Overview

This landmark volume represents the work of the National Latino/a Education Research Agenda Project (NLERAP)-an initiative focused on school reform and educational research with and for Latino communities. NLERAP's goal is to bring together various constituencies within the broad Latino community who are concerned with public education to articulate a Latino perspective on research-based school reform, and to use research as a guide to improving the public school systems that serve Latino students and to maximizing their opportunities to participate fully and equally in all social, economic, and political contexts of society. Latino Education: An Agenda for Community Action Research conceptualizes and illustrates the theoretical framework for the NLERAP agenda and its projects. This framework is grounded in three overlapping areas of scholarship and activism, which are reflected within the chapters in this volume: critical studies, illuminating and analyzing the status of people of color in the United States; Latino/a educational research, capturing the sociohistorical, cultural, and political schooling experiences of U.S. Latino/a communities; and participatory action research, exemplifying a liberation-oriented methodology for truly transformative education. The volume includes both descriptive educational research and critical analyses of previous research and educational agendas related to Latino/a communities in the United States. According to current U.S. Census data, Latinos now comprise the largest minority group in the total U.S. population. Historically, reflecting larger sociohistorical and economic inequalities in U.S. society, the Latino community has not been well served by U.S. public school systems. More attention to the Latino students' educational issues is needed to redress this problem, especially given the tremendous population increase and projected growth of Latino communities in the U.S. Latino Education: An Agenda for Community Action Research is a major contribution toward this goal.