Latin American Students Research Articles

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Training of Agricultural Specialists for Latin America: a Profile of Scholars from Latin American Scholarship Program in Agriculture (1951-1962)

Between 1951 and 1962, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) maintained a scholarship program, the Latin American Scholarships program in agriculture (LAS), which financed the training of 226 Latin American students and researchers who, together, received 297 scholarships for short study periods at leading research centers in countries in the region. These centers were, above all, structures linked to the Office of Special Studies (OSS), a partnership between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government, and North American universities. The LAS provided the training and circulation of Latin American scholars in a period of great technological advancement in agricultural research and sought to give continental scope to RF’s main and most successful laboratory in the area: Mexico. The profile analysis of 226 LAS scholars is made from a database of 9057 minibiographies of scholars available in the Directory of Fellowships and Scholarships published by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1970s.

A Cross-sectional Study of the Mental Health Symptoms of Latin American, US Hispanic, and Spanish College Students Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Young adults and racial/ethnic minorities report the worst mental health outcomes during the COVID19 pandemic, according to the Center for Disease Control (2020). The objectives of this study were (1) to identify common mental health symptoms among Latin American, US Hispanic, and Spanish college students, and (2) to identify clinical features predictive of higher post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among this population. The study sample included 1,113 college students from the USA, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, and Spain who completed an online survey containing demographic questions and mental health screeners. Findings revealed higher scores of depression, suicidality, and PTSS compared to pre-pandemic levels and current scores by non-Spanish speaking college students; however, less than 5% of participants endorsed clinical levels of anxiety. After controlling for demographic profiles and sociocultural values, clinical symptoms of depression, loneliness, perceived stress, anxiety, and coping strategies explained 62% of the PTSS variance. Age, history of mental illness, perceived social support, and familism were not significant predictors. This sample of college students revealed higher mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The high prevalence of PTSS highlights the need to develop pragmatic, cost-effective, and culturally sensitive prevention and intervention strategies to mitigate these symptoms. Implications for college administrators and clinicians are discussed.

Development of the Perception of Achievement of Complex Thinking: A Disciplinary Approach in a Latin American Student Population

This paper aims to identify whether there are statistically significant differences in the level of perceived achievement of complex thinking competence in a population of Latin American students from different disciplines. The intention is to corroborate or question the academic literature that categorizes certain types of thinking (systemic, scientific, and critical) as characteristic elements of some disciplines. Methodologically, the validated eComplexity instrument was applied to a sample of 370 undergraduate students from a Mexican university. The results showed that the highest means for systems thinking can be found in the disciplines of Engineering, Business, and Humanities, while the highest means for critical thinking can be found among architecture students. However, statistically, the results showed no significant differences upon an overall comparison of all disciplines. In conclusion, the findings of this study prove to be valuable for educational institutions seeking to develop complex thinking in their students, demonstrating that the disciplinary area is not a limiting factor in developing a perception of achievement in a particular competence and its sub-competences.

Not Like My Parents! The Intention to Become a Successor of Latin American Students with Entrepreneur Parents

The article presents an extension of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to identify, in a Latin American university, the students who are children of entrepreneurial parents and the determinants of their willingness to succeed them. The TPB is used as a basis to analyse the intention to be a successor, and three constructs are added: affective commitment, normative commitment and parental role model. The analysis is carried out using structural equations via the partial least squares (PLS) method, which allows for the study of multiple relationships between construct-type variables. The sample includes 16,185 Latin American university students from the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey 2018 database. The results show that, in Latin American students, the determining factors in the intention to be a successor are attitude, the affective and normative commitment and the parental role model. The latter has a negative and significant effect on the intention to be a successor in the family business. One of the practical implications of this study has to do with the development of an affective feeling of the offspring towards the family business. Generating this kind of attachment since childhood could lead to achieving a greater relevance of the parental role model and a stronger interest in the succession of the business.

Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship by Andrea Dyrness and Enrique Sepúlveda

Reviewed by: Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship by Andrea Dyrness and Enrique Sepúlveda Aída R. Guhlincozzi Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship. By Andrea Dyrness and Enrique Sepúlveda III. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020. 352 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $27.00 paper. In Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship, authors Dyrness and Sepúlveda slowly unravel the bundle of culture, language, and socioeconomic experiences that contribute to the thoughts on citizenship developing in the minds of Latin American youth. By researching Latin American student perspectives on both sides of the diaspora—those who stay and those who leave—the authors capture the ways in which Latin American students receive the global structural forces and weave them into their daily lives. Instead of treading familiar territory of the US–Latin American relationship, the scope of the book incorporates the experiences of Latin American immigrants located in Spain, alongside the immigrant experiences of Latin American students in the United States and El Salvador. Using the site of multiple educational institutions for the students participating and co-researching in the different countries enables the depiction of unique microcosms of the cultural, social, and political messaging the next generation of immigrant youth are receiving as they develop into global citizens. In attention to the discussions around race and Latinx identity, the authors take an approach drawing from the participant conversations had with students about navigating identity and race in their different contexts. The authors do not necessarily construct specific definitions of racial, national, and ethnic categories to draw on throughout the book; instead, they ground the discussions of these categories in the lived daily encounters of the participants to illustrate the larger forces at play, and to illustrate how a form of racial capitalism twists through the boundaries of any context. The authors ground their findings in literature on diasporic youth behaviors and Latinx Studies research on citizenship and themes of belonging. With a deftness and informed perspective, the authors pull the reader into the different cases to sit alongside the students and researchers and hear their stories. Then, the stories and conversational snippets are contextualized with the research and broader perspectives on how these are representational of the global structural forces at play. [End Page 85] On its face, the book appears to be an excellently written contribution to a specific literature focused on immigration and Latinx youth. But the book is also a contribution to the broader discussion of how societies and communities incorporate—or do not—people from places different than the home context and the crater-sized impacts these seemingly everyday minute choices can have. Further, the authors provide us with a contemplation on the social and economic ties between countries that many people would rather conveniently forget, and how critical are the conditions these are formed in. [End Page 86] Aída R. Guhlincozzi Geography; Women's and Gender Studies University of Missouri–Columbia Copyright © 2022 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Towards A Pedagogy of Transnational Feminism When Teaching and Activism Go Online

This article explores the possibilities and limitations of online teaching, based on our experience transforming a study abroad program to Argentina into an online class, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. In a moment when radical educators and activists are moving online, the article considers the spatial politics involved in teaching about protest and resistance online, and in establishing transnational solidarities between U.S. and Latin American scholars, artists, activists, and students. We introduce the theory and practice of a trasnational feminist pedagogy that incorporates embodied knowledge, fosters transnational collaborations, and promotes liberatory learning practices. Drawing on autoethnography, participant observation, visual and media analysis, student interaction with course materials, and interviews with transnational feminist scholars, we investigate how educators and students adapt their teaching and learning practices to an online environment. Transnational feminist pedagogy is a flexible method that allows for transformative teaching, is attentive to power dynamics in and out of the classroom, and maintains commitments to antiracist, feminist and socialist pedagogy.

Students’ perspectives on using YouTube as a source of mathematical help: the case of ‘julioprofe’

YouTube is one of the most popular sources of mathematical help among young students. In this study we explore the perspectives of engineering students on the use of YouTube videos with the intention of broadening our understanding of the general characteristics of the mathematical help that students obtain through this type of videos, particularly about the qualities of the sources of mathematical help that they prefer and trust. To conduct this exploration, we take as a reference the case of ‘julioprofe’, a YouTube channel on mathematics lessons with almost four million subscribers, which is widely known and used among Latin American students. Through focus groups, 22 engineering students from a Mexican university were interviewed about their experiences using the julioprofe videos as a source of mathematical help. The results suggest that the mathematical help that students get from these YouTube videos is a type of multifunctional help, always available, private, easy to use and self-paced. It is a type of mathematical help that students cannot obtain from more traditional school contexts. We argue that these features contribute to making YouTube such a popular source of mathematics help among contemporary students.

Changes in the perception of school climate and self-identified race in two Toronto cohorts

Drawing on Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Student Census data (2006 and 2011), we examine if there have been changes in the perceptions of school climate between two cohorts of high school students. First, we contextualize our study and review relevant policy changes to student inclusion and equity to set the stages for examining, by way of a sort of “natural experiment”, to see if there was a change in the perception of school climate by students after these policy changes occurred. We then review the scholarship on school climate, its relationship to race, and its relationships to educational experiences and outcomes. We then examine how self-identified race is associated with students’ perceptions of school climate in both cohorts, interpreting our results within a Critical Policy Analysis framework. We find evidence of improved school climate from 2003 to 2008, although the changes have not been uniform by self-identified race, and in some cases have worsened, particularly for self-identified Black and Latin American students.

