Building Bridges with Latina/o Parents: Lessons from a College Access Program

ABSTRACT

This research is based on a collaborative project with the University Scholars Program (USP), a college access program that serves middle and high school students who will be the first in their families to attend college. In this paper, we draw upon in-depth and focus group interviews with Latina/o parents whose children are enrolled in a college access program. Findings demonstrate participants’ challenges to engagement, a disconnect between the understanding of roles, desires for leadership cultivation and positive and negative aspects of information dissemination. Recommendations are provided to strengthen college access programs’ partnerships with Latina/o parents.

KEYWORDS:

• Family
• Latino/a children and families
• parent & community
• qualitative research
• post-secondary education
• ; college access

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank D. Saraí Rivas, Anna Liu, Isabela Pérez, C. Mariana Curiel, and Vincent Fuentes for their valuable research assistance, Dr. Jennifer Eggerling-Boeck for the editorial assistance, and the American Sociological Association’s Sydney Spivack Program in Applied Social Research for funding to support this project. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and editor of Journal of Latinos and Education for their constructive feedback. The authors are also grateful to the staff, students, and families at the University Scholars Program for their enthusiasm and cooperation as we conducted this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Pseudonyms are used to protect the confidentiality of the study’s participants.

² We choose to use the term engagement, rather than involvement, to emphasize how participants are actively engaged in USP, rather than passive participants. For more on the differences between parental involvement and parental engagement, see Ferlazzo and Hammond (2009). Building parent engagement in schools. Columbus, Ohio: Linworth Books/Libraries Unlimited.

³ Source: Oregon Department of Education

⁴ We did not review the findings with participants or ask them to review the transcripts to ensure their accuracy.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the American Sociological Association's Sydney S. Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Polic Community Action Research Award.