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Looking Back and Speaking Out| Young Latino Men Reflect on Their High School Experiences

<p> Young Latino men reflect on their high school experiences in multi-stage phenomenologically-based interviews. These six participants had transitioned out of high school and no longer received educational services from the school district where they had attended a majority-minority high school in an urban, low socioeconomic community in CA. Interviews focused on their lives and families, high school years, post-secondary school lives, and reflections about their secondary school experiences. These young men had family backgrounds that put them tremendously at risk. All six young men spoke Spanish as their first language and were taught in schools where instruction was in English. While in high school all six young men qualified for special education services. Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical Theory (LatCrit), and Disability Studies as well as the intersectionality of theories helped explore the marginalization of Latino students with disabilities and allowed the identification of central themes from participant's experiential knowledge. These former students cited instances where teachers or staff members encouraged or discouraged them while in high school and shared, from their perspective what teachers need to know to be better prepared and more effective. Participants proposed teachers understand their small acts of kindness have a monumental effect in a student's life. Further, teachers need to listen carefully to what students say; look beyond bad behavior; help students become involved in school in multiple ways; publicly acknowledge academic and social successes; and explicitly prepare students for college and other challenges they will face after high school.</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3629164
Date12 September 2014
CreatorsMelancon-Whitehead, Cheri Denise
PublisherChapman University
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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