Description of Learners from the Hispanic American Culture

When one refers to a Hispanic-American learner, they are referring to a large, diverse group. Hispanic students differ from one another in where they were born, their primarily language, prior education experience, how much English they may know, and many other factors. Hispanic students may be from Mexico, Central America, South America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and many other locations. Thus each learner from the Hispanic-American culture is different from the other and each person is a unique creation of God with the ability to learn.  

Of all the different cultural groups, the Hispanic culture has been the fastest growing population in the US education system. Their enrollment numbers have increased over 100% in the past decade. Although this is a very positive event, statistics show that the Hispanic-American learner is falling behind in comparison to other cultural groups. For example, Hispanic-American scores on the NAEP were significantly lower than white students, drop out rates are higher in the Hispanic-American culture, and the percentage of Hispanic-American learners who graduate from college is far less than the white students.

Educators have been trying to get to the root of these negative statistics concerning the Hispanic-American culture. They have found that the percentage of poverty in Hispanic Americans is quite high in comparison to the white populations. Poverty in Hispanic families restricts educational opportunities because of cost. Hispanic students often reside in neighborhoods of poverty where the education system of that area tends to be underfunded, poorly maintained, have a large number of uncertified teachers, and not have access to the technology that is needed to meet the students learning needs. These factors alone have a huge impact on students’ success and achievement. In addition to these factors, many Hispanic-American students have to deal with learning the English language on top of their education and many teachers are not adequately equipped to help these students learn English.    

A common misconception concerning Hispanic-American students is that they are not as smart as their white peers and their chances at success are lower because of this. This view is extremely wrong and false. Each student learns in a different way and studies have shown that education is geared towards meeting the needs of the typical white student rather than the Hispanic-American learner who has English as their second language. If teachers were able to better meet the needs of Hispanic-American students, and if the educational experiences of each student were up to par and not affected by poverty, then the gap between Hispanic-American learners and other cultural groups would diminish.

I obtained much of this information from: http://www.cal.org/crede/pdfs/epr8.pdf