Identity, Gender, and Politics: Creating Belonging for Hispanic Women in Literature and Other Courses

To assess the level of belonging that Hispanic women students experienced in a post-pandemic environment during their enrollment in a college literature class and other related courses with readings connected to the topic of gender and the associated politics, the authors created a mixed-methods study using survey and short-answer, question instruments. Participants comprised 74 Hispanic women, college students, with a median age of 20 years. The authors formulated their survey based upon the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Pandemic-related Political Identities Scale, Campus Expression Survey, and College Student Views on Free Expression and Campus Speech Survey. They ran paired samples t-tests to report potentially significant differences in the women’s view of their enrollment in a literature class and comparable reading and writing-oriented courses both before and afterwards in terms of their academic and personal outcomes. The authors applied a grounded theory approach to code the students’ short-answer comments about their attitude toward discussing their identity and the concept of gender in their classes, including any benefits in doing so. As findings, many women reported a growth in their appreciation of reading and speaking about literature, including how their lives and careers were linked to Hispanic readings; ability to sustain an interest in theoretical concepts; and capacity to discuss the fraught topics of gender, race, and the linked politics, including the stereotypes some women faced, while also empathizing with their peers’ backgrounds. The study findings also extended to the women’s pattern of growth in other reading and writing-oriented courses. Building upon these results, the article offers recommendations regarding how within the post-pandemic period, faculty can continue to conceive of Hispanic women students positively in terms of the capital they bring to academia rather than as through a deficit mindset.