Building relationships and utilizing support networks on and off campus as a first-generation college student (FGCS) from an immigrant family is critical to achieving postsecondary success. This chapter explores the personal support networks and help-seeking preferences of immigrant-origin FGCSs as part of a three-year longitudinal mixed-methods study with FGCSs at four public Hispanic-serving institutions in California. We employ social network analysis methods using survey and interview data to explore the types of relationships twelve Latinx immigrant-origin FGCSs have that provide them support in college. To guide our analysis, we use Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth. Findings reveal the significance and specific types of support provided by parents, siblings, extended family, friends and peers, co-workers, and college advisors. These findings promote an expansive view of familial support, with many connections providing encouragement, motivation, and tangible support and serving as brokers to college-based resources. Recognizing these relationships can facilitate the modification of student services and programming to help FGCSs enroll and persist in college.

This chapter seeks to investigate the impact of culturally competent mentoring on college readiness for students of immigrant origin through qualitative data. Drawing from fifty-four interviews with undergraduate students at a 4-year, Minority Serving Institution, this chapter investigates how varied mentoring experiences with college preparation, at both institutional and individual levels, impact the transition into college for students of immigrant origin. We find that students identify positive experiences with both individual and institutional culturally competent mentoring. This support provides the tools to navigate from high school to college. Additionally, interview participants identify specific behaviors and practices of their mentors that align with culturally competent pedagogy. However, students who navigate through high school with culturally competent support do not necessarily find those same conditions translate to their experiences at a four-year institution. Therefore, we argue that culturally competent individual mentorship and institutional/programmatic support are critical for preparing students to enter college as well as during their higher education journeys.

Little work has focused on the college enrollment process of students from immigrant families. Research suggests the intersection of social class and nativity is salient for understanding the college enrollment process. This study draws on data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to examine (1) the extent to which stages of the college enrollment process systematically vary by parental nativity and education and (2) the extent to which each stage of the college enrollment process contributes to differences in postsecondary outcomes. Findings show that students with <BA parents receive less consistent messaging about the importance of college compared to students with BA+ US-born parents. Moreover, students with <BA parents and students with BA+ immigrant parents are less likely to rely on their parents for college information and are less likely to complete important college enrollment steps. Differences in the college enrollment process account for some of the differences in immediate postsecondary outcomes. Findings have implications for research on immigrant-origin and first-generation college students as well as for institutional college readiness strategies.

This chapter analyzes the evolution of the Federation of Colombian Educators (FECODE) in the 1980s and 1990s, to show how and why factionalism took hold. It first examines the Pedagogical Movement of the 1980s, a teaching-oriented social movement that reveals a fundamental split between the radical and moderate lefts. This movement sheds light on why the union was initially included in policy negotiations. It then examines broader changes in teacher–state relations that culminated in FECODE’s role in negotiating an education decentralization package that strengthened the national executive committee. The last section analyzes how the political opening contributed to more hierarchical relations and deepening political divisions.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Black immigrants have migrated to the United States in increasing numbers (Tamir & Anderson, 2022) and have helped transform the Black population (Kent, 2007) in the United States broadly and within higher education (George Mwangi, 2014). Despite their racialization, experiences, and collective interests among Black students, Black immigrant collegians’ histories are distinct from Black students who are descendants of enslaved Africans. Even though they have specific educational and cultural supports to address their needs, Black immigrant collegian experiences are often understudied or excluded from immigrant scholarship (George Mwangi, 2014; Hutchinson, 2018). Further ignored are the impacts of colonialism and marginalization in US culture that shape Black immigrant student experiences (Kasinitz, 2008). This chapter analyzes institutional forces that impact Black immigrant experiences on US campuses, with particular attention to broader histories of colonialism and marginalization. We utilize an emergent framework, Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (Museus & Smith, 2016), to explore how Black immigrants navigate higher education.

This chapter – scaffolded by an interpretive, constructivist qualitative study design supported by liminality and intersectionality theory – shares the voices of nine undergraduate FGCS women of immigrant origin enrolled at a large, 4-year, public institution in the Mid-Atlantic. Our work was guided by the following research question: “How, if at all, do first-generation college student women of immigrant origin perceive the role of gender in their experiences on- and off-campus?” Analysis of multiple interviews with and among participants as well as analysis of participant journal reflections support findings that speak to the students’ perceptions of (1) how familial expectations and country/ies of origin values related to gender roles; (2) how race, immigration status, and language further complicated students’ perceptions of immigrant-origin identities; and (3) how serving in familial roles fostered gratitude, resilience, and transformation.

Drawing upon interview data from a yearlong study with fourteen children of Latinx immigrants applying to college, I explore how students’ visions of their futures shape their college decision-making processes. I utilize possible selves theory as a guiding framework, which speaks to how people imagine who they may become in the future and can guide their actions (Markus & Nurius, 1986). I explore the following research questions: (1) how do children of Latinx immigrants conceive of their possible futures, both within higher education and beyond?, (2) what is the connection between student and familial pasts in the conceptualization of educational futures, and (3) how do students’ conceptualizations of the future shape their higher education decision-making? What I find is that students think about various possible versions of themselves simultaneously in their decision-making. This chapter contributes to current research on college choice/decision-making, the application of possible selves theory to postsecondary education, and increased insight on the role of immigrant origins in the construction of higher education aspirations among the children of Latinx immigrants.

This chapter shows how a hierarchical organization and a dominant faction were crucial prerequisites for the strategy of instrumentalism. The union’s hierarchical structure enabled it to mobilize teachers in elections and a dominant faction enabled negotiations with political parties from across the ideological spectrum. The last section analyzes the political backlash against instrumentalism in 2013, which resulted in leadership turnover and policy changes that weakened the union overall. Despite this backlash, however, the union’s internal organization remained largely intact and union leaders continue to be ideologically flexible, in line with the main argument in this book.

College access does not begin or end with an acceptance letter; it continues throughout students’ college experiences, especially for first-generation, working-class Latinx students who are experiencing many college milestones for the first time. It is predicted by scholars that the rapid growth of the Latinx population will make them a large college applicant pool in the near future. These predictions show that retention efforts for Latinx students are an important investment for institutions of higher education. However, support for Latinx first-generation, working-class college students is often lacking at universities. In this conceptual chapter, we center on first-generation, working-class Latinx students of immigrant origin and the identity intersections experienced by individual students to equip administrators, academic advisors, and university data analysts with the knowledge to improve Latinx student success efforts through an overview of (1) academic advising, (2) data analytics, (3) social class, and (4) theories and frameworks related to the identity intersections of Latinx students.

This chapter provides an overview of the book. It presents the outcome of interest: the political strategies of teachers or the different ways that teachers mobilize in politics. These strategies are referred to as instrumentalism (strategic alliances), movementism (recurrent protests), and leftism (alliances with left parties). The chapter explains the significance of these strategies in relation to the labor movement and education politics, and it introduces the main argument. This chapter shows that examining the ways in which teachers mobilize in politics helps to shed light on normative questions about how they shape education policy and democratic governance.