Bienvenidos!
Welcome to Volume 19, Number 3 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 6 FEATURE ARTICLES, 1 contribution to ESSAY REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS and 1 contribution to VOCES.
In the first of the FEATURE ARTICLES, Leah Hollis and Velia Rincon offer a hermeneutic phenomenological study that investigated the lived-experiences of 12 Chicana/o students who completed a baccalaureate degree at a majority school. The strategies and experiences that the students used in persisting through a majority college environment were examined. To the purpose in so much as cultural code-switching is considered as a strategy that Chicana/os can use to maintain cultural pride to resist mental colonization, their contribution analyzes the participants’ code-switching as a strategy to persist through the educational environment. Four themes emerged: 1) family support; 2) sense of belonging; 3) belief in a better quality of life and family values; and 4) codeswitching behaviors.
In the next article, Julia Smith and Guadalupe Cuesta engage our readers with the sad reality that albeit a labor force of migrant farmworkers, mostly of Latino origin, largely support the agriculture industry in the U.S., and is essential to the production of agriculture; food insecurity has been recognized to be high among the farmworker population and their young children.
They present the results from a survey on food insecurity, food access, and farm-to-preschool involving a national sample of 32 farmworker parents attending a meeting as Policy Council representatives and affiliates for the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start program. The authors’ contribution underscores the problem of food insecurity and access in the farmworker population while suggesting ways in which parent activism coupled by food justice efforts and farm-to-preschool could potentially address food access and insecurity.
The next contribution by Ricardo Gomez addresses the underrepresentation of Latinos in higher education and academia, despite continual growth as an increasing proportion of the US population. The study explores the trajectories and experiences of Latinx faculty, students and staff at a large, public university in the US. Using interviews combined with photo and object elicitation, the author documents the various origins of the Latino community and the different paths followed to make it into higher education and academic careers in different disciplines. The particular challenges faced by undocumented students is noted, and the important role played by role models and mentors in encouraging and promoting the participation of Latinos in higher education. The author reflects on the notions of success experienced by successful Latinx in academia, which are recurrently linked with altruistic values of service and support to others, and which needs to be proactively turned into effective mentorship.
Next, James Van Overschelde and Ruben Garza address the outsized gap that exists between the percentage of Latino teachers and the students who are themselves Latino. To better understand this gap, the authors compared Latino preservice teachers’ motivation for becoming teachers and perceptions of the teaching profession to their White counterparts, during their application to a large traditional teacher certification program at a Hispanic-serving institution. Their analysis of 1,600 survey responses revealed many statistically significant differences, and many of the differences across ethnicity varied by the type of teacher certification sought. The authors offer and explore suggestions for how teacher preparation programs can design and market their programs to recruit more Latino preservice teachers.
The 5th article is contributed by Taryn Ozuna Allen, Melissa Thompson, and Shalun Collins. Their study employed social capital and chain migration theory to better advance our understanding of the development of college aspirations and college choice process among Latino engineering program students and dual credit earners. Interviewees described those key individuals who inspired their college aspirations and shared the reasons they selected a four-year, public university. Their conclusions show that dual credit was not a substantial influence in
their college-going decision making. In its place, family, peers, and financial aid resources informed the participants’ aspirations and choices. The authors also offer recommendations for practice and future research.
In the last article in this section, Christina Convertino and Erika Mein consider the particular and situated relationship between college-readiness and college barriers in the context of college transitions. The authors employ an innovative methodology and novel academic literacies framework to analyze the situated and nuanced representation of readiness and transition stories of two Latinx, first generation freshmen enrolled in a four-year university. The findings add to the literature suggesting the overlooked, and negative effects of “not knowing how” to participate in the everyday, taken for-granted institutional practices (like institutionally-mediated digital learning tools such as Blackboard) can limit students’ progress as they start college, even in the case of students who are otherwise college-ready. By focusing on student accounts of college readiness and college barriers, this study complicates existing typologies therein.
We have 1 contribution to the ESSAY REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS section by Clara Burgo. The author sets the stage reminding us how heritage language (HL) learners often feel insecure about their competence in their HL due to the common expectation that they should perform as native speakers and their overall lack of experience with the academic register. Her piece delves into the various issues of students’ expectations about their study abroad experiences, given comfort levels in the heritage country, identification with that culture, the linguistic proficiency associations, and so forth. This contribution highlights the need for more research about study abroad and its programmatic development together with issues of assessment, with a focus on instructional training for the teachers and coaches in the heritage country, so as to better meet the emotional and linguistic necessities of the heritage language learners. This also contributes to the dearth in the literature about identity issues related to the cultural clash produced when real immersion does not match their learning expectations.
Lastly, we have 1 contribution to the VOCES section by Maria Capdevila Gutierrez and Fernando Rodriguez-Valls. Poetry as a literary genre is often used in the early educational years of life and schooling, but as the child grows, it gradually stops being used until almost it disappears from the curriculum. In this contribution the authors argue how poetry in the dual-immersion classroom serves as a great pedagogical resource for linguistic development and critical/analytical skills. They go on how working with poetry helps teachers and students alike to inquire into issues of linguistic and cultural identity, essential for development. Their article contains strategies and methodology for the use of poetry in dual-immersion programs as it offers a reflection on how to include these teaching skills in the education and training processes of teachers.
Continue to read ahead and enjoy the full value and complexity of the articles presented by Volume 19, Number 3 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.