How can K-16 partnerships enlist Latino parents as informed allies in support of their children’s college planning? This article draws on data from 3 years of participant observation to show how a bilingual outreach program for parents at a diverse high school narrowed the information gap about college, enhanced family social networks, and challenged inequities. […]
The article discusses a policy trend for stronger coordination between K-12 and postsecondary education levels. Using Texas as an illustrative case, remedying Latino underrepresentation in college is described as a rationale for enacting cross-walks between K-12 and higher education. The author concludes that the work and training of postsecondary educators must evolve to incorporate a […]
This case study examines a P-20 action research partnership involving a university, a nonprofit organization, and several middle and high schools with sizeable enrollments of underserved students. The partnership’s goals were rooted in a cultural change model designed to encourage college awareness and attendance among largely Latino and African American students. The research reveals the […]
Parents who have not had opportunities to attend college themselves have neither experience with the process of college preparation and college going nor sufficient access to needed information.This article describes a collaborative venture between a university department of education and a cluster of local schools designed to help parents of first-generation students become active participants […]
Employing Rendón’s theory of validation, the validating elements in Community College Puente are identified. Implications for promoting access, use of involvement and validation theory, and employment of learning theory for nontraditional student populations are presented.
The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify those factors that contribute to the forward transfer of Latino community college students. This purpose was accomplished by using qualitative methods to better understand what factors students, counselors, and administrators believed contributed favorably to the forward transfer of Latino students from a public community college to […]
The concept of fitting in at a particular college has been linked to student persistence. Studies have identified habitus and cultural capital, psychosocial factors associated with a student’s fit at a particular institution. This study examined the dimensions of precollege psychosocial factors, determined the extent to which those factors were reflected in students’ college choices, […]
This study reported in this article examined the transfer process for Latina/o students at Esperanza Community College. Esperanza is one of the 108 community colleges in California with one of the largest concentrations of Latina/o students. In California, 42 out of every 100 Latina/o public high school graduates pursue some form of higher education. For […]
This article reports the special efforts of the largest community college district in the country to assist its largest ethnic group to succeed. The Los Angeles Community College District consists of nine campuses; the Latino student population ranges from 22–75 percent of the total number of students. In this article, using questionnaire data from the […]
The community college has historically functioned as a primary access point to postsecondary education for Latino students. This study, an investigation conducted through an analysis of the Transfer and Retention of Urban Community College Students (TRUCCS) project, focuses on Latino students enrolled in urban “minority-majority” community colleges, where Latino students have a high representation. The […]
This article reports barriers to transfer from the community college to bachelor’s degree—granting institutions encountered by Hispanic students in the Dallas County Community College District. These Hispanic students were enrolled in a cultural studies course preparing them to transfer. Ethnographic methods—principally participant observation of the students and their families, interviews, and case studies—were used to […]
The objective of this study is to determine whether Hispanic students have a lower chance of earning a bachelor’s degree (B.A.) if they transfer from a community college.
This study examined the impact of a set of theoretically-derived predictor variables on the persistence and transfer of Hispanic community college students. Early models of student persistence have been validated primarily among 4-year college students. While the constructs have been well-established, the relationships of those relevant factors remain unexamined among community college transfer students, and […]
This study examines the influence of a conceptually valid mentoring experience on community college students’ persistence decisions. Participants were selected from a random sample of core courses offered in the fall of 2006 at a community college in the south-central area of the United States (n = 320). Results of the structural equation modeling analysis […]
In most Western countries where English is the medium of instruction, there is a substantial gap in student success between immigrant English as a second language (ESL) students and non‐ESL students. In the United States, this situation has been observed in particular with Latino ESL students. This article describes a longitudinal study of two cohorts […]
This article examines the factors that affect Latinos’ enrollment in community colleges that are Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs). Compared with community colleges that are not HSIs, HSI community colleges are serving students at greater risk for not completing college. Latinos who are enrolled in community college HSIs, compared with their counterparts not in HSIs, are more […]
The purpose of this correlational research was to examine the extent to which community college students’ experiences with validation by faculty (Rendon, 1994, 2002) predicted: (a) their sense of integration, and (b) their intent to persist. The research was designed as an elaboration of constructs within Tinto’s (1993) Longitudinal Model of Institutional Departure. Four sub-constructs […]
This case study examines why 2-year colleges struggle to increase the racial diversity of their faculty. Through interrogating hiring procedures and identifying reasonable expectations for diversity within a college faculty, ethical dilemmas and practical implications of efforts to increase the hiring of faculty members of color emerge.
