Jonathan Ibarra is an ethnographer whose research centers on inequality, Latinx youth, culture, and education. He is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His dissertation Disciplinary Negligence: Punitive Processes, Support Networks, and the Experiences of Mexican American High School Students explores the experiences of working-class Mexican American students and how they navigate school discipline and support networks. Drawing on data from a three-year ethnography at a suburban southern California high school that implemented restorative justice school discipline, this project illuminates how practices of restorative social control obscure and promulgate neglect of Mexican American students even within a well-resourced school.

He also earned his BA and MA in sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he served on the Hispanic Serving Institute committee as an undergraduate representative, and as a McNair’s Scholar Program Graduate Research Mentor. As a community-engaged scholar, Jonathan has continuously mentored marginalized youth through volunteer work with schools and community organizations.