Date of Award

Spring 5-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Quaylan Allen, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Whitney McIntyre Miller, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, Ph.D.

Abstract

The Latino/a community is the largest ethnic minority group in the United States and continues to grow. Although enrollment in higher education is on the rise, Latino/a students complete their degrees at lower rates than their white counterparts. This disparity is further magnified when accounting for gender, with Latina women outpacing Latino men at every educational milestone. Disparities in doctorate attainment lead to the underrepresentation of Latino men in student support or leadership positions, which may negatively impact the success of Latino students. This qualitative study examines how First-Generation Latino males leverage Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) to navigate systemic barriers in education-based doctoral programs at predominantly white institutions. Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), Latino Critical Legal Theory (LatCrit), and Chicana Feminist Epistemology (CFE), this research employs a Mestiza Methodology to center participants’ lived experiences during their doctoral program. Findings revealed how participants utilized CCW’s cultural capital to make meaning of their experiences and situate their lived experiences in the broader context of systemic issues in academia.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

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