At Home in the Academy - Latina Faculty Counterstories and Resistances - academic analysis of Latina faculty experiences

Oct 15, 2026

Examines how Latina faculty members experience marginalization within higher education, contrasting traditional academy norms that have historically privileged White, male, heterosexual leadership with institutional patterns reflected in workforce and rank data. Analyzes slow progress in structural diversity and the subtle racism and credibility challenges reported by Latina scholars. Proposes rethinking diversity as deficit while emphasizing critical conversations, conceptual frameworks such as culture, borderlands, and covering, and the role of critical race approaches in capturing Latina counterstories and resistances.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

The Academy and Latina Faculty

Structural diversity and professional marginalization

Rethinking Diversity as Deficit

Norms, exclusion, and authenticity

Conceptual Frameworks and Scholarship

Culture, borderlands, covering, and critical race approaches

At Home in the Academy: Latina Faculty Counterstories and Resistances By Maricela Oliva, MarielaA. Rodríguez, Iliana Alanís,& Patricia D. Quijada Cerecer Maricela Oliva and Mariela A. Rodríguez are associate professorsin the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and Iliana Alanís is an associate professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, all with the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas. Patricia D. Quijada Cerecer is an associate professor in the School of Education atthe University of California, Davis, Davis, California, The Academy and Latina Faculty In the Academy, faculty and institutional leaders traditionally have been White, male, and heterosexual (Aisenberg & Harrington, 1988; Blackburn & Lawrence, 1995; Finkelstein, Seal, & Schuster, 1998; Garcia, 2001; Valian, 1999). Of the 173,395 Full Professors identified in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the U.S. Department of Education in 2007, women represented almost 46,000, and Latinasheldonly 1,254 of those positions (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). A few years earlier in 2004, non-Hispanic White females earned 617 of the doctorates awarded, whereas only 41 Latinas earned doctorates in the same year across a range of disciplines (Hoffer, Welch, Webber, Williams, Liesk, Hess, Loew, & Guzman-Barron, 2006). Those scarce Latinas on the faculty also cluster at lower ranks (Aguirre, 2000; Contreras, 1995; Padilla, 2003) . In 2009, of 28,040 male and female Latina/o faculty members, the majority were categorized as assistant professors (6,789) and instructors (6,577). As a subgroup of these, the majority of Latina (female) faculty members served in the lower ranks as assistant professors (3,367) and instructors (3,499) (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) . Slow improvements (Valian, 1999) in institutions’structural diversity vis-à-vis Latina faculty means that they find themselves in alien territory, i.e., in contexts that do not readily understand or accept their difference, such that Latinas find it challenging to become incorporated into and legitimated within academe. Latinos of both genders in the faculty ranks experience subtle racism and hostility from students and peers (Solórzano, 1998) while Latina faculty members report feeling thattheir credibility as scholars or faculty members is challenged(Delgado-Romero, Flores, Gloria, Arredondo, & Castellanos, 2003), and that White colleagues underestimate their abilities and discount the value they place on community advocacy (Reyes & Rios, 2005) . In response to experiences like these, researchers in a range of disciplines have focused on the need tobe more welcoming and culturally responsive to communities of difference (Cipollone, Grady, & Simmons, 1996; Garcia & Smith, 1996; Hurtado & Cade, 2001;Larson & Ovando, 2001; Marshall & Oliva, 2006a; Rendón & Hope, 1996). Whether the focus is categorical difference associated with race and gender, or identity, scholars and practitioners have come to accept that traditional practicesand conceptualizations in education tend to marginalize diverse or non-normative individuals and group members. Rethinking Diversity as Deficit As Valian (1999) aptly notes, majority group participants in systems like the Academy rarely question the appropriateness of existing practices and norms, for“an existing state of affairs defines a norm, and norms tend to be invisible”(1999, p. 253; see also Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pederson, & Allen, 1998) . Latinas are subject to professional and disciplinary expectations normed primarily on men and to a smaller extent on White women. Diversification efforts and multicultural training does occur within higher education, yet efforts tend not to critically examine the “social regularities”(Scheurich, 1997) that construct Latina faculty and their way of thinking and operating as other within this f

FAQs

How does the manuscript characterize traditional academy norms?

It argues that institutional practices and leadership have traditionally been White, male, and heterosexual, shaping norms that remain largely unquestioned.

What barriers do Latina faculty members face according to the text?

Latina faculty are described as operating in contexts that do not readily accept their difference, experiencing challenges to credibility and subtle racism from students and peers.

What purpose does the manuscript state for its own work?

It aims to reveal and learn from critical conversations about Latinas’ academic lives captured within the research.

Oct 15, 2026

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