The purpose of this study is to explore the parental factors that impact Hispanics' post-secondary education completion. This is an important social issue as prior literature has indicated that educated parents have a strong influence on their children's abilities, knowledge, and values. For this study, 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews of…

Parent involvement is often cited as an essential component of effective dual language bilingual education (DLBE), yet we have limited understanding of the ways parents participate in DLBE or how parent experiences differ between Latinx and non-Latinx families, who often have different reasons for enrolling their children in bilingual programs.…

Contrary to the deficit, leaky pipe perspective, this study applied an asset-based framework that argues resilience is a cultural asset that motivates and contributes to success. The purpose of this study was to examine how Latinx students applied resilience contexts toward navigating the medical school pipeline. A qualitative, case study design…

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore faculty perceptions of barriers to academic literacy development for Hispanic students at a small, rural school district in North Texas. Specifically, the researcher sought to investigate the perceptions of faculty regarding the barriers to Hispanic literacy development that…

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, 62.1 million people identify as Hispanic/ Latiné in the United States. Of the 49.6 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in fall 2022, 14.4 million students identified as Hispanic (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024a). Factors such as poverty, health issues, and…

Mental health conditions were seen to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic as individuals lost loved ones due to the pandemic, lost jobs, and in many cases had to care for elderly and other loved ones. For students, the pandemic also brought the additional challenge of having to transition to online learning. In this study, we investigated the…

There is a need to fully understand why Hispanic students are not as successful as other cohorts of students are when completing college. In past research, the focus has been on persistence and retention, but understanding the need for connection and feelings of campus immersion have been absent. The research questions investigated the barriers…

This study examined the success and persistence of Latina students in the complex environment of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at a Tier 1 Research higher education institution in Texas. For this qualitative study, 10 Latina students pursuing STEM majors were interviewed within a framework focusing on Greene's…

In this qualitative research study we illustrate how implicit biases held by college personnel hinders the educational success of Latino men attending urban community colleges in Texas. In particular, we identify how often well-intentioned educators are (un)aware of how often they perpetrate racial microaggressions against Latino men. Interviews…

This qualitative study explored the challenges that Hispanic and African American students experience during their education in STEM fields at community colleges. Students from four community colleges across Texas participated in this study. Drawing from focus group interviews, three themes were identified as self-perceived challenges to degree…

Background/Context: School segregation scholarship underlines that litigation challenging the segregation of Mexican American students in Texas schools stressed their legal racial identity as white. "The other white race strategy," as scholars call it, granted Mexican Americans the right to access resources designated for the country's…

College students at a large south Texas university have proven consistently that they have a higher-than-average Body Mass Index (BMI), spend less time per week engaged in physical activity, and in general feel that they are less healthy than students in a national cross-sectional survey of college students by the American College Health…

The number of jobs requiring a postsecondary credential has increased in Texas, and jobs requiring only a high school diploma have become rare. For Texas to improve the future of individuals and the state, policymakers and higher education administrators must commit to closing educational gaps. Literature, reports, and studies have demonstrated…

Since the inception of the Higher Education Opportunity Act in 2008, there has been an increase in the number of post-secondary education institutions in the United States that have established inclusive postsecondary programs for individuals with intellectual disabilities to attend college and achieve higher levels of employment. Previous studies…

This study examined how 10 Latinx students perceived their sense of belonging in engineering programs. Drawing upon Strayhorn's definition of sense of belonging, we sought to understand the experiences and individuals that facilitated Latinx students' connections to their engineering programs and to the larger campus community at a 4-year…