Gándara is a professor of education and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research centers on educational equity and access for low-income and ethnic minority students, language policy, and the education of youth of Mexican origin. Gándara writes and comments frequently on education for youth who speak English as a second language and the education gap among Latinos. She is a former bilingual school psychologist and director of education research for the California Assembly. She also worked as a social scientist at the RAND Corporation.