Inside doctoral education in America: Voices of Latinas/os in pursuit of the PhD

Journal of College Student Development, Jul/Aug 2002 by Gonzalez, Kenneth P, Marin, Patricia

Both Morales (1988; Achor & Morales, 1990) and Solorzano (1993, 1998) investigated the experiences of Latinas/os who were enrolled in or graduated from doctoral programs during the 1980s. Morales's study of 100 Chicana doctoral recipients in the field of education revealed critical strategies of resistance employed in the process of overcoming various institutional barriers. In particular, Morales found that students frequently challenged and rejected any underlying messages of their unworthiness. Solorzano's (1993, 1998) study of 66 Chicanas/os who had received Ford Foundation doctoral fellowships highlighted the roles of racism and sexism in the process of attaining a doctorate. Specifically, Solorzano (1998) found that Chicana/o doctoral students: (a) felt isolated in the academy because of their ethnicity and gender, (b) perceived that their professors had lower expectations for them, and (c) experienced marginalizing racial and gender incidents.

The weakness of the existing literature begins with the lack of current data. Each of the reviewed studies were conducted with samples from either the 1970s or 1980s. Consequently, it is unclear whether the existing research is relevant for current Latina/o doctoral students. Second, every study except Solorzano's (1993, 1998) investigated Latinas/os who had already completed or dropped out of doctoral education. Scholars have neglected to examine students in the process of attaining a doctorate. Finally, and most importantly, the current knowledge base on Latina/o doctoral students may be characterized as fragmented. In other words, the research community is without a holistic picture or comprehensive understanding of Latina/o doctoral student experiences.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

To address the weaknesses in the existing literature, particularly the need for a holistic picture of Latina/o doctoral student experiences, we employed a variety of qualitative research methods to understand, in depth, our experiences as Latina/o doctoral students in the field of education. Six Latina/o doctoral students (including the authors), representing various research extensive institutions, participated in the study. We chose qualitative research methods because of their ability to produce a holistic understanding of the phenomenon under investigation (Creswell, 1994). We focused on doctoral students in the field of education because nearly 25% of all doctorates awarded to Latinas/os are in this field (National Research Council, 1998). Students were recruited for the study by the two primary authors of this article during the national meetings of two educational research organizations. At the time the data were collected, each student was in the process of attaining a PhD. Most of the students were at the end of their course work. Two students were in the early stages of their dissertations. Half of the participants were women.

The two primary authors of this article were also full participants in the study. We chose to participate in the study because of our own experiences as Latina/o doctoral students and our desire to make sense of our experiences. In conventional qualitative research, the researcher's personal experience and learning needs are viewed as factors that need to be eliminated from the research process as opposed to valuable components within it. Alan Peshkin, however, argued that personal experience is an important resource for theoretical insights, hypotheses, and validity checks. Specifically, he stated: