Despite recent progress, college attendance rates of Latino students continue to lag behind those of White students in the United States. Research suggests that outreach programs designed to increase the college knowledge of Latino students and families hold promise for reducing the observed discrepancy. Based on participant observer methods, this…

In this study we examined the perceptions of 16 Latino families regarding their views and experiences raising a child with special needs and their involvement in their child's schooling. Families talked about treating their child like a "normal child" regardless of the child's unique needs, but they also stated that their level of involvement was…

This autoethnography elucidates the challenges I encountered in my efforts to maintain my commitment to leadership for social justice. When I assumed the superintendency of a small rural school district in southern Texas, I started collecting data in the form of a journal. My lived experiences, as recorded in my journal, were the sole source of…

Using in-depth interview data, this study explored perceptions of opportunity, ethnic identity beliefs, and motivation orientations among Latino students at a selective university. One profile is characterized by individualistic achievement motivations, feelings of exemption from social barriers, and a sense of alienation from other Latinos.…

This article poses the question of how educators can put into practice the valorization of the vernacular and its use as a pedagogical resource. It provides a critical sociolinguistic orientation toward the use of Spanglish in schools. It gives a short descriptive overview of the linguistic features of Spanglish and responds to some of the…

Two Chicano Studies professors share their pedagogy training preservice teachers in a course on the educational experiences of Latino youth. We describe our classroom practices based on a critical care framework. This framework moves student teachers beyond a superficial form of caring to a critically engaged relationship with students and their…

Deficit views of Mexican parents are pervasive and hinder both parents and school staff from effectively supporting student achievement. Analysis of the qualitative results from a larger study of school-based adult ESL classes yielded findings about the motivations and capacities of Mexican mothers that critique these deficit views and illuminate…

This poetic-prose piece is my personal ethnic educational history. It challenges the misconception that Cuban students (so-called voluntary minorities) are not oppressed, especially not by their Cuban teachers, and that they thus achieve more academic success than other Latinos. Some may be hiding. Perhaps this work will help to find them.

It is well established that the impact of globalization is immediate and widespread. Yet the public institution most affected by this force of change is slow in responding to the need for change in content and its conceptualization of the learner and citizen. This article examines at ground level the impact that this inertia has on one of the…

This article presents results of a literature-response study conducted with at-risk middle school students of Latino, African American, and Caucasian backgrounds. The study was guided by an assumption of students' ability to read and coherently assimilate elements of "The House on Mango Street," by Sandra Cisneros (1984). Although centered in…

This article presents a demographic portrait of young Hispanic children compared to young non-Hispanic Whites. New results from Census 2000 describe family and economic circumstances of children aged 08, as well as pre-K/nursery school and kindergarten enrollment for the United States, and for the 9 states with the largest number of young Hispanic…

The number of children beginning public school in the United States who speak Spanish as their native language--Spanish-speaking kindergartners (SSK)--continues to increase. It is important that the teacher workforce acquire the characteristics and the instructional and curricular tools necessary to provide these children with meaningful early…

In this article, we describe patterns of Hispanic students' math skill development during elementary school using data from a nationally representative sample of Hispanic students assessed in math skills from kindergarten through 5th grade. Several robust patterns are evident. First, Hispanic students enter kindergarten with average math skills…

One response to the need to prepare future teachers as multicultural educators is to use service learning with an immigrant population as part of a teacher education program. This article documents the impact of a project that engaged preservice teachers in tutoring struggling young English language learners. Content analysis was used at the…

Influenced by Freinet, Freire, and Sherover-Marcuse, the author describes the evolution of her pedagogy, including a demystifying and empowering approach to working with graduate students in the dissertation process. Alma Flor Ada's educational philosophy and praxis, grounded in critical pedagogy and transformative education, developed in the…