This study examines how interactions with institutional agents (faculty and academic counselors) and select student support programs influence success (i.e., grade point average) and intentions to persist to degree completion for Latino/a community college students. Using social capital theory and college impact models, the study controls for the effects of select pre-college student characteristics, transition-to-college […]
The purpose of this study is to understand how different kinds of advising activities during the first three weeks for community college students who enroll for the first time relate to their intentions to re-enroll.
In this study we investigated the extent to which faculty interaction contributed to Latina/o student perceptions of their learning, using a sample of 10,071 Latina/o students who took the Community College Survey of Student Engagement. Findings were disaggregated for men and women, but results were quite similar between the 2 groups. Frequent high-quality interaction with […]
Grounded in the academic momentum framework, this study explores course-completion patterns across the first two semesters of college among 1668 first-time students beginning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs or courses at public 2-year colleges in a Midwestern state, as well as factors predicting the persistence or changes in these patterns. We use […]
The conceptual frameworks of “at-risk” and academic invulnerability were examined with 30 undergraduate Latino students enrolled in a highly selective university. Students were interviewed about their educational experiences to examine factors contributing to their academic success. Students were grouped (n= 10) based on educational attainment of parents: Group One-parents with 11 or fewer years of […]
The goal of this study is to bring the discussion of ethnic heterogeneity and the racial/ethnic classification of students for research purposes into the education policy arena. The relationship between race and ethnicity and academic achievement is focused on in particular. The heterogeneity of academic performance in reading and math is demonstrated between subgroups of […]
This article documents the experiences of a group of first-generation Latino college students who enrolled in 4-year institutions immediately after high school graduation. Students form part of a research intervention program that focuses on disrupting social reproduction by increasing college access and persistence for underrepresented youth. In particular, this article explores the long-term effects of […]
Hispanics/Latinos are the fastest growing minority group in the US, and represent a diverse variety of ethnic groups with unique heritages. Yet educational and social research often analyzes this group in aggregate. This research, employing 1980 high school senior longitudinal data from the High School and Beyond project, demonstrates substantial differences in post-secondary educational attainment […]
The primary purpose of this study was to examine if parental involvement had a significant influence on the educational aspirations of first-generation students as compared to the educational aspirations of non-first-generation students. Additionally, the study investigated if the educational aspirations of first-generation students differed from their actual educational attainments. Lastly, the study explored the differences […]
Hispanic females are a rapidly growing population and are now considered the largest group of ethnic minority girls in the United States. Yet research to guide their educational needs remains sparse. Addressing this concern, this investigation incorporated a strengths-based approach for examining school engagement among Hispanic middle school girls. A path model predicting school engagement […]
Latino male students are “vanishing” from the American education pipeline, a trend that is especially evident at the secondary and postsecondary levels. The question of why Latino males are vanishing from America’s colleges is complex, and this scholarly article explores some of the socio-cultural factors, peer dynamics, and labor force demands that may be conspiring […]
The research questions guiding this analysis are: (1) What do we know and what do we need to know about the transition to college of EL and undocumented immigrant students? and (2) What are the resource and policy implications associated with the transition to college of these students? The chief purpose of this analysis is […]
This study explored how first-generation Latino sophomores in a public research university describe the influence of Chicano Studies classes on their college transition experiences. Students reported that taking Chicano Studies offered them opportunities to handle feelings of isolation, build awareness of community heritage, develop more meaningful student-faculty relationships, and understand perspectives of people from different […]
Prior research has indicated that there are differences among the diverse Latino/a ethnic groups in their K-12 educational experiences, but little is known about variations in their postsecondary experiences. Drawing on a conceptual framework informed by the theory of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this research examined Mexican American and Puerto Rican students’ college choice and […]
