UCLA

Although the Mexican population is experiencing tremendous growth, they continue to lag behind the national average in, and have amongst the lowest, educational attainment levels of all Latinos/as (P�rez Huber et al., 2015). Some studies have looked at the experience of Mexicans along the K-12, undergraduate, and doctoral educational pipelines. However, the experience of master’s students has gone under-examined and resulted in a gap in higher education research. In an attempt to continue filling the gap on master’s education research, this dissertation focuses on the factors that influence Chicanas decision to pursue a Master of Arts in Education and the sources of support that Chicanas draw from in their pursuit and attainment of the master’s. Using Chicana Feminist Epistemology (CFE) and Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) as the theoretical foundations for this research, the method of Pl�ticas was instrumental to studying the experiences of 12 Chicana Master of Arts in Education students. CFE was included to strengthen the gender lens of this research and to unapologetically center Chicana identities. CCW was included to shift the research lens away from a deficit view of Chicanas and instead focus on the cultural knowledge, skills, and abilities they bring to higher education. My analysis revealed two general findings. First, the decision to pursue a master’s is not a single choice, but rather a collective of the personal, familial, and logistical. Chicanas’ identity, familial relationships, graduate school exposure, values alignment, passion for area of study, mentors, and representation are factors that influence Chicanas decisions to pursue a master’s. Second, Chicanas draw from unique sources of support, personal motivation, ambition, and coping skills, and engage in their own strategies of resistance to create more empowering master’s experiences. With the Latino/a population on the rise and continuing shift in master’s enrollment demographics, it is crucial that we understand how to intentionally support Chicano/a recruitment, enrollment, retention, and graduation.