Ensuring the success of Latino males in higher education - Victor B. Saenz

Latino males are effectively vanishing from the American higher education pipeline. Even as the number of Latinas/os attending college has actually increased steadily over the last few decades, the proportional representation of Latino males continues to slide relative to their Latina female counterparts.

The question of why Latino males are losing ground in accessing higher education-relative to their peers-is an important and complex one, and it lies at the heart of this book. There are several broad themes highlighted, catalogued along with the four dimensions of policy, theory, research, and practice. The contributors to this book present new research on factors that inhibit or promote Latino success in both four-year institutions and community colleges in order to inform both policy and practice. They explore the social-cultural factors, peer dynamics, and labour force demands that may be perpetuating the growing gender gap, and consider what lessons can be learned from research on the success of Latinas. This book also closely examines key practices that enable first generation Latino male undergraduates to succeed which may seem counterintuitive to institutional expectations and preconceived notions of student behaviour.

Using narrative data, the book also explores the role of family in persistence; outlines how Latino men conceptualise fulfilling expectations, negotiate the emasculisation of the educational process, and how they confront racialisation in the pursuit of a higher education; uncovers attitudes to help-seeking that are detrimental to their success: and analyses how those who succeed and progress in college apply their social capital - whether aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial, or resistant.

While uncovering the lack of awareness at all levels of our colleges and universities about the depth and severity of the challenges facing Latino males, this book provides the foundation for rethinking policy; challenges leaders to institutionalise male-focused programmes and services; and presents data to inform needed changes in practice for outreach and retention.