The Latina Educational Advantage: The Educational Expectations of the Daughters of Latino Immigrant Parents

• In Event: 34.062 - Constructing a Space and Place of Our Own: (Transnational) Latinas/os Navigating Educational Pathways

Abstract

In recent decades, the number of Latina women enrolling and completing four-year degrees has significantly exceeded the number of young Latino men completing bachelor degrees (National Center of Education Statistics, 2015). Studies suggest that Latinas tend to have higher educational expectations and perform better academically than males, placing them at an educational advantage (Feliciano, 2012; Ovink, 2012). This paper uses data from 14 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with first-generation Latina college students attending a Hispanic serving institution of higher education in South Texas.

Latina students came from a working-class background, were the first in their families to attend college, and had Mexican immigrant parents. Using a social capital theoretical framework (Coleman, 1988; Stanton-Salazar, 2001), the author examines social capital characteristics, such as support received from immigrant parents that may influence students’ educational expectations.

In this paper, the author examines how Latina college students negotiate their educational expectations for higher education with their Latino immigrant parents through discourses and messages of education and support for completing a college degree. This study draws attention to Latinas’ reflection of their educational expectations and aspirations, and their parents’ expectations and support.

Findings suggest that Latinas are active agents in negotiating and re-shaping their educational expectations for seeking and completing bachelor and graduate degrees by engaging with parents in educational discourses that add to their social capital. Results from this study may provide insight on how Latinas’ are developing their educational expectations for higher education and the role that immigrant parents play in this process by reinforcing a college-going expectation, giving Latinas an educational advantage.

Author

• Janeth Martinez, The University of Texas - San Antonio