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Policy Memo by: Michelle M. Espino

González, J.C. (2006). Academic socialization experiences of Latina doctoral students: A qualitative understanding of support systems that aid and challenges that hinder the process. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 5(4), pp. 347-365.

The Educational Issue
Only half of all doctoral students complete their degrees, a rate that has remained consistent for the past four decades (Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Lovitts, 2001). A majority of the literature on doctoral student experiences focuses on graduate school socialization, mentorships between faculty and doctoral students, and attrition; topics seldom focused on graduate student success or disaggregated by gender or race (Antony, 2003; Dorn & Papalweis, 1997; Lovitts, 2001; Weidman & Stein, 2003).

Successful socialization processes in graduate school occur when there is an environment in which responsibilities and roles between faculty and graduate students are articulated and clear; there are opportunities for formal and informal interactions between faculty and graduate students; the environment is not competitive; faculty have a genuine interest in graduate students’ successes; and there is a balance between identifying as a student and as a future researcher/faculty member (Weidman & Stein, 2003). The successful socialization of doctoral students into their roles as scholars is directly related to how students perceive their faculty’s encouragement as they engage in scholarly activities (Weidman & Stein, 2003).

Unfortunately, graduate programs are not necessarily designed as supportive environments. Barriers are specifically constructed to encourage the early departure of graduate students who are perceived to lack academic ability or are unable to handle rigorous coursework while maintaining high levels of motivation and commitment throughout the doctoral process (Baird, 1993; Lovitts, 2001). Depending on departmental cultures, competition within cohorts for financial resources, access to faculty members, and opportunities for research can result in marginalization and attrition (Herzig, 2002; Lovitts, 2001). Doctoral students in the sciences, in contrast to doctoral students in the social sciences, have a shorter time to degree, hold research assistantships on campus that cover all educational expenses, and are part of cohorts. Doctoral students in the social sciences are not guaranteed research or teaching assistantships and generally individually progress through their programs (Baird, 1993; Lovitts, 2001).

For Latina/o doctoral students, issues of race, class, and gender compound the struggles, although few studies have uncovered Latina/o doctoral student experiences, attrition, and/or completion (Figueroa, González, Marin, Moreno, Navia, & Perez, 2001; Gándara, 1982; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). Daniel Solórzano’s (1993) study of Chicana/o doctoral student production in California found that the rate of Chicana/os receiving doctorates was significantly less than the rate of growth for the entire Latina/o population in the state. Chicana/os were not receiving a comparable proportion of degrees as was expected by the general population’s growth rate. Solórzano also presented several patterns pertaining to Chicana/o doctoral production: (1) Chicanas and Chicanos were severely underrepresented in the sciences; (2) Chicana doctorates were more closely distributed in the fields of education, social sciences, and the humanities; and (3) “depending on the field, it would take an increase in production of 3 to 17 times for both males and females to reach parity in terms of their proportion to the population in their cohort” (p. viii). This relatively slow increase in Latina/o doctorate production demonstrates that the share of doctoral degrees for Latina/os as a whole is minimal, even when the number of Latina/o undergraduates and graduate students has increased (Fry, 2002). This policy brief will focus on a segment of Latina/o doctorate production, Latina doctoral students and the implications for ensuring their success in graduate school.

Research Approach
Juan Carlos González’s (2006) qualitative study focused on the experiences of 13 Latina doctoral students who were in the last stages of completing their doctoral programs at 8 universities across the country. The study centered on the extent to which the participants interpreted the academic socialization processes in their programs in relation to their identities as Latinas. Their experiences were gathered through several semi-structured interviews conducted at various academic conferences.

Overview of Findings
The findings represented positive as well as challenging factors that affected Latina doctoral student experiences.

1. Positive K-12 experiences help to develop a strong academic self-confidence for graduate study.

Negative experiences in K-12 education, such as poor academic preparation, overt and covert racial discrimination, and “undesired cultural assimilation” (González, 2006, p. 357) can marginalize Latina doctoral students in their graduate programs.

2. Institutional support, especially financial aid in the form of scholarships and fellowships, and institutional diversity are essential for helping Latina doctoral students find community and a welcoming campus environment.

Limited funding, gender discrimination, and feeling a lack of respect from students and faculty contribute to perceptions of hostile institutional climates. As a means of protecting oneself from the negative experiences, some Latina doctoral students may appear to disengage from departmental activities and from non-Latina peers.

