Cultivating Sisterhood Online: How Latinas Use Facebook as a Supportive Community in Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session Two
  In Roundtable Session: Interrogating the Graduate Student Experience: Identity, Family Support, Academics, and Teaching (Table 10)

Abstract

This study uses Chicana Feminist Theory as a theoretical lens and analytical tool to analyze a post in a Facebook group for Latinas in doctoral programs and identify how Latinas perceive the support offered by their families throughout their doctoral program. Research underscores the importance of family involvement in ensuring academic persistence among Latina/o students, but Latinas pursuing a doctoral degree in U.S. educational institutions must navigate the cultural clashes that emerge between attending universities that value rugged individualism and the values within the Latinx cultural construct of familismo–such as prioritizing and contributing to the wellbeing of the nuclear and extended family. Preliminary findings show (a) women describe both parental and offspring/spouse familial support, (b) women receive academic, emotional, and household support, (c) women in the Facebook group offer a supportive, virtual community. This paper contributes to the existing literature on counterspaces that , Solorzano et al. (2000) define as "sites where deficit notions of People of Color can be challenged and where a positive collegiate racial climate can be established and maintained." The interviews demonstrate how the experiences of Latinas are being validated by other Latinas undergoing similar experiences and how this virtual sisterhood keeps them going.

Author

• Jennifer Cabrera, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author