For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5439

Keywords:

higher education, policy reform, implementation, community college, racial equity, Latinx students

Abstract

Policy implementation research tends to document the failures of reform, describing the myriad ways implementers miss the mark in translating intent into impact; or in the words of Derrick Bell, policy scholars are left with examining the “unfilled hopes of racial reform” (2004, p. 185). In contrast, this article presents an intrinsic case study where campus leaders took a race-conscious approach to implementing a state-wide reform known as the Student Equity Policy. I constructed the TrenzaPolicy Implementation Framework to center the experience, knowledge, and assets of Latinx leaders in community college that oversee and implement policy reform. The framework highlights the raced-gendered perspectives of Latinx leaders in community college to understand their motivations to implement policy in race-conscious ways (Delgado Bernal, 2002). I conducted in-depth and sustained fieldwork to learn how implementers understood and responded to state-level reform in race-conscious ways and used the policy to target and address one of the most pressing issues in higher education, the inequitable rates of transfer for Latinx students. I share how the salience of racialized-gendered identity, cultural intuition, social context, and enacting agency allowed leaders to envision more race-conscious possibilities for policy reform and its implementation on campus.

 

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Author Biography

Eric R. Felix, San Diego State University

Eric R. Felix is the proud son of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants. Born and raised in Anaheim, I’m the product and beneficiary of public education from kindergarten to graduate school. I’m the first in my family to attend and graduate college. Now I get to be a faculty member at San Diego State University and do my best to fulfill our state’s promise of providing affordable, quality, and transformative education. I hold three principles dear to me —Partner, Parent, Professor— and do my best to be present and passionate for each. My work at the intersection of implementation and institutional changes seeks to highlight the possibilities of policy reform to improve racial equity in higher education.

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Published

2021-03-08

How to Cite

Felix, E. R. (2021). For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(January - July), 30. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5439

Issue

Section

Policy Implementation as an Instrument to Achieve Educational Equity