Volume 11, Issue 2 - Special Issue: Unmasking the Faces of Diverse University Students and Professors through Narrative Ethnography, Guest Editors: Lynn K. Wilder, Elia Vázquez-Montilla and Jackie Greene

Authors in this special issue of Multicultural Learning and Teaching utilized emerging qualitative research methodology, narrative ethnography, to seek to understand and then to describe the innermost fears and joys and to hear recommendations from the diverse individuals they interviewed, observed, and formed a relationship with over time. Most are university professors and students, and one the father of a student, who depict their experiences with teachers and professors in educational contexts in the United States over time. The narratives are moving and thoroughly engross the reader in their worlds.Several individuals are twice-diverse given both ethnicity and disability or language. This added component of a second diverse aspect in their lives makes these stories particularly compelling. Narrative ethnography is a powerful authentic way to unmask the faces behind the façade and discover individuals’ personal, evolving realities, so teachers and professors can maximize student potential.

Children’s mental health can be a barrier to school success. School-based mental health services exist and research has shown positive results with the implementation of them. However, students spend the majority of their school time with a teacher and very little research exists on the role of a teacher in regards to students with mental health conditions. In this study, a college student shares his life-long experiences on being a student living with anxiety. What can educators learn from someone like him?

This research is an ethnography (Murchison, 2010) that describes the lived experiences of a university professor and former public school superintendent. The work explores racial integration and desegregation of America’s public school system. Through a series of seven semi-structured interviews, background information has been collected about the educational leader’s ethnic identity, personal experiences as a student in public schools and professional background. Descriptions of the challenges, issues, and success of racial integration are presented from the professional experience of the educational leader along with existing contemporary challenges.

Many predominantly White universities and colleges are seeking ways to both recruit and retain Black students (Simmons, J., Lowery-Hart, R., Wahl, S. T., & McBride, M. C. (2013). Understanding the African-American student experience in higher education through a relational dialectics perspective. Communication Education , 62 (4), 376–394. doi: 10.1080/03634523.2013.813631). With lower academic results from the K-12 system, it is specifically harder for these universities and colleges to recruit and retain Black male students. There has been much study given to why Black men are not as successful as other racial and gender groups in K-12, but little research has been given to Black men who successfully finish the K-12 system and matriculate to higher education (Griffin, K. A., Jayakumar, U. M., Jones, M. M., & Allen, W. R. (2010). Ebony in the ivory tower: Examining trends in the socioeconomic status, achievement, and self-concept of black, male freshmen. Equity & Excellence in Education , 43 (2), 232–248. doi: 10.1080/10665681003704915). This study presents the cultural background of a male from Africa and how his culture has helped him to be successful in higher education.

The following article summarizes a research study which involved an investigation of the educational experiences of Afro-Caribbean student immigrants who were academically successful in the United States (U.S.). Although immigrants of African descent experience barriers such as immigrant status and racial minority status which leads to a double disadvantage in educational institutions, this group is more likely to persist and achieve academic excellence. This narrative ethnographical case study’s aim was to understand the influences for Afro-Caribbean immigrant students motivating them to pursue the attainment of a higher education degree. The data for this study was collected through in-person interviews of Afro-Caribbean immigrants who were graduates of a mid-sized state university located in Southwest Florida. The subjects were selected through purposeful sampling. There were similar cultural impacts identified which may have influenced the study participants to perform with high academic achievement. A cross-case analysis was used as a qualitative data analysis technique to discover themes such as familial support, values learned from private school attendance, and language barriers which emerged through the interview responses.

As part of a four-year professional development program centered on increasing special education faculty members’ cultural responsiveness, the faculty members interviewed culturally and/or linguistically diverse (CLD) teacher candidates nearing completion of the special education program at a large Western university. The interviews, which focused on the candidates’ experiences during their time in the program, were conducted in the candidates’ homes. Each interview was audio and/or videotaped and transcribed verbatim, then analyzed using the inductive analysis design for qualitative research. The CLD candidates described types of learning activities and professor behaviors that had helped them to be successful. They also contributed suggestions to benefit future CLD candidates, including recommendations for professors and for the program as a whole.

Parent involvement has been shown to be one of the keys to student educational success, their ability to perform at a high level and persevere. The latest government statistics reveal that 53 million Hispanics now reside in the United States and 75 % of this population speaks Spanish at home (Cooper, M. (2014). Hispanics in America and in higher education by the numbers. The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education . 25(2), 6). It is vital to understand the struggle these parents experience when trying to support their children’s educational journey. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to understand one parent’s perspective as they struggle to help their child become a responsible and independent learner while caught between two cultural worlds and languages.