“Teacher education is part of higher education,” Villegas says. And Saenz added that minority faculty can fundamentally change the culture of the institution, since “many are more often inclined to use pedagogical techniques of inclusion, integration and reflection, which can attract more students of color.”
Villegas reported that in the past 24 years, the number of Hispanic students in public elementary and secondary schools increased 54 percent, while the number of Hispanic teachers increased only 1.4 percent. “This is a problem,” Villegas said, “because Hispanic students need Hispanic role models.”
To set the research agenda of the future, HACU is relying on attendee evaluations from each presentation in all three cities, which will be analyzed to chart a course towards greater success.
“No one had tried to capture, in a global way, the state of
Hispanic education research,” Moder says. “We hope that developing a shared agenda will support researchers in focusing on the most urgent questions, the ones whose answers can make the biggest difference.”
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