The challenges that Latino first-generation college students face when attending college in the U.S., especially those who were born to immigrant parents, are unique. It is important to explore the students' navigation through college and how their backgrounds impact their ability to access resources such as financial aid, academic support, and mentorship. Research indicates that this population of students faces several challenges as they pursue higher education. Many struggle with financial issues and a lack of guidance with regard to the college application process, making it difficult for them to access important resources, such as faculty mentors and academic advisors. Additionally, they often feel torn between family obligations and their own educational goals. Many families expect them to financially contribute to the household, adding stress on top of their educational demands. Institutions also fail to provide the necessary outreach and support services many Latino students need, leading to higher dropout rates among this group. This study is designed to understand how Latino first-generation college students’ experiences and the barriers they face influence their access to and success in higher education. Based on a sample of ten such students in their third and fourth year of college, a series of semi-structured, intensive interviews lasting between 45 and 90 minutes each were conducted to capture their personal stories, how they navigated the educational system, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame them as they approach the end of their college experience.

Research shows that storytelling strengthens intergenerational bonds by passing down values, histories, and knowledge (Vasudevan et al., 2022). Additionally, storytelling provides a context for the development of STEM-related practices, like asking questions, explaining, and making sense of the world through observation and reasoning. While existing studies emphasize the cultural and emotional dimensions of storytelling, few have examined how storytelling is associated with scientific practices like questioning and explaining during everyday interactions. Latine children often initiate science-related conversations in natural, home-based settings (Castañeda et al., 2022). These interactions, typically about animals, plants, or weather, frequently start with children’s spontaneous questions and are full of explanations, analogies, and observational reasoning. The current study explores connections between storytelling and everyday STEM practices of asking questions and providing explanations using semi-structured interviews with Latine caregivers of preschool-aged children. Preliminary self-reported data with 81 Latine caregivers (71 mothers, 5 fathers, 5 grandmothers) living in New York City suggests that 77% of caregivers share stories with their preschool-aged children (Mage = 50 months). Out of those who share stories, 0.23 share stories everyday, 0.23 share every 1-2 days, 0.13 share every 3-4 days, 0.20 share once a week, and 0.18 share once a month. Future analysis will explore themes in caregiver-child STEM practices, specifically question asking and explanations. By examining these practices, we can better understand how storytelling functions not only as a mode of cultural transmission but also as a foundation for cognitive and scientific development in young children.

This study investigates the post-high school trajectories of Latinx students in California's Central Valley, a region known for its high Latinx population and underfunded schools. Latinx students from this region tend to have lower higher education enrollment rates as many students go on to become farmworkers, pursue post-secondary education within the area, or pursue a career that doesn't require higher education. Understanding why and what factors students consider when making decisions about their post-high school pursuits is vital. Using LatCrit as a framework, the study will examine the intersectional identities and lived experiences of Latinx high school juniors and seniors, focusing on factors that dissuade them from pursuing higher education. The study will employ platicás as a culturally familiar practice expressed by the Latinx community to gather insights from my collaborators about their educational experiences and aspirations. The findings will provide much needed insights into how we can improve outreach and equitable educational practices to empower Latinx students in the Central Valley. This study will also help us better understand this region's inequities and address the academic needs of the Latinx community in the Central Valley.

In recent years, researchers and theorists have developed multiple theoretical frameworks and pedagogical approaches for serving, sustaining, and empowering queer Chicanx/Latinx students and other Queer Students of Color (QSOC). Drawing from a lineage of Black, Indigenous, and Chicana feminist scholarship in educational research, specifically, a collective of queer Chicanx/Latinx scholars have conceptualized culturally-specific, experientially-grounded “Muxerista” [womanist] and “Joteria” [queer Chicanx/Latinx] pedagogies and developed further implications for educational research and praxis. Such developments have utilized Muxerista and Joteria analytics to outline community-centered epistemologies and classroom-based pedagogies and frameworks; however, further study is needed in exploring such theories, epistemologies, and pedagogies outside of the classroom. Providing an overview of Muxerista and Joteria scholarship, I intend to amplify the possibilities of such frameworks in the cultivation of both educational research study and Student Affairs praxis outside of classroom contexts. In doing so, I mobilize these fields outside of the classroom and, further, outside of the temporal-spatial university to outline future directions for Higher Education research and praxis that aims to nurture QSOC across space and time.