Cultural Capital and Habitus: The Influence of Gang and College Knowledge for Low-Income Latino Male High School Students in Nevada

• In Event: The Prison-to-School Pipeline: Nondeficit Approaches to Examining the Educational Trajectories of Marginalized Latino Males

Abstract

In 2008, only 25 percent of Latino males graduated from Nevada high schools (Contreras, 2011). Recent reports highlight a gradual increase in the high school completion rates for Latino males in Nevada to 44 percent (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2015). The multiple social and educational challenges for Latino males remain a serious concern. The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how gang knowledge and college knowledge shapes post high school opportunities for 13 Latino males attending two alternative high schools in an urban area in Nevada using Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986, 1990) theory of cultural capital and habitus. No past or current studies have used gang knowledge as a form of cultural capital, which has the potential to fill a gap in the literature about how students learn, operationalize, and develop an understanding about how their gang information is ubiquitous in some urban communities, unlike college knowledge which is often uncommon in low-income, racial and ethnic enclaves in urban spaces. Habitus is an important tool to understand how students’ unconsciously navigate and use cultural capital to make sense of their local communities and schools. Past studies note the cultural capital and habitus possessed by students is often in direct contrast to the multiple forms of capital possessed by school educators and personnel, and this study contributes to the experiences of Latino male high school students in urban schools.

The students involved in this study include non-gang members, former and active gang members. Participants have histories of being on probation for drug use and distribution, violence and threats of violence against peers and educators, and some have switched high schools up to five times to avoid gang violence and negative peer influences. Focusing on Latinos involved in gangs is important because they represent over 20 percent of the over 1 million adolescent gang members in the United States (Pyrooz & Sweeten, 2015). The juxtaposition of gang knowledge and college knowledge is to demonstrate the capabilities of Latino males’ abilities to process the complex cultural nuances of gangs and graffiti crews in an urban city in Nevada versus the relatively static Nevada public college admission requirements. This paper is based on seven months of participant observations, individual semi-structured interviews with students, document analysis, and reflective field notes. The findings indicate students were more informed about gang culture and eligibility, have little knowledge about how to navigate and prepare to become college-ready and the college application process, felt individual responsibility to finance their postsecondary education, and had little understanding or awareness of federal financial aid opportunities. The implications may inform how researchers and educators in Nevada K-16, better engage marginalized Latino males traditionally ignored by the educational system and college outreach professionals.

Authors

• Adrian H. Huerta, University of California - Los Angeles

• Patricia M. McDonough, University of California - Los Angeles

• Walter R. Allen, University of California - Los Angeles