Graduate Research Papers

Availability

Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Abstract

The concept of the American "melting pot" is giving way to a country which celebrates ethnic diversity. This can be seen in the Mexican-American population, which is a large part of the rapidly growing Hispanic population. The latter includes large numbers of Cuban American, Puerto Ricans, and peoples whose heritage stems from Central and South America. The Hispanic population in the United States increased 61% between 1970 and 1980, from 9. 1 mill ion to 14.6 million (Ford Foundation, 1984). Extrapolating a continued pattern of growth, some experts believe that Blacks and Hispanics combined will surpass Whites as the nation's largest ethnic group by 1990 (Naisbitt, 1984). The 8.7 mill ion Mexican-Americans make up 60% of the U.S. Hispanic population and are expected to remain the fastest growing portion of the Hispanic population in the future. In addition to being a rapidly growing population, Mexican-Americans are younger than most Americans, with a median age of about twenty two compared to thirty-one for the non-Hispanic population (Ford Foundation, 1984). Mexican-Americans are also an undereducated population; only 4.3% complete four years of college compared with 16.7% of the non-Hispanic population (U.S. Department of Education, 1980). Obviously, colleges and universities are failing to attract an important population segment which has a substantial growth potential.

Year of Submission

1986

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Education

Department

Department of Educational Administration and Counseling

First Advisor

Thomas W. Hansmeier

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1986

Object Description

1 PDF file (23 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS