Opportunity and Place: Latino Children and America’s Future

Lichter, Daniel T.; Johnson, Kenneth M.

doi:10.1177/00027162211039504

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Because rural communities of color have not been acknowledged often in the literature, policy discussions about rurality and educational attainment have largely been framed within whiteness and have used the experiences of White rural students (Love & Loh, 2020;Watson, 2019). This approach erases and overlooks the presence, needs, and assets of rural communities of color, like rural Latinos, who represent a growing demographic population in rural America (Lichter & Johnson, 2021).…”

Section: Description Of the Research Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying Intersectionality to Address Racial and Spatial Postsecondary Disparities—Rural Latino Youth

Sansone

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: There is a growing concern about the ways in which geography affects the educational opportunity for America’s rural youth. Most research on this population has assumed that rural America is primarily White and that rural college access is stratified by an individual’s ability to complete the application process. Such approaches ignore race and the interplay among geography, admissions practices, and individual behavior and decision-making. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study examines the postsecondary experiences and opportunity structures for Latino youth living in rural Latino communities in South Texas. The purpose of this study is to understand quantitively and qualitatively how the geographic context of a predominantly rural Latino area shaped the college-going process and pathway decisions for the Latino youth living within these rural communities. To critically understand beyond the individual and learn about how systemic conditions in rural Latino communities can usher in (dis)advantages in their postsecondary experiences and sort students into pathways, this study employed Núñez’s (2014) multilevel model of intersectionality framework. As such, this study asked the following research questions: (1) What is the college access experience for Latino youth living in rural communities in South Texas? (2) In what ways, if any, do rural Latino youth describe how their rural geography structures (in) equalities in the college-going process? (3) How are rural Latino youths’ college access and opportunity structured, and does this differ from other geographic contexts? Research Design: Using a three-phase mixed-methods design (QUAL→quan), this study interviewed 101 Latino youth living in three different rural areas in South Texas toward the end of their senior year of high school. The quantitative component of the study used descriptive and spatial data to further expand on, complement, and confirm the intersectional findings in the qualitative data. In the last phase, data were integrated, and inferences were made about how college access opportunities are structured for Latino youth living in rural communities. Conclusions/Recommendations: Using an intersectionality framework, this study identified several ways in which the geography of rural Latino communities is structured that render and perpetuate inequities and disadvantages for Latino youth pursuing college. Rural Latino youth lived in communities that systemically experienced higher poverty, lower median incomes, and less access to resources and opportunities as compared with (sub)urban metro areas. Most students discussed how these geographic conditions played a role in the ways that bounded the opportunities they experienced during their college-going process and their decision to enroll at a college within close proximity to their rural region. This study has implications for how intersectionality frames can expand our understanding of the unique characteristics of rural regions that creates both opportunities and challenges for rural Latino youth pursuing postsecondary opportunities. This is significant given that most higher education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners conflate the racial/ethnic diversity of rural areas with whiteness and being White. In doing so, they overlook the presence of Latinos in rural areas and ignore their intersecting assets and challenges, hindering effective policy solutions that can better support historically marginalized students.

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Section: Description Of the Research Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying Intersectionality to Address Racial and Spatial Postsecondary Disparities—Rural Latino Youth

Sansone

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…Despite this important geographic shift, our knowledge on Latinx families and their children is largely based on samples residing in established immigrant destinations (e.g., Los Angeles, New York) and ignores the dispersion of Latinx into new places where they are clearly the numerical ethnic minority (Massey, 2008). Further, research shows that as Latinx families and youth move to new destination areas, opportunities for children do not necessarily increase (Lichter & Johnson, 2021) as cultural and familial assets may not function the same in these new places where Latinx families may lack the support of their coethnic communities (Lee & Liechty, 2015;Shell et al, 2013). For Latinx families, raising youth becomes more challenging as youth acculturate, especially in places with varied racial-ethnic compositions.…”

Section: Example Of Roving Data Uses and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Place‐Based Developmental Research: Conceptual and Methodological Advances in Studying Youth Development in Context

