View article

The lack of educational success among Latinos has been the focus of much research concerned with identifying factors contributing to school failure. However, some Latinos do achieve educational success and receive college degrees. Their lives can serve as case studies of minority educational success. This study used autobiographical and interview data to construct the life histories of two Chicanos in order to examine their interpretations of their educational experiences and the sociocultural factors which they identified as influencing those experiences. An additional purpose was to provide detailed biographical information which is currently not available on educationally successful Chicanos. A biographical perspective provides a counterbalance to perceptions of the role of sociocultural factors such as ethnicity in the education of minorities which view them as static or unproblematic. When examined …