Essay On Minority Youth In America

Minority youth in America, especially women, are not expected to attain a college education after high school. There are many social factors that contribute to this outcome. As many minority students are first-generation Americans, who derive from low-income families, which limit their access to educational opportunities. Being a Hispanic Women, similar to many of these minority students the odds are stacked against me. Along with falling victim to the social expectations of having a child, I also received little educational advice and motivation from family members. As a result for myself and other youth minorities, education is an important way to escape the social boundaries that continue to bind our lives to stereotypical expectations of us not having the capabilities to attend college. Most children of minorities, who go to schools, struggled with socioeconomics that lead their education to be unfulfilled. In the article, “Educational Aspirations of Minority Youth,” written by Grace Kao and Marta Tienda, explain through their research that a family’s socioeconomic status is a large contribution to …show more content…
353). They believe this framework is important to understand regarding race and ethnic differences in educational aspirations. There are two sides to the blocked-opportunities framework. The negative sides suggest that some minorities, such as blacks, have low educational aspirations because they do not believe that having educational success will bring them to economic success. Whereas the positive side suggests that minorities such as Asians and Hispanics, immigrated voluntarily to the United States, so will therefore be more motivated to achieve (Kao & Tienda). Although the blocked-opportunities framework attempts to clarify aspiration formation, it seems to be