Human flourishing: an enabler of entrepreneurial intention in Latin American students

Purpose This study aims to propose a causal relationship between the level of students’ human flourishing (HF) and their entrepreneurial intention (EI) and the mediation role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). Design/methodology/approach The study uses a sample of 5,035 first-year university students who graduated from 950 different upper secondary schools in Mexico and abroad. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings The results reveal that HF increases EI and ESE; ESE positively impacts EI; and the student’s ESE partially mediates the HF-EI relationship. Practical implications These findings may improve educational strategies in upper secondary schools and higher education institutions’ management programmes to impact graduates’ HF and EI. To the knowledge, the authors are the first to measure how HF in upper secondary school graduates contributes to increasing their EI. Social implications Recommendations are made to increase Latin American students’ HF and EI. Originality/value The authors propose an inverse relationship between HF and EI, as HF can be enhanced in upper secondary education to boost EI later in students’ lives.

Pioneers in Dermatology and Venereology: an interview with Professor Ricardo Luis Galimberti.

Pioneers in Dermatology and Venereology: an interview with Professor Ricardo Luis Galimberti.

Unhealthy Eating Behaviors of First Year Latin-American Students, An Opportunity for Sustainable Nutritional Interventions

The global food system, currently, fails to meet the need of the population, classifying it as being unsustainable...

Building healthy schools through technology-enabled citizen science: The case of the our voice participatory action model in schools from Bogotá, Colombia

ABSTRACT The physical and social environment of school settings are important for health promotion among children and adolescents. Efforts to create supportive environments at the school level can benefit from including community engagement and empowerment processes to advocate for health promotion. The Our Voice model presents a unique opportunity for Latin American students to improve their school environments. The objective of this study was to engage and empower students (9–18 years) from five schools in Bogotá, Colombia to use the Our Voice model to assess and seek to improve their local school environments. This study employed Our Voice’s ‘citizen science by the people’ method using a mobile application for data collection. The Our Voice initiative included the following four phases: (1) Design, planning and recruitment; (2) Data collection; (3) Community meetings for thematic analysis, priority setting and initial design of feasible solutions; and (4) Community meetings with decision-makers to advocate for changes. The citizen scientists identified and advocated for safer physical activity-supportive environments and healthier food and drinks availability. This study allowed children and adolescent citizen scientists to make their voices heard by policymakers and empowered them as agents of change in the process of building healthier schools.

Alumnado de origen latinoamericano en Cataluña: un análisis de su volumen y resultados escolares

La mayor parte del alumnado de origen latinoamericano en las escuelas catalanas queda invisibilizado estadísticamente debido al peso creciente de las nacionalizaciones y de las segundas generaciones. Gracias a disponer de los microdatos del curso 2015-2016 cedidos por el Departament d’Ensenyament y al cruce de estos registros con el Padrón Continuo de población se ha podido analizar la trayectoria migratoria de los alumnos en relación a sus resultados escolares, creando una tipología generacional. Este análisis se realiza para los estudiantes de origen latinoamericano, con el objetivo de conocer sus principales características sociodemográficas y su desempeño escolar, medido a partir de las tasas de idoneidad y de la obtención del graduado de ESO. Además del conjunto de estudiantes de origen latinoamericano se estudian cinco orígenes en concreto (Honduras, Bolivia, República Dominicana, Argentina y Ecuador), que se caracterizan por una importante presencia en Cataluña pero con calendarios muy distintos en su llegada a España, así como en sus perfiles sociodemográficos y en su incorporación a la escuela. Los resultados obtenidos indican el creciente peso de los descendientes de inmigrados en las escuelas, y unos rendimientos escolares que se ven fuertemente perturbados por el proceso migratorio.