Using a psychosociocultural (PSC) approach, we examined how self-beliefs, social support, and cultural fit influenced the academic persistence decisions of 115 Latina sorority members. Upper-division Latinas reported higher self-efficacy than lower-division Latinas; however, lower-division students reported higher college stress and more perceived social support from their sorority sisters than their upper-division counterparts. Yet the relationship […]
Our research examines the following question: For Hispanic women whose parents have limited educational attainment, what available sources of potential social capital do they identify, and by what means do they access and activate these resources in their decisions to select and persist in engineering as a college major? We hope to provide insights for […]
Despite improvements in the rates of college admission over the past few decades, college persistence, retention, and graduation rates continue to be problematic for underrepresented students—students of color and students from low-income and/or first-generation families. This article presents a case study of a female, first-generation, low-income Hispanic student during her 1st year at a highly […]
The theoretical framework of intersectionality shows much promise in exploring how multiple social identities and their relationships with interlocking systems of power influence educational equity, particularly for historically underserved groups in education. Yet, social scientists have critiqued this framework for not adequately specifying how these dimensions shape life opportunities. This essay draws on the work […]
This study focused on understanding the factors of academic persistence for 10 undergraduate Hispanic nontraditional students enrolled at two Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the southeast, each in their last year of a baccalaureate degree program. Using a phenomenological design, findings indicated that family context, personal aspirations, campus environment within HSIs, life challenges, and English […]
Little is known about the factors that contribute to Latino male success in higher education. In this qualitative study, Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth framework provides an asset-based perspective to illuminate how Latino males used different forms of capital to nurture and sustain their dispositions to succeed at a selective, predominantly White institution. Whereas parents […]
Not beginning college at a four-year institution has been demonstrated as one key obstacle to equitable rates of bachelor’s degree attainment among Hispanic individuals in the United States. Drawing on nationally representative longitudinal data and social capital theory, this research investigates the process of four-year college enrollment among different immigrant generations of Hispanic adolescents. Of […]
This qualitative study examines how working influences students’ college experiences, extending the predominantly quantitative research in this area. Findings based on interviews with Latino first-generation students who work reveal three themes. First, these students bring a familial orientation that motivates them to increase occupational status. Second, students perceive that working helps them develop a sense […]
Discourse about Latino male college students centers on their low enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates. Two asset-based theoretical frameworks were used to understand how 21 Latino males’ academic determination was nurtured and sustained by cultural wealth at selective institutions. Although most participants entered college with unclear educational goals, they aspired to become ideal college students […]
Using life history research methods, this study sought to understand how relationships with family and school personnel affect postsecondary opportunities for Latina students. The focus is on primary and secondary school experiences of two groups of Latina students and how those experiences influenced their opportunities to pursue postsecondary education. Findings suggest exposure to or accumulation […]
How can K-16 partnerships enlist Latino parents as informed allies in support of their children’s college planning? This article draws on data from 3 years of participant observation to show how a bilingual outreach program for parents at a diverse high school narrowed the information gap about college, enhanced family social networks, and challenged inequities. […]
This longitudinal study examined the protective influence of psychological and family factors on academic achievement in 123 Latino college (101 Mexican American, 14 Central American, 8 mixed Mexican/Central American) students. Three cultural resources—ethnic identity, family interdependence, and parental support—were hypothesized as protective factors that modify the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage in a positive direction. The pattern of […]
This study explores Latino/a parents’ educational aspirations and parents’ perspectives on supporting educational attainment as a way to better understand the connection between high educational aspirations among Latino/a parents and hindrances to Latino/a youth educational attainment. Data from focus group interviews with immigrant Latino/a parents suggest that parents’ high educational aspirations are shaped by their […]
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant HRD-1834620 and No. 1551221. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.