Harvesting hope through La Corrida : the experiences of highly mobile migrant high school students

This qualitative study analyzed the facilitators and barriers for 7 highly mobile migrant high\ud school students (HMMHSS) as they follow La Corrida / the farm worker circuit, season after\ud season. HMMHSS are students who migrate from district to district, in some cases crossing\ud state and country borders, throughout the school year as their parents harvest crops, fish, do\ud dairy work or logging, and they tend to fall between the cracks of society receiving low quality\ud educational services. Only 10% of all migrant students complete high school, and of these,\ud only a few go on to college. For HMMHSS, high school and college achievement is even more rare. This study took place in an agricultural valley in California. For this researcher, these students??? stories echoed her own as a highly mobile migrant student. Data was analyzed by academic, social and cultural themes for individual participants, and then cross-synthesized to understand common perspectives. Data from student interviews revealed ten themes. Estando todos juntos / keeping the family together was the highest priority for these students. They preferred moving rather than their father living in isolation. These students experienced 4 kinds of caring from counselors. Aesthetic caring left students without being acknowledged and often in the wrong levels of courses. Authentic caring or carino was expressed on three different levels. First, simply acknowledging that students knew something about their own capacity as a learner, secondly, listening and asking what skills the student needed or had mastered, and lastly, advocating for them. In summary, counseling has the potential to be the strongest form of equity for these highly mobile migrant high school students