on underrepresented college students.  He later initiated The Pedagogy of Student Success Project (TPSSP) to explore how this course broadened participants’ conceptualizations of student success and influenced their work in the areas of research, policy, and practice.  Over the next decade, Dr. Pérez will be collecting data from four cohorts of graduate students participating in TPSSP.  Collectively, the results from TNSLMA and TPSSP will be used to challenge deficit-oriented research, advance asset-based perspectives, and duplicate conditions that foster positive educational outcomes among underrepresented students in higher education.

Research Area Keyword(s):

Student Success, boys and men of color, higher education, anti-deficit research, qualitative methods