Bienvenidos!
Welcome to Volume 19, Number 4 of the Journal of Latinos and Education. With your support, the journal has continued to increase its stature and influence as the premiere research publication that examines the educational conditions of Latina/o communities in and outside of the United States. In this issue, we have 4 FEATURE ARTICLES, 1 contribution to VOCES and 1 contribution to ALTERNATIVE FORMATS.
In the first of the FEATURE ARTICLES, Oscar Espinoza-Parra and Christopher Collins focus on the bearing of student learning via measurement of students’ self-assessment of their intellectual gains. Through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM), the authors address the following research question: To what extent do academic engagement and faculty-student interaction contribute to Latina/o college students’ intellectual ability at their senior year, after controlling for demographic characteristics, institutional control, and initial levels of intellectual ability? This study strengthens our understanding of the interrelated factors that promote student learning with the Latina/o undergraduate population, and ways in which it can be cultivated, reinforced, and enhanced in four-year institutions. Their outcomes emphasized the role of student learning and four-year colleges and universities in preparing undergraduates to hold the responsive and manageable linked with intellectual development.
In the next article, Barbara Kennedy explores how stakeholders in one Texas school district perceive, experience, and respond to the Spanish bilingual teacher shortage. The qualitative case study vividly renders interview data of the teacher shortage and its impact on the elementary education of bilingual Latino schoolchildren. The realities of the bilingual teacher shortage and how it plays out at the district, school, and classroom levels are illustrated through the cases shared. The author closes with policy recommendations and implications for future research in the areas of bilingual teacher preparation and certification in Texas and at the national level.
The 3rd article is contributed by Javier Vela, Stephen Lenz, Eunice Lerma, Jeremiah Fisk, Rebekah Guardiola, and Michelle Cavazos where they examined the relationship among perceptions of support from high school teachers, enrollment in Advanced Placement (AP) coursework, and Latina/o college students’ vocational and college self-efficacy. Their findings offer ample implications for practitioners and researchers. They found that perceptions of investment and expectations from high school teachers positively predicted students’ college self-efficacy. Significant differences regarding perceptions of support from teachers between AP and non-AP students were also revealed. In addition, a positive predictive relationship was also identified between the students’ perceptions of accessibility to high school teachers and vocational self-efficacy.
In the last article in this section, Eric Johnson and Sarah Newcomer charge themselves to delineate a process for situating Latinx youth as mentors to help preservice teachers integrate community funds of knowledge into classroom practices. Their contribution provides a basis for how school actors can work in partnership to effect change in the way that K-12 educators support students from historically marginalized groups. They do well to extend the application of a funds of knowledge approach that realizes and embraces students’ overall sets of abilities and experiences as a pedagogical resource to motivate students during academic undertakings.
We have 1 contribution to the VOCES section by Luis Pentón Herrera and Nicole Obregón. The authors’ essay is of two ESOL teachers reflecting upon the implications of the DACA program and the DREAM Act for the Latino English Language Learners and their families and communities who are without a permanent legal status. Six testimonios are shared that exemplify the factual struggles of these students and families are exposed to, during the current Trump era. It is the authors’ vision that these testaments will illuminate their harsh realities, and contest the banal views of Latinx ELs/immigrants as holding a poor work ethic, unable to learn English, are poorly educated or untaught, and simply do not value education at all.
Lastly, we have 1 contribution to the ALTERNATIVE FORMATS section by Deborah Grijalva. This is a self-ethnographic poem of a first-generation Latina’s journey, where the author speaks of the hardships she has endured with respects to social class, academic experiences, her disabilities, and being the only daughter to immigrant parents. As the author explicates, her poetry does not focus on the negative but uses the struggles as the flue to light the fire in her soul.
Continue to read ahead and enjoy the full value and complexity of the articles presented by Volume 19, Number 4 of the Journal of Latinos and Education. We want to extend our appreciation to the authors for their manuscript submissions and commend them for their contributions to the field of Latinos and Education. The editorial staff looks forward to supporting your continued research and practices that illuminate the myriad circumstances in which Latinas/os and their families continue to struggle for educational excellence and equity. Your support and this volume affirm the importance of scholarship and creative analysis that attempt to give voice to a community of learners that is silent no longer.
Thank You – muchísimas gracias.