3. Program curricula that incorporate the research of scholars of color, departmental research opportunities, and financial support to academic conferences are aspects that contributed to positive experiences within the program of study.

Due to the limited number of Latina/os obtaining doctoral degrees, the study indicated that the participants felt tokenized and regarded as the representatives for the entire Latina/o population. Resistance against the academic socialization processes that center on the experiences of White male students may lead to attrition.

4. Successful resistance against socialization practices that seek to undermine Latina identities occurs when Latinas find colleagues who share the same perspectives and can create supportive environments to express one’s ethnic identity, cultural beliefs, and/or language.

Although Latina doctoral students may protect themselves from academic socialization processes by disengaging from the department culture, this form of resistance can be unsuccessful if it leads to marginalization and isolation.

5. At the end of the doctoral experience, Latina doctoral students either maintain their distinct voices within the academy or lose their voices and may reconsider their interests in becoming faculty.

Implications for Policy and Practice
As more Latina/os enter higher education, colleges and universities should assess pathways created for graduate school and analyze structures barring doctoral completion, such as overt and covert racism, sexism, and classism inherent in the design and implementation of graduate programs and curricula. At the local level, departmental cultures evidenced in faculty and student peer interactions and curricular development should be assessed if colleges and universities want to play a role in eradicating oppression and increasing the number of Latina/os entering the academy. As noted in the study, faculty mentoring in college and graduate school is an important aspect of establishing welcoming environments on college campuses. However, only 2.9 percent of all full-time faculty and 3 percent of administrators on college campuses are Latina/o, which creates limited opportunities for all Latina/o student populations to connect with potential Latina/o mentors (Castellanos & Jones, 2003). The emphasis in most studies is on teachers and faculty of color as mentors, not necessarily on encouraging Anglo American teachers and faculty to serve as mentors to youth and college students of color. Policy should address the need for cross-cultural mentoring programs as a recommendation for federally-funded research grants and fellowships and continue the funding mechanisms that focus on fellowships and scholarships at the federal and state levels. As evidenced in this study, experiences in K-12 education affect the ways in which Latinas navigate through graduate school. Establishing a strong sense of academic self-efficacy for Latinas early in their education is essential. Focusing on positive academic socialization practices in graduate school is vital to increasing the rates of Latina doctorate production. Policy should be crafted that considers the progression from K-12 to graduate school as a seamless process in which the knowledge, skills, and abilities of Latina/o students build upon each other and can lead to academic success.

References
Antony, J.S. (2003). Reexamining doctoral student socialization and professional development: Moving beyond the congruence and assimilation orientation. In J.C. Smart (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, XVII (pp. 350-380). New York: Agathon Press.

Baird, L.L. (1993). Using research and theoretical models of graduate student progress. New Directions for Institutional Research, 80, pp. 3-12.

Bowen, W.G., & Rudenstine, N.L. (1992). In pursuit of the Ph.D. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Castellanos, J., & Jones, L. (Eds.). (2003). The majority in the minority: Expanding the representation of Latina/o faculty, administrators and students in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Dorn, S.M., & Papalweis, R. (1997). Improving doctoral student retention. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association: Chicago.

Figueroa, M. A., González, K. P., Marin, P., Moreno, J. F., Navia, C. N., & Pérez, L. X. (2001). Understanding the nature and context of Latina/o doctoral student experiences. Journal of College Student Development, 42, pp. 563-580.

Fry, R. (2002). Latinos in higher education: Many enroll, too few graduate. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.

Gándara, P. (1982). Passing through the eye of the needle: High-achieving Chicanas. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 4, pp. 167-179.

González, J.C. (2006). Academic socialization experiences of Latina doctoral students: A
qualitative understanding of support systems that aid and challenges that hinder the process. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 5(4), pp. 347-365.

Herzig, A.H. (2002). Where have all the students gone? Participation of doctoral students in authentic mathematical activity as a necessary condition for persistence toward the ph.d. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 50, pp. 177-212.

Lovitts, B.E. (2001). Leaving the ivory tower: The causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Solórzano, D.G. (1993). The road to the doctorate for California’s Chicanas and Chicanos: A study of Ford Foundation minority fellows (CPS Brief, v5, No. 16). Berkeley, CA: The California Policy Seminar.

Solórzano, D.G., & Yosso, T.J. (2001). Critical race and LatCrit theory and method: Counter-storytelling. Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(4), pp. 471-495.

Weidman, J.C., & Stein, E.L. (2003). Socialization of doctoral students to academic norms. Research in Higher Education, 44(6), pp. 641-656.

