Surviving the Doctorate and Thriving as Faculty: Latina Junior Faculty Reflecting on Their Doctoral Studies Experiences

“Am I going crazy?!”: A Critical Race Analysis of Doctoral Education

“…Within this sense-making process, scholars have ascertained the importance of students assimilating these values and norms into their own to be successful in academic careers (Austin, 2002;Weidman & Stein, 2003;Wiedman, Twale, & Stein, 2001). Other scholars have challenged the assimilation perspective in exchange for a socialization experience that holds diverse values and perspectives in high regard (González, 2007;Solórzano & Villalpando, 1998).…”

“…An obvious gap between enrollment, persistence, and attainment exists in the doctoral education of black and Latina/o students. While increasing enrollment of racially diverse students in doctoral programs is important and a necessary ongoing effort, scholars must do a better job at understanding the experiences of black and Latina/o doctoral students, particularly those that might contribute to or hinder these students' persistence and graduation (Castellanos, Gloria, & Kamimura, 2006;Gay, 2004;González, 2006;González, 2007;Pruitt-Logan, Gaff, & Jentoft, 2002).…”

“…In a report to the Lumina Foundation, R. Padilla (2007) uncovered a sobering reality-out of every 100 Latino students in the K-20 educational pipeline, less than one earns a doctoral degree. González (2007), in his qualitative study of 12 recently graduated Latina faculty, illuminated the many issues Latinas/os face in their doctoral experiences. His participants reported facing isolation, alienation, lack of support, low expectations from faculty based on racial and ethnic discrimination as well as linguistic bias, and discouragement from using more culturally appropriate epistemologies, theories, and frameworks (i.e., Chicana feminism).…”

“…The tension between who one is (i.e., how they are defined socially) versus what one is capable of, can make the doctoral education experience academically, socially, and emotionally difficult for black and Latina/o doctoral students. González (2007) stated, "[T]he academy has a history of exclusivity [and] racism . .…”

Latina Student Mothers’ Trenzas de Identidades in the Community College

“…Student mothers must negotiate the presumed conflicts between the binaries of mother/student, good mother/good student, as well as the socially constructed narrative of the "good" versus "bad" mother (DuquaineWatson, 2017;Lynch, 2008). Literature on student mothers focus primarily on the graduate level (Castañeda & Isgro, 2013;González, 2007;Lynch, 2008;Springer, Parker, & Leviten-Reid 2009), with little attention to community college student mothers, rendering them "unexplored and, as such, an unacknowledged population" (Oliva & Jimenez, 2017, p. 239 145). Deficit ideologies range from blaming student mothers for poor judgment for pursuing an education while deciding to have children, to cultural stereotypes and beliefs that single student mothers are bad mothers (Cunningham, 2013;Duquaine-Watson, 2017 vilified as "bad mothers" and "bad immigrants" (Escobar, 2016;Meacham, 2016, para 12).…”