Beating the Odds: Mexican Male Students' Pathways to College

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 41
  In Roundtable Session: Latin@ Forms of Social and Cultural Capital Toward Higher Educational Attainment

Abstract

This study applies tenets from community cultural wealth and funds of knowledge frameworks to demonstrate how Latinx male students reach college. Mexican male college students in the US northeast were interviewed. While aspirational and social capital as well as funds of knowledge are present within respondents’ families, these resources result from migration experiences. Taken together, respondents' transitions to college were facilitated by a combination of a variety of resources inside and outside the family. Seven distinct overlapping resources--at the psychological, social, cultural, and institutional levels--were commonly present among respondents’ narratives regarding their transitions to college. Resources included respondents' relationship with family, school officials, others as well as enrollment in college preparatory programs.

Author

• Jorge Ballinas, Temple University