Latino Students Struggle in Aviation Career

Latino Students Struggle in Aviation Career

Background of Study

Latino students have historically faced educational settings in which their home culture, language, and heritage are not valued and they are coerced into assimilating the dominant culture. Many students struggle to adopt a school identity under such circumstances and fail to succeed in school. The result has been a need for real reform in dealing with the difficulties facing Latino students and the practices put into place to help them reach their social and intellectual potential (García, 1996).

The politics of identity strongly influence the formation of Latino adolescents' ability to succeed in school. The current climate in many schools' practices results in “subtractive schooling” in which the cultural, community, and linguistic resources a student brings to the school environment are “subtracted” and dismissed as irrelevant and unvalued within the dominant school culture. A number of different researchers document how schools in the United States have historically failed to recognize the Hispanic students' knowledge as a potential resource and instead view their backgrounds as a problem that must be overcome through an assimilations model of cultural and linguistic eradication. This paper aims to describe the struggle of Latinos in the aviation sector (González, 2000).

Discussion

As aviation industry began in the early 19th century, and continued its development during the First World War, but in particular began to develop rapidly during the Second World War and after its completion. Now the aviation industry is one of the most concentrated sectors of modern industry. The aviation industry in Latin America has become the world's face and led by some of the most powerful traded group. The youths of Latin America has been taken keen interest in developing their careers in this globally recognized industry. But , In recent years Latinos and Hispanics have become the subjects of discussion in various forums, including federal, state, and local agencies; community organizations; academia; and the media (Gutiérrez, 1993).

Although the terms Latino and Hispanic have particular historical, cultural, and geographic connotations, the terms are often used interchangeably to identify racially, ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse peoples who can, nonetheless, trace their origins to Latin America and in some cases Brazil and Spain. The term Hispanic etymologically connotes people whose origins are associated with any of the Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America and Spain. The term Hispanic gained wide currency in the United States as a bureaucratic “ethnic label” first used by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1978 to refer to “a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race (Kanellos, 1998).”

Reformers have sought to implement practices that mitigate the assimilationist educational practices. An examination of deculturalization programs historically utilized within the United States includes segregation and isolation, forced change of language, curriculum and textbooks (that reflect the culture of the dominant group), use of teachers from the dominant group, and the frequent reality in which dominated groups are not allowed to ...