RESEARCH

PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES 


Muñiz, J. O. (2024). Learning from Within: Life-Affirming Practices and Third Spaces Created by and for Incarcerated Youth. Educational Studies, 1–16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2024.2390912 


Muñiz, J.O., Camper, M., Corcoran, F., Gruber, S., Eddy, J. M., & Dallaire, D. (2024). A Systematic State Analysis of Family Visitation Policies for Youth Detained in the Juvenile Legal System During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Youth Justice, 1-26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14732254241248619 


Muñiz, J.O., Corcoran, F., Marzougui, J., Schlafer, R., Eddy, J.M., & Dallaire, D. (2023). Towards Family Preservation: A Systematic Jurisdiction Analysis of Prison Visitation Policies During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000379


Muñiz, J.O, & Marshall, J. (2022). White Kids on the Block: On Race, Identity, and Criminality Among Incarcerated White Youth. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 1-18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12793


Muñiz, J.O. (2021). Exclusionary Discipline Policies, School Police Partnership, Surveillance Technologies and Disproportionality: A Review of the School to Prison Pipeline Literature. The Urban Review, 1-26. DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-021-00595-1


UNDER REVIEW


Muñiz, J.O. (Revise & Resubmit). “You Don’t Get Treated as a Student:” Incarcerated Students’ Perceptions of Schooling and Learning Across Context. 


Muñiz, J.O.  (Under Review). Raising the Bar: Dignity-affirming Approaches to Teaching and Learning In Juvenile Court Schools. 

 

Salinas Thomas, E., & Muñiz, J.O. (Under Review). “We do the Work:” Latina Mujeres, Resistance, and State Surveillance in a Border County. 


Muñiz, J.O.  & Wong, C.P. (Under Review). Refusing to Run Away from the Hard Part: Notes on Reflexivity Towards Abolitionist Pedagogy and Teaching. 


WORKS IN PROGRESS


Muñiz, J.O. & Lizarraga, A. From the Classroom to Confinement: The Criminalization and Schooling of Mexican Heritage Students. 

 

Muñiz, J.O. “Safety and Security First:” The Interplay of Organizational Logics and Juvenile Practitioners in a Youth Correctional Facility. 

 

Muñiz, J.O. Centering Dignity Affirming Teaching and Learning in Prison Education. 


BOOK CHAPTERS & OTHER SCHOLARLY WRITING


Muñiz, J.O., Jones, K., Dove, K.M., & Satchell, K. (In Production). Friends in Our Lives: Perspectives of Youth Adults in a Professional Youth Mentoring Program. In J.M. Eddy & K.P. Haggerty (Eds). Professional Mentoring Enduring Relationship Based Prevention Intervention for Youth Facing Significant Obstacles: Rationale, Findings, and Perspectives. Springer Nature.


Landeros, J., Montes, P., Muñiz, J.O., & Urrieta, L. (2020). Collective Strength and Agency: How El Paso Strong/Firme Disrupts Hate, Fear, and White Nationalism in the Settler Colonial Borderlands. In M. Apple & R.Verma (Eds). Disrupting Hate in Education: Teacher Activists, Democracy, and Global Pedagogies of Interruption. Routledge Publishing.


Muñiz, J. O., & Meiners, E. R. (2018). Review of the book Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People by Alexandra Cox. Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order, 45(2/3), 193-197. 

WRITING FOR PUBLIC AUDIENCES

 

Muñiz, J.O. (2021). The Role of an HEP RI in Serving Incarcerated Youth. Higher Education in Prison Research

 

Vakil, S. & Muñiz, J. O. (2020). Universities Should Learn Lessons of 9/11 and Transform in the Face of Pandemic.Truthout.

Pictures Courtesy of Artist & Muralist: Catherine Tilly 

RESEARCH PROJECTS


University of Texas at Austin


Latinx Familias, Safety, and the Criminal Legal System in Central Texas


In the state of Texas, nearly 40% of residents identify as Hispanic and/or Latinx. Given these demographics, studying the experiences of Latinxs in Central Texas provides a peephole into understanding the challenges and opportunities Latinx communities face amidst the sociopolitical unrest in Texas and to some extent the broader United States. As a sociopolitical landscape, Texas has had some of the most contested battles over immigration, policing, mass incarceration, and border enforcement which directly and indirectly impact Latinx communities in the state. Texas is home to over 31 immigration detention centers, 252 jails, 61 state prisons, 5 state schools (i.e., youth prisons), and 45 pre-adjudication juvenile correctional facilities creating a web of interlocking criminal legal systems that maintain and reproduce the carceral state. To make matters worse, in the last three years, there were two targeted mass shootings, one in El Paso and the other in Uvalde, that left forty-five people dead, the majority of whom were Latinx, and several more wounded. Now more than ever, we ask what it means to be Latinx in a state that simultaneously hyper-criminalizes and underprotects Latinx and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities. As such, this pilot study will qualitatively investigate how direct and indirect experiences with criminal legal systems, law enforcement agents, and targeted acts of violence inform individual and collective identity development among Latinx families. Secondly, we will examine how those experiences shape the civic and political engagement of Latinxs as citizens and noncitizens of the state.

Northwestern University

I don't think any kid should be here: A Critical Ethnography on Learning in the Carceral Context

Dissertation Committee: Drs. Jim Spillane, Shirin Vossoughi, David Stovall, and Sepehr Vakil

Using a critical ethnographic approach, my dissertation examines a Midwest County juvenile detention center as a site of learning. Bringing together cultural historical activity theory and institutional theory frameworks (CHAT-IT), this study foregrounds learning in context, more notably how learning is conceptualized, organized, and experienced by the various social actors within the juvenile detention center (Ogawa, Crain, Loomis, & Ball, 2008). In addition to investigating the varied forms of learning accessible to incarcerated youth, this study examines how different institutional actors, particularly the adults in the carceral setting, (i.e., administrators, teachers, security staff, and community educators) organize and conceptualize education under confinement. In what ways are these narratives different, or similar to, how young people narrate their learning and schooling experiences? By studying education in the carceral context—a liminal space between schools and prisons—and the experiences of those caught in both worlds, researchers, educators, and policymakers can develop a better understanding of 1) what it means to learn and go to school while incarcerated as a young person, 2) how juvenile practitioners conceptualize, design, and organize education for those inside, and 3) how youth make sense of those learning experiences in ways that have implications for their educational trajectories. Otherwise, our conceptualization and approach to the school prison nexus will remain incomplete, further harming countless youth and communities over time.