Academic Profiling: Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Achievement Gap

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Today the achievement gap is hotly debated among pundits, politicians, and educators. In particular this conversation often focuses on the two fastest-growing demographic groups in the United States: Asian Americans and Latinos. In "Academic Profiling," Gilda L. Ochoa addresses this so-called gap by going directly to the source. At one California public high school where the controversy is lived every day, Ochoa turns to the students, teachers, and parents to learn about the very real disparities--in opportunity, status, treatment, and assumptions--that lead to more than just gaps in achievement.

Reviews

"Remarkably provocative and perceptive, Academic Profiling is a meticulously researched and masterfully argued comparative study of how the system of schooling, contrary to the rhetoric of equal opportunities, re-enforces the achievement gap and reproduces disparities. With ethnographic insight and analytical precision, Gilda L. Ochoa details how immigration, racialization, class, and gender differentially impacts the educational trajectories for Asian and Latino students, and presents compelling lessons for transforming the context, culture, and process of learning."Linda Vo, University of California, Irvine

"In the absence of an all-encompassing social movement, Ochoa demonstrates how only a courageous, power-conscious, counter-hegemonic curriculum can act as a counterweight to divisive policies and practices like student tracking. Ochoa has done the important work of addressing the complexities of Latino/a and Asian American schooling in one community and given us a language, framework, and perspective with which to discuss and critique it."Angela Valenzuela, University of Texas, Austin

"By centering students experiences, in Academic Profiling Ochoa exposes the many faults in our educational system and the ways that students and our communities are hurt."Pomona College News

"A valuable and long overdue piece of research on the achievement gap."Sociological Inquiry

"An ambitious ethnographic study of a single racially diverse high school in southern California. This book stands out because it moves beyond the conventional black/white comparison and instead systematically compares Latino and Asian American students, an important contribution because of the increasingly diverse racial makeup of the United States."American Journal of Sociology

"Powerful and purposeful in both argument and research, Gilda L. Ochoa unapologetically calls attention to the ways in which lived disparities of Latinos and Asian Americans in school lead to more than just gaps in achievement."Latino Studies

"Some of the strengths of Academic Profiling lie in its rich data, its ability to turn the rhetoric of equal opportunity on its head, and Ochoas awareness of her influence as a Latina researcher. Her work clearly shows that while teachers emphasize freedom of choice, students are not all equally free."Anthropology & Education Quarterly

Author Bio

Gilda L. Ochoa is professor of sociology and Chicana/o-Latina/o studies at Pomona College. She is the author of Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community and Learning from Latino Teachers and coeditor of Latino Los Angeles.