Navigating the Higher Education Space: An Examination of Latino College Students

• In Event: Deliberating Discrimination and Race in Worldwide Education Research

Abstract

In this research, I explore how space, creates, maintains and reproduces relations of inequality and privileges through the role it plays in people’s construction of racial identities. Higher institutions are spaces that are racialized given the historical construction of the institutions based in white privilege, patriarchy and marginalization of people of color. This is currently evident as the racial demographics of universities in the U.S. remain highly segregated and majority white, which is problematic given that spaces impact students’ sense of belonging. Consequently, the examination of space and its relationship in the social construction of racial identities, through the use of interview data with Latina(o) students attending a predominantly White four-year research university in the Midwest, is of critical importance.

Author

• Maria Isabel Ayala, Michigan State University