Winter School on sEMG Signal Processing: An Initiative to Reduce Educational Gaps and to Promote the Engagement of Physiotherapists and Movement Scientists With Science

The application of surface electromyography (sEMG) in neurology is sometimes limited by a scientific background in the use of sEMG. Students frequently use sEMG only when developing their graduate studies. To reduce these barriers, we promoted a free Winter School on sEMG to Latin American students. The school was a 3-day event with theoretical classes and computer programming in Matlab. Lectures were delivered in Portuguese and Spanish to 50 participants. All lectures were recorded and made available on YouTube®. After the School, participants completed a written exam to receive a certificate. The written exam revealed the average effectiveness of 71 ± 20% in the comprehension of topics addressed during the school. Participants rated the School as “excellent” and considered the event as having changed their thoughts about the use of sEMG. Limited mathematical skills or background were the main barriers identified to follow the lectures and to make use of sEMG. We conclude that the Winter School had a positive impact on participant's formation, especially by showing them the importance of continuous involvement with the concepts related to sEMG to become proficient in its use. From the participant's point of view, the activity was excellent and the follow up of the school on YouTube® suggests that combining face-to-face activities followed by the online availability of lectures is a valid strategy to reinforce the learning process and to reduce barriers in the use of sEMG. Whether similar results would be achieved for a paid registration event in an economically developing region, still requires further investigation.

The Road to the Baccalaureate

International students are increasingly enrolling in U.S community colleges as a starting point to their higher education. However, limited research examines the factors contributing to their successful transfer to a 4-year institution and bachelor degree attainment. Utilizing longitudinal transcript data from a large community college district in Texas, this study uses hierarchical logistical regression to compare college experiences and transfer outcomes based on region of origin. Findings demonstrate that while Sub-Saharan African students have a significantly higher probability of transfer than Asian and Latin American students, the majority of bachelor degree recipients were Asian students graduating in STEM fields. Delayed enrollment into college and academic preparedness in math were negatively associated with transfer for Latin American and Caribbean students.

XVI National Meeting on Optics and VII Andean and Caribbean Conference on Optics and its Applications

The XVI National Meeting on Optics and VII Andean and Caribbean Conference on Optics and its applications (XVI ENO - VII CANCOA) were successfully held together from 26th to 30th of November, 2019, at the Universidad de Cordoba, Montería, Colombia. The events brought together Colombian and Latin-American students, professionals, and researchers with interests on optics and photonics, thus offering them the opportunity to share and discuss their last research and findings, as well as to facilitate and encourage their mutual cooperation. This Proceedings issue compiles oral and poster presentations that were submitted by the authors and rigorously reviewed by a special committee designated by the Journal of Physics Conference Series (JPCS) editor for Colombian Conferences led by the Foundation of Researches in Science and Technology of Materials (FORISTOM).In order to organize the XVI ENO - VII CANCOA according to the slogan Light and optics for the Colombian Caribbean Region, the “Red Colombiana de Óptica (RCO)” with the sponsor of the universities at the Colombian Caribbean Region. The main goal was to present the Colombian Caribbean as a region with growing interests and maturity in topics related to optics and photonics. A total of 63 oral presentations and 22 posters were presented. Four recognitions were given: two of them for undergraduate presentations and the other two for graduate presentations.The RCO is a nonprofit society that seeks the strengthening of collaborations between researchers in optics, photonics, and spectroscopy in Colombia. It also encourages the dissemination of knowledge in optics, photonics, and spectroscopy in all areas of knowledge. More information about the network can be found on the webpage www.srco.org.co.The National Meeting on Optics was created to facilitate the exchange of ideas between Colombian researchers on optics and photonics. The first meeting was held in 1987 in Medellín, Colombia and has been realized without interruption with two-year of periodicity.The organizing and editorial committee of the XVI ENO - VII CANCOA hopes you enjoy the reading of this volume of the JPCS. Besides, we wish to thank all authors and participants for providing their valuable contributions for this proceeding as well as the reviewers for their constructive recommendations and criticism aiding to improve the presented articles. Likewise, we are confident that this issue will serve as a reference for optics, spectroscopy and photonics research in Colombia and Latin-America.List of Organizing Committee, Scientific Committee, Editorial Committee, Invited Speakers, Organizing Institutions, Sponsors, Logos, Photos are available in this pdf.

