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Research on Latina administrative leadership, education, professional development, employment, and retention is limited in the literature. The majority of researchs on Latinas have been conducted in public schools with superintendents and in community colleges with faculty and administrators. Research shows that there are statistically fewer Latina faculty and administrators in higher education than other female ethnic minorities (de los Santos & Vega, 2008). The chapter focuses on Latina presidents and chancellors at Hispanic-serving institutions in the United States excluding Puerto Rico.

In this chapter, we present critical race theory (CRT) with a focus on Latino critical theory (LatCrit) and its impact on Latinx educators, Latinx youth, and Latinx communities. We focus on identity inclusion and Latinidad as a way to increase critical consciousness of educators and Latinx youth, language rights, and feminist pedagogies of resistance. LatCrit frameworks are used as transformational resistance and afford a productive platform for developing critical understandings of the educational experiences of Latinx youth. We discuss relationships and community through the alignment of LatCrit and critical pedagogy and the application of critical theory and community-responsive pedagogy in increasing equitable outcomes in educational settings that support Latinx youth and families. We provide recommendations to address the challenges Latinx youth face and how Latinx educators can continue to support youth through a LatCrit framework, and a summary of possible solutions to consider. We close with some reflection and dialogue questions.

The literature on women of color (WOC) faculty is replete with accounts of marginalization (Balderrama, Texeira, & Valdez, 2006; Benjamin, 1997; Garcia, 2005; John, 1997; Li & Beckett, 2006; McKay, 1997; Reyes, 2005). For instance, Balderrama et al. (2006) explains, “I come from a family of survivors, but I never realized it would come to that in academia …Little did I know I was entering one of the bastions of conservative ideology and practices – a far cry from a meritocracy working for the public good” (Balderrama et al., 2006, p. 224). Concomitantly, the higher education literature extols the presence of race and gender diversity because they are associated with elevated learning outcomes and intercultural engagement (Chang, 2002; Gurin, 1999; Milem & Hakuta, 2002). Therein lies the quandary. Given the importance of illuminating the challenges that WOC face within the academy, how then can that discourse be broadened to include empirical and theoretical claims about the relationship between WOC agency and structural transformation? In other words, how can WOC move beyond or within structural constraints to contribute to the teaching and learning environment? Equally important, how does the presence of WOC encourage a diversity conversation beyond student learning outcomes to one that emphasizes social equity? This chapter intends to participate in these emergent conversations in two ways. First, drawing from an empirical study of Black female faculty, I discuss how the participants contributed to their institutions and how those contributions embody and expand on the following diversity narratives: structural access and climate, learning outcomes, intercultural competencies, and meritocracy. Second, I theoretically expound upon the Black female faculty findings to discuss implications for similarly situated WOC. In all, this chapter demonstrates that difference – a woman of color difference – dislodges reactionary strongholds within the academic enterprise.

Wicked problems are causally complex, lack definite solutions, and re-emerge in different guises. This paper discusses how new ways of organizing emerge to tackle changing manifestations of wicked problems. Focusing on the wicked problem of poverty, we conducted a longitudinal study of Fe y Alegria (FyA), one of the world’s largest non-governmental organization, which provides education for the poor across 21 countries in Latin America and Africa. Drawing on archival and ethnographic data, we trace the historical narratives of how FyA defined poverty as a problem and developed new ways of organizing, from its foundation by a Jesuit priest in 1955 to its current networked structure. Our findings reveal the ongoing cycle of interpretive problem definition and organizing solutions for wicked problems. First, since there is no “true” formulation of a wicked problem, actors construct narrative explanations based on their understanding of the problem. Second, organizational solutions to a wicked problem are thus reflections of these narrative constructions. Third, emerging and changing narratives about what the problem is inspire new organizational responses. Our findings provide insights into the dynamic relationship between organizing for wicked problems, narratives, and the changing manifestations of wicked problems and grand challenges more broadly.

Latin American countries have encountered multiple challenges to implement meaningful transformations to their national educational systems (Baten, 2016). Through a mixed-methods approach (Maxwell, 1992), this chapter aims to present the significance of professional development for teachers and principals in public schools in Latin America. Specifically, the authors explore the significance of professional development that allows these educators to develop a student-centered approach (Gibbs, 1981) in their daily work.

By presenting qualitative and quantitative data from three programs implemented by the non-profit organization Educando by Worldfund, this chapter seeks to showcase how the challenges that Latin America currently faces can be improved through a methodology that focuses on building capacity and that helps educators with concrete practices to foster a student-centered approach in their practice.

The findings in this study showcase the significance of educational interventions that are grounded and tailored to the sociopolitical context in which they will be implemented and it will also posit that, according to the authors’ findings, the students in public schools feel empowered and motivated after their teachers and principals participate in one of these three programs. The larger impact from the cases explored in this chapter will hopefully contribute to a larger conversation regarding how to implement public policies that can empower principals and teachers across Latin America.

This chapter offers insight on how existing paradigms within Black Studies, specifically the ideas of racial capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition, can advance sociological scholarship toward greater understanding of the macro-level factors that shape Black mobilizations. In this chapter, I assess mainstream sociological research on the Civil Rights Movement and theoretical paradigms that emerged from its study, using racial capitalism as a lens to explain dynamics such as the political process of movement emergence, state-sponsored repression, and demobilization. The chapter then focuses on the reparatory justice movement as an example of how racial capitalism perpetuates wide disparities between Black and white people historically and contemporarily, and how reparations activists actively deploy the idea of racial capitalism to address inequities and transform society.

This work presents a review of the state of the art of the present century on academic and scientific production in Latin America related to the concept of Social Innovation. The analysis is based on articles published in indexed journals, which makes it possible to understand the existing asymmetry between the conceptual and theoretical veins, of the case studies, as well as of good social innovation practices that have been published in recent years. These debates have in some cases transcended public policies, as well as business and social realities where social innovation is a mechanism and strategy for personal, social, and territorial development. Finally, a Latin American community of researchers and academics around social innovation must be consolidated, who choose to continue building theoretical-empirical bodies following the Latin American reality.