Accessing Possible Selves With Limited College Knowledge: Case Studies of Latino Boys in Two Urban Continuation Schools

Abstract

Justice-involved youth are less likely to hold positive attitudes toward education and education systems due to the unfair treatment that they experience. Despite the exchange of college knowledge between justice-involved Latino young men in urban continuation schools, this topic is relatively absent from college access and higher education literature. Using Oyserman and Markus’s (1990a) notion of possible selves as a theoretical framework and drawing from in-depth interviews and observations with 26 middle and high school Latino young men across two urban continuation schools, I find that educators intentionally did not share college knowledge with Latino young men. Furthermore, I reveal that these youth possess inaccurate information about the college admissions process. If schools are to help the most vulnerable student populations prepare and aspire for postsecondary education, it is important to equitably disseminate accurate college knowledge to all students.

Higher Education and Justice-Impacted Students: Toward a Radical Reimagining

“…The interactions in Huerta (in press) continually reinforce messages of worth and value, or the lack of both, to the Latinx boys. First, the built environment imposes its own relationship, conveying messages of value and worth to the students.…”

“…Huerta (in press) outlines that over 76% of the Latinx boys in his study expressed interest in college yet only one made inroads to gain useful knowledge. Too often in quasi-carceral and carceral educational settings, including continuation schools, only one or two Latinx boys are lucky enough to make it through to higher education and are considered “exceptional.” Yet, 76% of the students in his study could have been equally as exceptional if provided the information, support, and resources necessary to navigate the college admissions process.…”

“…We ask, why are minoritized youth punished more often in school settings than their white counterparts? Dizon et al (in press) and Huerta (in press) help to illuminate the adultification , or constructing children with perceived adult culpabilities, which then results in schools contributing to racialized control and oppression in the name of safety and order. (Dancy, 2014) discusses how Black children have historically been denied the developmental period of childhood and adolescence.…”

“…After emancipation, “white supremacy fashioned a concept of both Black men and boys as menaces to society, in order to create a new way of knowing bodies that were no longer controllable assets” (2014, p. 479). That is, calling them menaces, “risk objects” (Dizon et al, in press), superpredators, or “inherently criminal” (Huerta, in press) has long justified continued power relations and forms of devaluation, carceralization, and discrimination (Noguera, 2003; Rios, 2011).…”

“…Huerta (in press) highlights the educational aspirations and experiences of Latino boys who attend two continuation schools. In perhaps one of the clearest indictments of the school-to-prison pipeline for Latinx boys, Huerta highlights how mere inclusion in the continuation school population is, in and of itself, a step into the carceral space, where many students and teachers believe it to be a “last stop” even as students present as interested in the pursuit of higher education.…”