Closing Gaps For Latino Immigrant Children In The U.S. Education System

Abstract

Utilizing a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) model, a faculty member of a local university school of social work completed a qualitative study of interviewing 25 (U.S. born or those arriving in the U.S. at an early age) Latinos/Latinas college students and college graduates to discover their educational experiences from middle school to college in the Northeastern states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the U.S. The interviews incorporated two components: 1). Demographic information and 2) Cultural Congruity Scale (CCS). The study found that in the difficult socio-cultural integration process in school settings, they did not feel comfortable sharing Latino culture with non-Latino classmates, experienced discriminatory college preparation during high school years, and that their parents did have high aspirations to send their children to college/university. These study findings will lead to: 1) develop insight into cross-cultural development for students and teachers in middle and high school and college/university classroom settings, 2) identify Latino students’ emotional comfort needs in a predominantly non-Latino middle school to college/university classroom settings, and 3) engage in collegial discussions among middle high school and higher education personnel to plan how to close quality and educational opportunity gaps for Latino high school students’ college preparation as well as how to sustain Latino students in college/university settings.