invited.indd


Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE) Journal ©2012, Volume 6, Issue 3 4

Introduction

Sonia Nieto
University of Massachusetts—Amherst

Melissa Rivera
Hunter College - City University of New York

Sandra Quiñones
University of Rochester

Jason Irizarry 
University of Connecticut

Latino/a students have been educated in U.S. schools for centuries, and still more will be arriving at our 
schools tomorrow.  This reality is but one indication of the multiplicity of experiences that defi ne the long, 
complex, and troubled history of Latinos/as in U.S. schools.  Although they are more visible today than at any 
other time in our history, the fact remains that the sociocultural, political, economic, and historical context of 
Latino/a education is hardly known outside the university offi ces of academics who study it, or of teachers and 
administrators who teach Latino/a students.  Given both the growing number of U.S.-born Latinos/as as well 
as the dramatically increasing number of newcomers, the need to confront the serious shortcomings of the 
education of Latinos/as has never been more urgent. In their comprehensive analysis of the education of Latinos/
as in the U.S., Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras (2009) put it bluntly: “Today,” they write, “the most 
urgent challenge for the American educational system has a Latino face” (p. 1). 

Nevertheless, there is not just one Latino/a reality.  The Latino community in the U.S. is incredibly 
diverse in terms of national origin, race, time in the U.S., political orientation, English and Spanish language ability 
and usage (among other home languages), and many other differences.  Latinos/as in the U.S. include Mexican 
Americans, some of whom have been “here” before there was a “here,” that is, before the Southwest was 
annexed by the U.S. through the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848.  Puerto Ricans began immigrating in large 
numbers in the late 1940s, although a Puerto Rican community existed in New York and Tampa as early as the 
1860s, as did a small Cuban community.  The large infl ux of Cubans began in the 1960s, and they were joined 
by large numbers of Dominicans, Salvadorans, and other Central and South Americans in the following decades.  
Thus, to claim that there is just one “Latino perspective” or “Latino experience” is to miss the multiplicity and 
complexity of our communities.

The work of addressing the challenge of the education of Latinos/as has begun through, among other 
efforts, the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project, or NLERAP.  Beginning in 2000 as a 
national initiative of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College, NLERAP’s goal has been to add 
multiple Latino/a perspectives to the type of educational research needed to meet the needs of our communities 
throughout the U.S.  After hosting a series of regional meetings around the country that invited educators, 
community activists, university scholars, and others within the broader Latino/a community to comment on 
the pressing educational needs of Latinos/as, the NLERAP National Advisory Board developed and published a 
research agenda (NLERAP, 2003).  The Agenda articulated a framework for using participatory and collaborative 
research results to infl uence the outcomes of schooling for Latino/a youth. In addition to the Agenda document, 
the project also produced an academic volume (Pedraza & Rivera, 2005) with chapters written by leading scholars 
that substantiated the need for a community approach to the investigation of schooling issues for Latinos/as.  In 
conjunction with the release of the volume, a press conference was held in Washington, D.C. to introduce the 
concerns it addressed (Viadero, 2005). From 2004 to 2009, NLERAP conducted its fi rst local research project, 
with funding from the Ford Foundation, focused on the theme of arts in education at El Puente Academy for 
Peace and Justice in New York City (Rivera, Medellin-Paz, Pedraza et al., 2010). 

Although the work of NLERAP has been important in making the issues of Latino/a education more 

Introduction



Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE) Journal ©2012, Volume 6, Issue 3 5

visible to the general public through national conferences, publications, and press releases, in 2007, the National 
Board met to discuss further actions that could promote the agenda even more vigorously.  The Board decided 
that what was needed was a critical review of the literature in one of the four research areas suggested in the 
NLERAP Agenda document (2003).  After a lengthy discussion, consensus emerged among board members that 
the Sociocultural, Political, Economic, and Historical Context of Latino/a Education was the most useful area to develop 
further because it could serve as a foundation for the others (Assessment and Accountability; Teacher Education 
and Professional Development; and Arts in Education). 