Witherspoon,

White,

Bámaca

et al. 2023

Monographs Society Res Child

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Scientists have, for some time, recognized that development unfolds in numerous settings, including families, schools, neighborhoods, and organized and unorganized activity settings. Since the turn of the 20th century, the body of mainstream neighborhood effects scholarship draws heavily from the early 20th century Chicago School of Sociology frameworks and have been situating development in neighborhood contexts and working to identify the structures and processes via which neighborhoods matter for a range of developmental outcomes, especially achievement, behavioral and emotional problems, and sexual activity. From this body of work, two new areas of developmental scholarship are emerging. Both areas are promising for advancing an understanding of child development in context. First, cultural‐developmental neighborhood researchers are advancing neighborhood effects research that explicitly recognizes the ways that racial, ethnic, cultural, and immigrant social positions matter for neighborhood environments and for youths' developmental demands, affordances, experiences, and competencies. This body of work substantially expands the range of developmental outcomes examined in neighborhood effects scholarship to recognize normative physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, social, and cultural competencies that have largely been overlooked in neighborhood effects scholarship that espoused a more color‐blind developmental approach. Second, activity space neighborhood researchers are recognizing that residential neighborhoods have important implications for broader activity spaces—or the set of locations and settings to which youth are regularly exposed, including, for example, schools, work, organized activities, and hang‐outs. They are using newer technologies and geographic frameworks to assess exposure to residential neighborhood and extra‐neighborhood environments. These perspectives recognize that time (i.e., from microtime to mesotime) and place are critically bound and that exposures can be operationalized at numerous levels of the ecological system (i.e., from microsystems to macrosystems). These frameworks address important limitations of prior development in context scholarship by addressing selection and exposure. Addressing selection involves recognizing that families have some degree of choice when selecting into settings and variables that predict families' choices (e.g., income) also predict development. Considering exposure involves recognizing that different participants or residents experience different amounts of shared and nonshared exposures, resulting in both under‐and over‐estimation of contextual effects. Activity space scholars incorporate exposure to the residential neighborhood environments, but also to other locations and settings to which youth are regularly exposed, like schools, after‐school settings, work, and hang‐outs. Unfortunately, the cultural‐development and activity space streams, which have both emerged from early 20th century work on neighborhood effects on development, have been advancing largely independently. Thus, the overarching aim of this monograph is to integrate scholarship on residential neighborhoods, cultural development, and activity spaces to advance a framework that can support a better understanding of development in context for diverse groups. In Chapters I and II we present the historical context of the three streams of theoretical, conceptual, and methodological research. We also advance a comprehensive cultural‐developmental activity space framework for studying development in context among children, youth, and families that are ethnically, racially, and culturally heterogeneous. This framework actively recognized diversity in ethnic, racial, immigrant, and socioeconomic social positions. In Chapters III–V we advance specific features of the framework, focusing on: (1) the different levels of nested and nonnested ecological systems that can be captured and operationalized with activity space methods, (2) the different dimensions of time and exposures or experiences that can be captured and operationalized by activity space methods, and (3) the importance of settings structures and social processes for identifying underlying mechanisms of contextual effects on development. Structures are setting features related to the composition and spatial arrangement of people and institutions (e.g., socioeconomic disadvantage, ethnic/racial compositions). Social processes represent the collective social dynamics that take place in settings, like social interactions, group activities, experiences with local institutions, mechanisms of social control, or shared beliefs. In Chapter VI, we highlight a range of methodological and empirical exemplars from the United States that are informed by our comprehensive cultural‐developmental activity space framework. These exemplars feature both quantitative and qualitative methods, including method mixing. These exemplars feature both quantitative and qualitative methods, including method mixing. The exemplars also highlight the application of the framework across four different samples from populations that vary in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status (SES), geographic region, and urbanicity. They capture activity space characteristics and features in a variety of ways, in addition to incorporating family shared and nonshared activity space exposures. Finally, in Chapter VII we summarize the contributions of the framework for advancing a more comprehensive science of development in context, one that better realizes major developmental theories emphasizing persons, processes, contexts, and time. Additionally, we offer a place‐based, culturally informed developmental research agenda to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

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“…Rural growth has resulted from the movement of Hispanic populations from the Southwest into new immigrant destinations in America's heartland, the Carolinas, and the Northwestoften driven by job-seeking in low-wage regional industries (Crowley and Knepper 2019;Flippen and Farrell-Bryan 2021). Between 1980 and 2019, Hispanic population growth accounted for 64 percent of all growth in nonmetropolitan counties and offset much of the overall rural population decline between 2010 and 2020 (Johnson 2022;Lichter and Johnson 2021).…”

Section: Diversity In Rural Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnoracial Diversity Across Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan America: Urbanization, Multiracial Growth, and Uneven Exposure to Diversity

Brooks¹,

Mueller²,

Thiede³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Growing ethnoracial diversity is a defining characteristic of the America’s urban and suburban populations. Here we shift attention to growing but underappreciated diversity in rural areas and use U.S. Census data from 1980 to 2020 to investigate trends in rural diversity. We compare three rural Americas: metropolitan expansion counties (i.e., growth at the metro fringe), emergence counties (recently reclassified small metropolitan areas), and left behind counties (consistently rural places). We estimate exposure to diversity across ethnoracial groups and produce counterfactual estimates that highlight the unique contributions of each group’s growth and decline to overall diversity. Although diversity is increasing across county types, the demographic profiles of expansion and emergence counties remain similar to left behind counties. White and minority exposure to diversity is increasing overtime, with disparities in exposure having converged overtime. Finally, rural diversity also is increasing due to both growing multiracial populations and White population decline.

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Opportunity and Place: Latino Children and America’s Future

Cited by 13 publications

References 42 publications

Applying Intersectionality to Address Racial and Spatial Postsecondary Disparities—Rural Latino Youth

Applying Intersectionality to Address Racial and Spatial Postsecondary Disparities—Rural Latino Youth

Place‐Based Developmental Research: Conceptual and Methodological Advances in Studying Youth Development in Context

Ethnoracial Diversity Across Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan America: Urbanization, Multiracial Growth, and Uneven Exposure to Diversity

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