Barnard Professor Robert Smith Argues Mexican-American Women are More Successful at School and Work than Male Counterparts
Smith Reveals Study at Latinos at the Crossroads Conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education, May 2

New York, NY, May 3, 2002—Professor of Sociology Robert Smith’s research on second-generation Mexican-American girls in New York City reveals they are more selective in choosing a high school that will ensure greater academic success and ethnic diversity than their male counterparts. In addition, these girls are also expected to return home after school to care for siblings and help with housework. As a result, they are more likely to be upwardly mobile professionally and to hold jobs that require "soft," or communication and team-building, skills.

Conversely, Smith’s research demonstrates that Mexican-American boys do little, if any, research in selecting a high school and end up attending their local zoned school where there is little ethnic diversity. They are more likely to join gangs that ultimately lead them to drop out of school. Their parents do not give them as much household responsibility, and this unstructured free time leads to increased gang involvement.

"One of the most interesting things about this research was how gender shaped boys’ and girls’ experiences of their ethnicity differently in every sphere of life we studied – at school, at home and in the community – and how these different experiences affected academic performance," Smith said. The later results of these different experiences are dramatic. Professionally, 19 percent of men in 1990 were upwardly mobile, and only nine percent worked in professional/technical jobs. However, 31 percent of women were upwardly mobile, and 17 percent of women worked in professional/technical jobs.

Smith points out that "gender helps women acquire more human capital in school, leads at home to their developing [soft] skills…and offers them a gendered and growing labor market niche in the mainstream economy." He adds, "The consequences of this gendered capital are cumulative. Women stay in school longer or go to better schools, which we hypothesize precludes their attaching a stigmatized meaning to their ethnicity, gives them better skills, and opens up access to more and better ties beyond their immediate networks."

The study is one of 21 featured in Latinos at the Crossroads and is published in the newly released book Latinos: Remaking America, edited by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Mariela Páez from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The featured studies investigate the issues of Latino education, health, language and politics. The authors of the books hope that readers will develop an understanding about the demographic and cultural changes taking place in communities throughout the country. The Bureau of the Census claims that by the year 2050 a full quarter of the U.S. population will be of Latino origin; that is, nearly 100 million people tracing their ancestry to the Spanish-speaking, Latin American and Caribbean worlds. Today, more Latinos than African-Americans are currently attending U.S. schools.

Latinos at the Crossroads, jointly sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, was held May 2 at Harvard University. Over 35 journalists were in attendance and it featured four panel discussions as well as opportunities for the press to question participants. Smith’s panel, after which he took questions, was titled "Latinos in the New Millennium." Other panels discussed such topics as politics and labor, health care, language development and families.

Contact: Petra Tuomi, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
Alyssa Sheinmel, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037