This document is the result of those deliberations.  In it, we address the context of education for Latino/
as on the three levels enunciated in the Agenda documents (i.e., interpersonal, instructional, and institutional).  
We envision the review as a critical synthesis of the literature, intended for both professional and scholarly 
audiences.  We expect that it will be used in teacher and administrative professional preparation courses as 
well as for developing proposals for research studies on the education of Latinos/as around the nation.  The 
intent is not to defi ne or limit a priori the parameters of any such research, but rather to provide a useful tool 
for researchers, practitioners, advocates, and administrators undertaking studies relating to the improvement 
of education for Latino/a students in their local areas.  A major purpose is to contextualize the framework and 
approaches that have been used previously by others to analyze schooling problems found in different Latino/a 
communities around the country.  Although we include all Latinos/as in this document, we are especially mindful 
of new immigrants, particularly those in geographic areas where Latino/a families had not traditionally settled 
until recently, most notably the Southeast and Northwest (Wortham, Murillo, & Hamann, 2002). Although 
most data are not disaggregated according to gender, we also want to caution readers that the current available 
information makes it quite clear that in most areas of schooling (academic achievement, high school graduation 
rates, college-going rates, and so forth), females outperform males even more so than in the general population.  
For example, Gary Orfi eld documented that in 2000, nearly 59 percent of Latinas graduated from high school 
compared with only 48 percent of Latinos/as (Orfi eld, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004).  This is a trend worth 
heeding as policymakers, administrators, and teachers think about potential programs and policies that will 
benefi t male students.  More recently, Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras (2009) reviewed data that 
corroborated this trend, not only in terms of high school graduation rates but also in achievement in reading, 
math, and other content areas.

It is our hope that this review will help guide researchers and others willing to initiate efforts to address 
the complex problems faced by Latinos/as in school systems both in regions of the country in which they have 
traditionally settled as well as in regions that are not accustomed to their presence.

The document begins with a description of the NLERAP approach to research on the education of 
Latinos/as in the U.S. with a focus on sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts, and a description of Participatory 
Action Research, or PAR, an approach to pedagogy and research that shows great promise in both promoting 
achievement and encouraging civic engagement.  This is followed by a brief general overview of the education 
of Latinos/as, including both historical and demographic data and an articulation of some of the foremost 
challenges concerning educational attainment among the various Latino/a communities.  The majority of the 
review addresses three specifi c contexts: interpersonal, instructional, and institutional.  The interpersonal context 
describes the signifi cance of relationships among students, teachers, and families, and also details how using a 
funds of knowledge approach (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 2005) can promote the educational achievement 
of Latinos/as.  The instructional context reviews some of the approaches, both helpful and detrimental, that 
have been used with Latino/a students, and what can be learned from this history.  In the institutional context 
section, issues such as school climate, high-stakes testing, tracking, and the quality of teachers are addressed.  
We need to emphasize that, although we separate the paper into three disparate sections, the sections are 
connected and overlapping.  Moreover, each of these sections addresses political issues that affect the education 
of Latinos/as in myriad ways.  For instance, issues of inequitable school fi nancing, privatization, surveillance 
of undocumented families and raids on immigrants, teacher turnover, the high-stakes nature of testing, and 
English Only policies are particularly relevant in the institutional section, although they are also implicated in 
the instructional and interpersonal sections.  Scholars, for example, have found that the teacher turnover rate 
in some schools in California is higher than 50 percent.  Clearly, such turnover will have dramatic effects on 

Introduction



Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE) Journal ©2012, Volume 6, Issue 3 6

the lives and educational outcomes of young people, particularly for those relying on public schools as a site for 
growth, support, and stability.   

Throughout all three sections, a number of vignettes and case studies, focusing mainly on immigrant and 
English language learners, will be used to illuminate the issues.  The paper ends with a brief set of recommendations 
for charting a new course for the education of Latinos/as.

Introduction