Concepciones de aprendizaje desde una perspectiva fenomenográfica. Convergencias y diferencias entre estudiantado universitario portugués y latinoamericano

Este artículo reseña un estudio en el que se indagan las concepciones de aprendizaje en estudiantado latinoamericano que cursa una misma carrera (Ciencias de la Educación/Pedagogía), a fin de poner en relación los resultados con los obtenidos por Rosário et ál. (2006) en Portugal. El objetivo de la investigación que se informa es ponderar los alcances y límites de aplicar el sistema categorial de las personas autoras nombradas a las concepciones de aprender extraídas en diferentes contextos. Ambas investigaciones comparten un enfoque fenomenográfico, pero difieren en la población y en el instrumento. La nuestra se realizó en 264 estudiantes que cursaban el tramo inicial o final de la carrera en Argentina (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo), Brasil (Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro y Universidad Estadual Paulista) y México (Universidad de Colima), mediante un ítem abierto del Inventario de concepciones y experiencias de aprender en la universidad (INCEAPU). El trabajo de Rosário et ál. (2006) se realizó en 16 estudiantes de la Universidad de Évora a través de entrevistas individuales. Los hallazgos ponen de manifiesto algunas concepciones compartidas, otras semejantes, pero no idénticas y otras distintivas de la muestra en análisis, lo que lleva a concluir que, si bien se reconocen similitudes y solapamientos, también se destacan particularidades en función del contexto educativo. Por otra parte, sugieren que las concepciones adquieren un sentido bidireccional, pues aunque se inician en el estudiantado y condicionan su actuar frente a la propuesta didáctica, dicha propuesta incide en lo que el estudiantado entiende por aprender. Es relevante indagar las concepciones de aprendizaje en las palabras del alumnado porque, si la universidad se compromete con el respeto por la diversidad, lo primero es conocer en qué consiste “lo diverso” en términos de las diferentes formas en que sus estudiantes entienden lo que es aprender.

International student mobility from Latin America in Australia: What we already know and what we still need to find out

This article identifies five main mobility characteristics of international students from Latin America in Australia by comparative analysis of the overall student population. International student numbers from Latin America to Australia have reached unprecedented levels. A growing body of research exists on Latin American migrants in Australia and scholars such as Burges and Calderon have provided insightful analyses into educational trade relations between the two. Despite this, there still lacks a deeper understanding of the mobility characteristics of Latin American students, embedded within the scholarship of international migration broadly and international student mobility (ISM) specifically. In order to address this gap, the article interprets publicly available data in a growing segment of ISM research that understands mobility as an ongoing, processional and lifelong journey. This article therefore paints a picture of what we already know and what we still need to find out about Latin American students in Australia.

Australia as a destination for Latin American doctoral candidates: Four personal reflections

Universities are important drivers for transnational migration to Australia, especially for students who are economically mobile, or who might be seeking to convert a transitory study experience into a more permanent migratory one. The economic growth experienced in a number of Latin American countries in the twenty-first century introduced new cohorts of Latin American students into Australian tertiary education institutions, including some from countries that may have had minimal prior presence in Australia. This includes students working towards research degrees. This article presents the autoethnographic accounts of four doctoral candidates from Latin America studying in Australia. It considers their motivations for undertaking graduate research, and the factors that brought them to choose Australia as a study destination, and the benefits and challenges they have experienced in coming here. While the candidates are all from different research fields, their experiences reveal commonalities around three key themes: opportunity, safe exploration and the role of family in enabling decisions about transnational doctoral education.

Life Satisfaction Among Middle School Students Around the World Cross-Cultural Evidence From PISA 2018

Using rich data from roughly half a million 15-year-olds across 72 countries and economies participating in PISA 2018, this paper examines the predictors of adolescent subjective well-being (SWB) from a cross-cultural angle. Life satisfaction and affective well-being are found to be most strongly related to perceived meaning in life, self-efficacy, relationship quality, and peer SWB. Analyses by world region reveal several culture-specific explanations for interregional well-being gaps. In particular, low life satisfaction among academically high-performing students from Confucian East Asia is found to be associated with low meaning in life, low self-efficacy, low peer well-being, as well as with high emotional interdependence. In contrast, high life satisfaction among Latin American students can be explained by high peer well-being, high meaning in life, as well as low peer wealth. Limited evidence is also found for a negative relationship between academic performance and life satisfaction. Meanwhile, competition and cooperation among students does only affect life satisfaction of students in collectivistic societies.