Latinos and Education in the time of COVID-19

This book focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on Latino/a/e/x students, families, and communities across the educational continuum to better understand the challenges faced by them.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the gross inequities that exist for Latino students with respect to access to quality technology, highly qualified and culturally competent teachers, bilingual or multilingual information for parents, and printed materials and support for students and their parents as they move to online formats. This book documents the multifaceted impact on Latino students and their families as they attempted to navigate educational spaces. It offers important insights into interventions and responsive policy to ensure Latino students are afforded equitable solutions and educational opportunities, institutions, and systems, by focusing on the following:

(1) How are Latino students, parents, and communities responding to the demands of education
while balancing the adverse effect of COVID-19 on their families and community?

(2) How are IHEs responding to the needs of their diverse students? Are they providing broader
supports to their first-generation, low-income, or immigrant students?

(3) What role does education policy have in ensuring broader Latinx access and opportunity and
ultimately impacting a rebound strategy at the local, state, and national level?

As Latino students are more likely to be first-generation students or the children of immigrants in many states, it is critical for public education systems to provide academic infrastructure that is asset based, culturally and resource responsive, and committed to equity.

This unique publication, which first appeared as a special issue of the Journal of Latinos and Education, provides an important account of the varied experiences of Latino students at all levels across the educational continuum during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Editor-in-Chief, Enrique G. Murillo Jr., Ph.D., is Professor of Education at California State University, San Bernardino, where he also serves as the Faculty Director for the CSUSB Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership Program and is Founder of the LEAD organization (Latino Education & Advocacy Days). Dr. Murillo currently serves on the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics Commission under the Biden Administration. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of both the Journal of Latinos and Education (JLE), and the Handbook of Latinos and Education (HLE). Additionally, he is the Founder of the National Latino Education Network (NLEN).

Guest Editor, Frances Contreras, Ph.D., is the first Chicana/Latina dean to head a school of education in the UC system. Her research focuses on diversity and access for underrepresented students and the role of public policy in ensuring student equity. Her research agenda on Hispanic Serving institutions and Latino students has helped to inform systemic approaches to better serving first-generation Latino students. Her work has been published in leading education journals, and her books include Achieving Equity for Latino Students (2011), The Latino Education Crisis (2009) and High-Achieving African American Students and the College Choice Process (2020).

Guest Editor, Eligio Martinez Jr., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA. His research agenda is focused on understanding the experiences and opportunities for Latino men in community colleges. Dr. Martinez is a research affiliate with Project MALES at UT, Austin and serves as a Senior Research Associate for the California State University Consortium for Young Males of Color.

Guest Editor, Jacqueline E. Arroyo-Romano, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at California State University, San Bernardino, USA. She is a core faculty member in the Educational Leadership Program and a faculty member in the Multiple and Single Subject Credential Programs in the Teacher Education and Foundations Department. Additionally, she is an active member of the CSUSB, Institutional Review Board (IRB), and Graduate Studies Council. She is also a member of the Commission’s Board of Institutional Reviewers for Program Accreditation for the California Commission of Teaching Credentialing. Dr. Arroyo-Romano was a Helen DeVitt Jones Fellow and had the opportunity to work as a policy intern in the U.S. Congress in Washington D.C. This experience solidified her interest in educational policy, including bilingual education and dual language teacher preparation, heritage language development, ethical decision-making, educational equity, and the intersectionality of race, language, culture, diversity, and educational policy. Dr. Arroyo-Romano has also served as the Chair of the Evaluation and Research Special Interest Group at the National Association of Bilingual Education for over a decade.