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4: Staggered Inequalities in Access to Higher Education by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity
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73 /////////////~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In institutions of higher learning, the retention and persistence of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups has come to the forefront as the economic and social value of a baccalaureate degree increases (Orfield, Marin, & Horn, ; Tinto, , ). After making rapid gains in the late s and early s, the enrollment of historically underrepresented groups, namely African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans, began to stall in the late s, increasing again only in the late s (Price & Wohlford, ). Latina/o youth actually increased enrollment in higher education during the s but persistence to degree remained elusive (Suro & Fry, ). Their enrollment is clustered disproportionately in community colleges that have a poor record of transferring students to four-year colleges. Studies on Latinos and African Americans in higher education have remained remarkably silent on gender issues. With the exception of the American Association of University Women’s landmark study on Latinas in school (Ginorio & Huston, ), the emphasis remains upon aggregate data (e.g., Tienda & Mitchell, ). Gender differences have been highlighted in the past decade as a result of the growing gap between male and female baccalaureate degree holders among African Americans, Mexican American, and non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), as women outpace their male counterparts (Price & Wohlford, ; González, Jovel, & Stoner, ). However, educational disparities by socioeconomic status (SES), race, and ethnicity among women in access to U.S. higher education have been less studied but are important to illuminate factors associated with completion of higher education that are unique to women from different ethnic groups. Among all baccalaureate degrees awarded to women in , percent were awarded to non-Hispanic Whites, percent to African American women, 4 Staggered Inequalities in Access to Higher Education by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity RUTH ENID ZAMBRANA AND VICTORIA-MARÍA MACDONALD and only . percent to Latino women. Three-quarters of all female doctoral degrees were awarded to non-Hispanic Whites in , with African Americans receiving . percent and Latinas . percent. By the numbers had crept up for African American and Latino women, receiving . percent and . percent , respectively, of all doctoral degrees. According to scholars examining parity in doctoral production, between and , Mexican American women remain the most underrepresented group among all female doctoral recipients and have the lowest rates of degree attainment among all Latino women (Watford, et al., ). Among the Latino women receiving doctoral degrees in , less than one-fourth were Mexican American, and in less than one-third (. percent vs. . percent) of all doctoral recipients were Mexican American despite their larger numbers in the general Latina population (Watford, et al., ). This finding is not surprising, as Mexican Americans, representing two-thirds of all Hispanics in the United States, have experienced systematic and persistent oppression and inequality since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War. These data emphasize the importance of examining women’s experiences in sociohistorical contexts and interrogating how prior treatment has shaped barriers over time to differentially impede the educational attainment of Mexican American women in comparison to other women. The analytic approach derives its grounding from an intersectional perspective to examine factors that facilitated or hindered higher education ZAMBRANA AND MACDONALD 74 TABLE 4.1 Percent (%) of Bachelor’s and Doctoral Degrees Granted to Non-Hispanic White, African American, and Latino Women, 1980, 1990, and 2000 1980 1990 2000 Point Change NHW B.A. 86 84 75 ⫺11 NHW Ph.D. 84 76 67 ⫺17 AA B.A. 7.8 7 10.3 ⫹2.5 AA Ph.D. 5.6 4.5 6.7 ⫹1.1 Latina B.A. 2.4 3.5 6.5 ⫹4.1 Latina Ph.D. 1.7 2.5 4.1 ⫹2.4 Source: Table 261, Bachelor’s degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by racial/ethnic group & sex of student, 1976–77 through 2003–04 and Table 267, Doctoral degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by racial/ethnic group & sex of student, 1976–77 through 2003–04, National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov accessed May 16, 2007). [44.197.195.36] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:22 GMT) attainment. Using an intersectional framework allows one to examine patterns of educational attainment by taking into account historical relations of power that shape institutions in which historically underrepresented women participated, and patterns of inequality which include both hegemonic and disciplinary power in the educational pipeline (Hill-Collins, ; Dill & Zambrana, in this volume, chapter ). Five explicit assumptions are inherent in the intersectional lens. First, race, ethnicity, SES, and gender are co-constitutive and mutually reinforcing dimensions that shape...