Institutional Servingness and Belonging: A Qualitative Study of Latinas at Hispanic Serving and Elite Universities

• In Event: Latina/o Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 5: Education, Institutions, and Social Mobility

Abstract

This research focuses on Latina students who are the first in their families to attend college. This research will examine how schools can reproduce social inequalities for students with various intersecting, historically underserved identities. This project focuses on the individual experiences of alumni from two predetermined focal institutions: one selective, private university (pseudonym: Crestfield University) and one public, four-year Hispanic serving Institution (HSI) (pseudonym: River State University) both located in the US Northeast, an area less commonly examined in postsecondary education in regards to Latiné college students. Guided by Delgado Bernal’s (1998) Chicana feminist epistemological framework, this educational research project serves as “a means to resist epistemological racism and recover untold stories” (p. 556) while considering the intersections of race, class, immigration, and gender in the production of knowledge (p. 560).

Author

• Jenifer Gaitan, Rutgers