Mexican-American children are falling behind their white peers when it comes to language and cognitive skills, according to a new report by the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA. We speak to Bruce Fuller, professor and sociologist at UC Berkeley and co-author of the study.

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Bruce Fuller is a Professor of Education and Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley. Working inside policy organizations and the academy over the past three decades, he has asked how public action best strengthens families and schools. Trained in political sociology, Professor Fuller’s recent projects center on small-scale organizations that sprout across diverse communities, such as charter schools and preschools, which often spread in response to the clumsy or gray character of central states.

His recent book, Standardized Childhood: The Political and Cultural Struggle over Early Education, examines how elite reformers often push for state incorporation of community programs, even eroding the authority and resources spread across diverse ethnic leaders. A college dropout, he eventually received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Before Berkeley, Professor Fuller was a research sociologist at the World Bank and taught at Harvard’s School of Education.