Latina Students’ Experiences in Public Schools

Focusing on issues relating to gender, gender relations, and discrimination, this book provides nuanced insight into the experiences of young Latina women and their teachers in a North American middle school.

Latina Students’ Experiences in Public Schools details how students navigate questions of gender, gender discrimination, and gender relations in the context of post-feminism, and in view of widespread claims that advocacy for girls and women has been outmoded by anti-discriminatory legislation. Drawing on an ethnographic study that focuses on gender segregation and dominance, relational identities, and the role of teachers in reinforcing gender dynamics, the text deftly demonstrates the effect of postfeminist policy and ideology on gender equity and achievement in public schools. In particular, the text illustrates that young Latina women continue to face both physical and verbal harassment on a daily basis, which is often overlooked by school faculty and administrators. A powerful and timely text, the volume advocates for action to counter school-based gender discrimination.

This book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, policy makers, libraries in the field of gender and sexuality in education, gender studies, secondary education and urban education.