Policy Memo by: Michael G. Richards

Knight, M. G., Norton, N. E. L., Bentley, C. C., & Dixon, I. R. (2004). The power of Black and Latina/o counterstories: Urban families and college-going processes. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35(1), 99-120.

The Problem

This study attempted to provide a comprehensive understanding of poor and working-class black and Latina/o youths' counterstories of family involvement in college-going processes. Counterstories, in critical race theoretical frameworks, are told by people in response to the mainstream narratives of society. In the U.S., for example, the mainstream narrative is based on white supremacy, so counterstories are those told by people of color and women against the dominant and often oppressive mainstream narrative. This article claims that counterstories that focus on college-going are critical given the under-representation of black and Latina/o youth in two and four-year postsecondary institutions. This research is also important to highlight how black and Latina/o families are involved in supporting their children's aspirations for higher education, but not necessarily through traditional educational expectations.

Research Approach

This study used a critical ethnographic approach and a youth co-researcher method. Using critical ethnography, the study examined the processes that impact educational and social inequalities rooted in unequal power relations. Twenty seven black and Latina/o high school youths participated in this study: 14 male, 13 female, 18 black, African, or Jamaican, and 9 Latina/o of Puerto Rican and Dominican backgrounds in the New York City area. Individual and focus group semi-structured interviews were conducted; observations, and written documents were collected. The youths participated as co-researchers by interviewing family members, reflecting on the interviews, and analyzing data. All of the participants in this study were identified as college-bound students.

Major Findings

This study found that family members played an important role in providing black and Latino/a youth with counterstories to the mainstream narratives they received in school about college-going processes. This means that adult family members provided for these youths race, gender, and class appropriate narratives that countered the race neutral and meritocratic narrative about college-going they received in school. These narratives included more honest accounts about the struggles and realities of living racialized, gendered, and classed experiences and the hardships of attaining higher education as well as the community responsibilities and obligations that come with attaining postsecondary degrees. The overall message was that it was not going to be easy for students to achieve the goal of attending college, but that it was possible and important not just for the entire family, but also for the entire community.

Three students were used to highlight how counterstories were constructed by adult family members and the impact they had on youths. These students include Jennifer, of Jamaican background, and her aunt Candace; Tonia and her mother Louise; and Raquel and her cousin Angel. For Jennifer, Candace's counterstory encouraged her to fight against racial and gender oppressions, often maintained by negative stereotypes. Candice's counterstory debunked stereotypical views of lower expectations and the absence of poor and working-class ethnic minority mothers on residential college campuses. Through the counterstories offered her by Candice, Jennifer constructed college-bound identities as a role model and as a fighter for increased college matriculation and against injustices in her neighborhood.

For Tonia, her mother Louise also spoke of the intersecting negotiations of sexism and racism on college campuses experienced by black working-class women such as herself. Louise communicated to Tonia her own struggles as a way to model what worked and what could have been done differently so that Tonia is wiser in negotiating higher education when her time comes. The emphasized multigenerational message to her daughter was never to quit.

Raquel, the third example used, is a Puerto Rican youth who found in her male cousin, Angel, someone who encouraged her college-going aspirations. Angel, a high school dropout and painter, used himself as an example to motivate Raquel not to follow in his footsteps. His counterstories often advised Raquel not to aspire to physical labor as well as to fight public perceptions about intersecting race/ethnicity, class, and schooling attainments.

Overall this study shows that adult family members often provide black and Latina/o youths with counterstories that are culture, gender, and class relevant to their educational aspirations in US society.

Policy Implications

The counterstories and support networks revealed in this study often exist outside the context of schooling. Primary and secondary educators should, therefore, rethink the contexts and roles family members can and often play in the educational aspirations of their children and develop forums for these influences in the school environment. Policymakers in higher education should also be aware of these intrafamily influences as they develop cooperative programs between universities and schools with the aim of bringing more ethnic minorities to four-year campuses.

Furthermore, this study encourages schools and educators to utilize different conceptualizations of family involvement and to employ different entry points to expand traditional models of parental involvement around college-going policies and practices.

References

Urrieta, L. (2005). [Review of: Knight, M. G., Norton, N. E. L., Bentley, C. C., & Dixon, I. R. (2004). The power of Black and Latina/o counterstories: Urban families and college-
going processes. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35(1), 99-120.] Polimemos
Project, Attachment to 2005 Interim Narrative Report. Unpublished Report to the
Lumina Foundation. University of Texas at San Antonio.