‘I could see myself’: professors’ influence in first-generation Latinx college students’ pathways into doctoral programs

ABSTRACT

Latinxs are the second largest racial-ethnic group in the United States, yet they make up only 7% of all doctoral degree recipients. Latinx undergraduates are predominantly first-generation college students, who often have limited professional networks to guide their pathways into graduate school. Drawing on interviews with 25 first-generation Latinx college students, this study examines the ways they narrate professors’ influence in their pathways towards enrolling in doctoral programs. We find that first-generation Latinx students’ pathways into doctoral programs are heavily shaped by professors in the following ways: 1) institutional support; 2) disrupting or perpetuating the doctoral student archetype and; 3) social location congruence. Our analysis underscores that professors’ of any social location can provide networks and instrumental support, but Latinx doctoral students’ narrate their social capital, is tied to, and strengthened by, their Latinx co-ethnic professors’ possession of instrumental support, social networks, and relevant experiential knowledge and a critical consciousness.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• first-generation college student
• social capital
• Latino/a/x
• doctoral students

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Latinx is a gender-neutral term for Latino/a used to be inclusive of non-binary people.

2. The first author recruited and interviewed all participants.

3. Chicano/a refers to individuals who have Mexican heritage.

4. 1.5 generation refers to foreign-born children who immigrated to the United States at a young age, usually before twelve.