This digest identifies cultural values that may affect the learning processes of Hispanic-American students, reviews research on the learning styles of Hispanic-American students, and discusses the implications of this research for counseling and teaching Hispanic youth. One cultural value that is of paramount importance in most Hispanic cultures…

This digest provides a critique of the various educational strategies that have been used with Latino students and suggests alternatives that may be more successful. Many educators acknowledge that the reasons for the historic academic underachievement of Latino students could be inappropriate cognitive, cultural, and linguistic teaching methods.…

To determine effective strategies for connecting Hispanic parents and their children's early childhood programs, educators need to develop a greater understanding of the features of the Hispanic culture that influence parents' childrearing practices and orientation toward formal education. Educators should be aware of Hispanics' diversity in terms…

Although participation of Hispanic-Americans in higher education is growing, the Hispanic share of participation (enrollment and degrees) is still far less than the Hispanic share of the U.S. population. Indeed, the college enrollment rate among Hispanics aged 18-24 declined to 16.2 percent in 1990 from a high of 20.4 percent in 1975. During the…

Despite the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Keyes v. Denver School District, Hispanic students are more segregated today than they were 20 years ago, and gaps between the educational attainment and earnings of Hispanics and non-Hispanics continue to widen. The nation's Hispanic population has grown almost five times faster than the non-Hispanic…

Hispanic parents have been slow to overcome their historical reluctance to turn their young children over to nonfamily members for care, but the educational boost preschool provides is particularly important for the one-quarter of Hispanic American families who are poor by Federal guidelines. This digest describes the strategies and programs…

Dropout rates are particularly problematic measures for Hispanic youth. One-third of Hispanic adolescents are foreign-born. Their sending countries tend to have much lower rates of secondary school completion than does the United States. This digest presents recent tabulations on the number of Latino high school dropouts, noting pitfalls in…

For Mexican American students, grade-level reading and overall academic achievement decline, as measured by standardized tests, as they progress through the educational system. By grade seven, 65% of Mexican American students fail one or more grade levels below expected achievement. To reverse this trend of academic failure, teachers need to use…

This digest reviews a variety of strategies that might be employed by school districts, teacher education institutions, and state educational agencies to attract, train, and retrain Hispanic teachers in math and science. The need for long-term solutions is discussed. Five action-oriented steps to attract Hispanic high school graduates into the…

This ERIC digest examines the Spanish-speaking group in the United States, its growth through net immigration and natural increase, and its eventual decline as speakers shift to English. The Hispanic population is growing rapidly, but data suggest that U.S. Hispanics do learn and speak English. Research predicts that by the year 2001 the…

This digest summarizes the effective bilingual strategies described in a commissioned paper, "Transforming Education for Hispanic Youth: Exemplary Practices" by Anne Turnbaugh Lockwood and Walter G. Secada, and the recommendations of the Hispanic Dropout Project (U.S. Department of Education) for transforming bilingual education at all…

This Digest focuses on the teaching of Spanish to U.S. Hispanic bilinguals at the university level. Traditionally, Spanish has been taught as a second or foreign language in the United States, and little attention has been given to developing and coordinating well designed and carefully articulated programs for Hispanic bilingual students of…

The digest is based on a full length report (with the same title) on African-American and Hispanic faculty at predominantly white, four-year institutions of higher education. The full report provides a definitive review of the literature and institutional practice on the topic. Three topics are discussed: (1) how necessary affirmative action…

Students come to the classroom with theories that they have actively constructed from their everyday experiences. However, some of these theories are incomplete half-truths. Although such misconceptions interfere with new learning, students are often emotionally and intellectually attached to them. Some common mathematical misconceptions involve:…

This digest examines findings from two studies on the minority achievement gap in suburban schools. The first study, by Ronald Ferguson, analyzed data on middle and high school students from the Minority Student Achievement Network. In the second study, John Ogbu investigated how K-12 African American students' identity as an oppressed group…