UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Latina/o/x students face formidable social barriers that impede their success in higher education institutions, according to two Penn State College of Education researchers. As part of an effort to uplift and empower that population, the researchers have edited a special journal edition that urges readers to challenge the ways postsecondary institutions are designed to exclude Latina/o/x participation.
“We both believe that the current discourses around race have resulted in increased racism and violence in universities and that anti-Blackness, racial injustices, a global pandemic, and a national racial reckoning are the current conditions of Pre-K to postsecondary education,” said Gilberto Q. Conchas, the Wayne K. and Anita Woolfolk Hoy Endowed Professor of Education. “Coupled with this education reality are continued rising price tags of postsecondary education, high loan debt, and persistent challenges for higher education institutions to attract, enroll, retain and graduate Latina/o/x students.”
Conchas and Leticia Oseguera, professor and scientist of education (higher education) are co-editors of The Special Edition on Latina/o/x Postsecondary Education in Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, published in August. The edition is a follow-up to The Special Edition On Latina/o/x Prek-12 Education, which was published in April 2021 and aimed to develop a more comprehensive understanding of school achievement by exploring sociocultural circumstances leading to the potential for the realization of social mobility among Latina/o/x students across the PreK-12 educational pipeline.
“The original intent was to produce one special issue that concentrates on educational issues impacting Latinas/os/xs through PreK-16 but we received several quality manuscripts so we secured permission to produce two special issues,” said Oseguera.
According to Conchas, the contributors to the two special editions speak on Latina/o/x issues from lived experience. They all self-identify as Latina/o/x and are faculty at community colleges, four-year teaching institutions and four-year research institutions. The majority also are first-generation college students, doctoral students and faculty from distinct fields in education.
“We can affirm that the authors are all committed to anti-racism and social justice in education,” said Conchas. “Moreover, they are very much like us. Sons and daughters of Latina/o/x immigrants committed to social justice and anti-racist education.”
What makes The Special Edition on Latina/o/x Postsecondary Education a significant contribution to Latina/o/x studies, said Oseguera, is that the articles offer research aimed to expand opportunities and disrupt deficit narratives among this population.
“Latina/o/x students continue to be the largest and fastest-growing ethnic group but they are still underrepresented in postsecondary education and even fewer are in positions of senior leadership to address persistent challenges,” she said.
The Special Edition on Latina/o/x Postsecondary Education comprises two sections. The first section includes strategies to empower ownership over Latina/o/x populations’ educational journeys and to resist inequitable structures. According to Oseguera, one of the journal edition’s contributions is establishing (and celebrating) non-traditional ways of knowing and doing that occur in Latina/o/x families and homes. In one of the articles, “Making Movidas: Cultivating Leadership Through Conocimiento in an Undergraduate Student Retreat,[OL1] ” San José State University scholars Luis E. Poza, Lilly Pinedo-Gangai, Magdalena Barrera, Rebeca Burciaga and Marcos Pizarro present a case study on a student leadership retreat for new students that examines students’ experiences in programming undergirded by conocimiento (iterative and dialogic understanding of ourselves and others), cariño (care for self and others), and confianza (trust).
“This manuscript illustrates the power to equip Latina/o/x students with culturally relevant and transformative strategies of ownership over learning in contrast to more traditionally individualistic, competitive and transactional arrangements within higher education,” said Oseguera.
The second part of the special issue investigates organizational and policy reforms meant to assist in Latina/o/x students’ journeys but also cautions how these efforts can be undermined. In the article, “Cultivating the Chicano/Latina/o/x Faculty Pipeline Across Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Systems: The Potential Role of HSRIs In Transforming The Professoriate,” Frances Contreras, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Education, and University of California, San Diego doctoral students Samantha Prado Robledo and Valerie Gomez encourage readers to consider the role of a system of research universities, many of which also are designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and their role in developing more Latina/o/x faculty to then lead these institutions. An HSI, according to the U.S. Department of Education, is eligible for federal funding and has an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25% Hispanic.
“They assert that this system of public research-intensive institutions has the unique opportunity to transform the social and economic infrastructure of the state by investing in Latina/o/x students at the graduate level and through efforts to diversify the faculty, staff and leadership of the system and its campuses,” said Oseguera.
The Special Edition on Latina/o/x Postsecondary Education is the result of a collaboration between the Latinx Research Center at Santa Clara University, the Center for Leadership, Equity and Research, the California State University-Bakersfield, and the Pennsylvania State University with additional contributions from faculty affiliated with the Penn State College of Education’s Center for the Study of Higher Education.