This study examined the contextual factors that led to the success of Mexican
Americans who overcame extraordinary obstacles in obtaining post-secondary
educations. Mexican Americans continue to experience great challenges to postsecondary
success. An in-depth case study was performed on ten subjects who
managed to not only survive, but also do well in school and life. The purpose of the
study was to identify obstacles these men and women had to overcome, the means they
used to overcome them, and the salience of their ethnicity to their experience. Utilizing
a worldview construct and the concept of familism, findings are presented that
demonstrate how these men and women were able to succeed educationally.
First, their families placed a high value for and exposure to literacy, English
and Spanish, in the participantsâ homes. Contrary to the fact that these participantsâÂÂ
homes were characterized by low levels of parental education, they were exposed to
high levels of literacy. A second important commonality among these high achievers
was that all of them at some point in their schooling attended desegregated schools
where they were exposed to Anglo peers with much greater social capital than themselves. Finally, and perhaps the most important, is the profound value for hard
work that characterized almost all of these households and was channeled into
dedication to studies and a strong belief that effort, perseverance, and courage were
important in achieving academic goals.
Rather than just focusing on the barriers, the problems common to low-income,
first-generation college students as do most studies on student access and success, this
study focuses on the creative solutions its subjects found and the kinds of support that
made differences for them. The study records the perceptions of the successful
graduates of the causes of their school success and tapped into their insights. The
findings and recommendations of the study may enable educators to re-examine their
own attitudes toward the schooling of Mexican origin students and its unanticipated
negative consequences and help institutions of higher education identify policy
changes that will facilitate the recruitment and retention of Hispanic and other minority
students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4321 |
| Date | 30 October 2006 |
| Creators | Garcia, Juanita Celia |
| Contributors | Stark, Stephen |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 708413 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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