Richard R. Verdugo – författare

The Hispanic population has dramatically grown since the middle of the 20th Century. Demographers predict that by the year 2050, one in three Americans will of Hispanic origin. But the Hispanic population is not a homogeneous group; it varies by race and ethnicity, culture, economic status, education, and other important factors.

The purpose of the present volume is to provide information on selected topics regarding the growth, distribution, and size of the Hispanic population. The volume brings together an eclectic set of six research papers. The first four examine traditional demographic topics: population growth, mortality, and immigration. The last two address topics that are not often examined among Hispanics: Hispanic Baby Boomers, and an interesting study on self identification among Hispanics using vital events data and census data.

This volume brings together the latest research and scholarship on Latinos in the United States. This book is special in terms of the broad scope of topics covered and methodologies employed in pursuit of knowledge about Latino students. This collection is also unique in that it features the work of more than a dozen Latino scholars—both early-careerand established—applying their research expertise to investigate and elucidate the educational experiences of Latinos in the United States.

The themes that are discussed in the chapters of The Education of the Hispanic Population: Selected Essays, reflect the wide-ranging discussions that are occurring in schools and school districts across the country and issues that are being carefully investigated by researchers who are committed to contributing thoughtful and meaningful scholarship of consequence for improving conditions for Latino youth.

The Hispanic population has emerged at the largest ethnic/racial minority in the United States, and has also become a major political constituency. Consequently, it is important to gauge the extent to which they have been integrated into various societal institutions. One important institution is the US labor market.

The research contained in the present volume assess a number of issues about how well Hispanics are integrated into the US labor market, a major factor in the group’s economic status. The research makes important contributions to the existing body of research on the Hispanic population, and may be used by scholars and policy makers in better understanding the status of this important ethnic/racial group.

Education is a contested terrain. The symmetry of education reform among the seven countries examined in this volume is remarkable. There is much commonality in the issues they raise, in the competing groups battling over education policy, their policy choices, and the implementation of such policies. Also, all seven countries address the same issues: equity, global competition, the performance of their students.

There are at least six important traits characterizing these battles: the context, the combatants, the issues, the process, and the policies. To begin with, history, culture, and governance regime set the context for education policy and reform. Second, there is the process of how these battles are waged-is compromise an outcome or is it a zero sum contest? Third, there appear to be four groups of combatants each with its own ideology representing a particular social class in society and their views about education and its uses: Conservatives, Socialists, Neo-Liberals, and Elites.

Education is an important and valued resource that each status group tries to control and shape to its own views. Fourth, there are key issues that drive education reform: how education can best flatten a social system, how education train students for work, and how education socializes students to be functioning citizens. In recent years, fifth issue has emerged: student performance on international standardized tests. Not only is a society’s international reputation based on their students’ performance, but nations see such performance as an indicator of the quality of their educational system and if it is good enough to secure its economic future. Finally, there are the policies themselves. Do they reduce or increase inequality, who benefits and how?

The chapters in this volume clearly point out that education reform is not a homogeneous process as some scholars have conjectured. Rather, education reform involves heated battles over the control of the educational system because education is seen as a key factor in maintaining a society’s vision and social structure.

The volume examines the effect racial stratification had on the economic and social lives of Mexican Americans and Anglo residents in a community that was majority Mexican American.

The impact was felt economically as the community was a one-crop economy, and also in creating social disharmony between Mexican Americans and the politically and economically dominant Anglo community.

This is an historical study since it is based on a survey conducted in 1969. It is one of only a few complete Mexican American community studies ever conducted.

By most accounts, Europe has been mired in a ''demographic crisis'' since about 1970. By a demographic crisis is meant that Europe’s dependency ratio is increasing, and the net result has been declining populations and fewer workers to sustain society. However, there are certain issues that need attention. Two topics seem to capture some of these issues: The implications of the possible crisis, and the crisis’ assessment. The present volume is organized around both topics (implications and assessment).

There are at least three contributions being made by the proposed volume. To begin with, while there are other issues related to the demographic crisis in Europe the present volume should motivate additional research.

Secondly, the research in the proposed volume does not necessarily assume that there is a demographic crisis in Europe nor that it is consistent across national lines. Thus, each chapter, in essence, examines a different issue associated with the proposal that there is a crisis.

Finally, the present volume makes several methodological contributions. For example, the chapter by David Swanson uses non-Bayesian modeling in studying infant mortality. Richard Verdugo examines the dependency ratio and selected factors on economic growth in selected European nations, Kposowa and Ezzat conduct an assessment, Martins examines variation in the path toward a crisis, Johnson examines humanitarian migration and the crisis, Edmonston examines the association between geopolitics and the crisis.

National identity has been the subject of much controversy and debate. Some have even suggested dropping the concept entirely. One group, Essentialists, argue that national identity is fixed, cultural, based on birth and ancestry. Another viewpoint is posited by Postmodernists who argue that national identity is malleable, invented or imagined. As alternatives, some have suggested that national identity is a hybrid of both Essentialist and Postmodernist views. And still others bypass this argument and suggest that national identity should be based on civic factors, such as shared values and norms about citizenship.

While controversy and debate are healthy exercises in any science, at some point order must be established if science is to proceed. The present volume is based on the idea that national identity is an ideal-type concept; it does not completely capture reality, but is used for analytic purposes. In addition, rather than focusing on these theoretical debates, we pursue research with the idea that results from research will contribute to the field of national identity. Three areas of national identity are discussed: theoretical, national, and individual. Two chapters focus on the major theories about national identity, provide critiques, and make suggestions about the topic. In section two, six chapters provide case studies of national identity on Scotland, Ireland, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany, and France. In section three, two case studies focus on immigrants and the challenges they face in forming their identities, especially identifying with their host countries—Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

Several important conclusions may be gleaned from the contributions of the present volume. To begin with, while national identity is a slippery concept, if the field wishes to move beyond debate about fundamentals, it would be well advised to view the concept as an ideal-type as suggested by the great German scholar, Max Weber. Secondly, the case studies included in the present volume indicate that national identity is not only based on ethnicity and culture, but on such external factors as governance regimes and their changes, economic crises, wars and other forms of aggressive activity, and social demographic changes in a population. These factors affect a population at the national level. For immigrants at the individual level, developing national identity is greatly affected by four interrelated factors: 1) the degree to which they are accepted by members of the host society; 2) immigrants’ language skills and physical appearances; 3) how well they are able to balance their host national identity, their ethnic identity, and acceptance of their native country; 4) and their generational status. Generally, at the national and individual levels, context and circumstances matter in developing national identity.