If the Closing the Gaps initiative is to achieve its objectives (to bring Texas in line with the other large states in terms of a college-educated population), the state must find a way to be more successful with Hispanic students. Simply put, Closing the Gaps has made enormous strides in participation by all demographic categories, but has not kept pace with a surge in the general population of Hispanics, who tend to come disproportionately from families with little or no college experience.
Here are some numbers, according to a recent article in the Houston Chronicle by Lisa Falkenberg: Only 22 percent of Hispanics ages 18-24 enrolled in college in 2000, compared with 39 percent of whites and 31 percent of blacks, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. A 2003 study by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development estimated that only 6 percent of Hispanic kindergartners would grow up to earn a bachelor's degree, compared with 49 percent of Asians, 30 percent of whites and 16 percent of blacks.
Some commentators have attributed "familism" as a possible explanation. But it's controversial.
Familism is a "social pattern whereby family takes priority over the individual," according to the article. In a classic scenario, a talented Hispanic high school graduate may be reluctant to leave home to attend a selective university. So, the individual attends a local college, but family responsibilities become too overwhelming, and this person never graduates. College faculty members often report that students drop out of school because "life gets in the way," rather than the difficulty of the curriculum.
One should read the entire article, but here's passage from the Chronicle piece to frame the discussion:
The typical answer from demographers, sociologists and other experts to the cultural question is “no.”
“It's the easy answer. It's the self-serving answer,” says Rice University sociologist Steven Klineberg. “The beauty and the danger of the cultural explanation is that it allows you, the middle-class Anglo, to get off the hook. If it really isn't culture, if they really do want an education, then we have to provide the resources.”
Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP charter schools, said he's knocked on thousands of doors recruiting students in under-served minority communities, and he's found no difference in the “parents' desire to see their kids succeed.”
Sociologist Ruth Lopez Turley doesn't disagree. But her research suggests that culture may play a role in the achievement gap, specifically when it comes to the lag in applying for college.
“It's a valid question, and it's one worth asking,” says Turley, a Laredo native who will leave her post at the University of Wisconsin at Madison this summer to join Rice University's Institute for Urban Research. “It's a good idea to consider culture, but it's not a good idea to consider culture by itself.”
Turley's research suggests something called “familism,” particularly pronounced among Hispanics, is a “powerful predictor” of Hispanic students' college application rates. In the 2009 study, based on data from nearly 14,000 high school seniors attending 96 Texas public high schools in 2002, Turley and co-author Matthew Desmond found that young Hispanics have about 44 percent lower odds of applying to college than Anglo students.
Familism, roughly defined as a social pattern whereby family takes priority over the individual, is also prominent in Asian culture, but Asians as a broad group tend to have income and education advantages that help compensate.
While most research focuses on the positives of Hispanic family ties, some researchers have found they can place weighty demands on talented family members and that group conformity can stifle high-achiever motivation.
“They put so much importance on it that they do put their own individual goals aside, or postpone them at least, for the sake of taking care of their families' needs first,” Turley said.
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