Reimagining Civic Life: Latinx Students’ Civic Identities in California Community Colleges

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Civic Agency and Voice of Higher Education Students

Abstract

Latinx students make up nearly half of those enrolled in California’s community colleges, yet their civic participation remains disproportionately low. This qualitative study explores how Latinx students conceptualize civic life. Guided by Youth Sociopolitical Development (SPD) framework, this study draws on interviews and a focus group to examine how students navigate civic identity. Participants described civic actions often overlooked by dominant metrics. Their practices reflect a civic imagination shaped by lived experience, cultural histories, and a deep sense of responsibility to their communities–past, present, and future—reframing civic life as interconnected and deeply human. Findings position community colleges as critical civic spaces that can either reproduce exclusion or foster democratic agency aligned with students’ visions of just and inclusive civic futures.

Authors

• Mary Avalos, Coast Community

• Erin Hilary Arruda, California State University - Long Beach