Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

Knowledge is divided among discipline-based departments and interdisciplinary programs and research centers. Interdisciplinary programs have become increasingly important in the organization of research activity. However, academic appointments remain based in departments. For this reason, departments must be considered fundamental to academic organization. In chair systems, characteristic of continental European universities, one or two senior professors hold chairs and organize research programs, while the other professors serve in subsidiary roles under the direction of the chair. In American universities, departmental faculty operate independently, pursuing their own research programs, only occasionally in collaboration.

The larger structures of knowledge-based organization are the colleges and professional schools. A college of humanities will, for example, typically include all departments in the fine arts (such as music and theatre) and the humanities disciplines (such as philosophy and English). Colleges and professional schools are administrative units. The number of colleges and professional schools varies by the size of the campus. A very large campus will have separate divisions for the arts, humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, and physical sciences. It may also have half a dozen or more professional schools. A small campus may have only a single college of arts and sciences.

Colleges and universities are under no obligation to represent all fields of basic and applied knowledge, and most do not. (The term ‘‘university’’ does not, as many believe, refer to the universe of all fields of knowledge. Originally, it meant simply ‘‘an aggregate of persons.’’) New disciplines must fight for a place in the university, and old disciplines sometimes fragment or disappear altogether. Sociology and psychology, for example, both broke away from philosophy, while the nineteenth-century discipline of political economy eventually divided into political science and economics. Today the fate of disciplines in particular colleges and universities depends on a number of factors, including, most notably, student demand for courses in the department, the strength of the departmental faculty in national ratings, the ability of faculty to bring in grants and contracts, the exodus or retirement of ‘‘star’’ faculty, and the effectiveness of the department in making its case for new hiring. These factors have little to do with

any purely objective intellectual principles of value. Over the long run, disciplines with a strong profile in the labor market and those with access to large research grants have been least vulnerable to retrenchments. One might even argue that the modern university is moving away from a liberal arts core in the direction of a ‘‘practical arts core’’ composed of departments closely tied to technological and economic advance or to national security (such as economics, molecular biology, physics, and international affairs) and professional schools providing training for the highest-income occupations (such as medicine, law, and finance). Strength in this practical arts core does not necessarily come at the expense of strength in traditional liberal arts disciplines, however. In the larger universities, powerful disciplines help to subsidize less powerful ones, which, in turn, may teach a disproportionate share of students.

Modern institutions of higher education are far from collegiua in their authority structure, but they also do not fit an ideal-type corporate model of top-down control. Instead, decision-making practices are based, at least in principle, on divided spheres of power and ongoing consultation among the major ‘‘branches’’ of institutional governances. In this dual structure, both administrative and knowledge-based authority are represented. The authority structure of knowledge is constituted by the departments and, within the departments, by the professorial ranks. Advancement in the professorial hierarchy is based in principle on the quality of a faculty member’s professional accomplishments (typically involving assessments of research, teaching, and service). Differences in rank are associated with both deference and income. This hierarchy moves from the temporary ranks of lecturer and instructor to the regular ranks of assistant, associate, and full professor. Highly visible full professors may be appointed to named chairs that provide both additional symbolic recognition and a separate budget for research and travel.

The top level of the administrative hierarchy is composed of a president or chancellor, who is responsible for fund-raising and interaction with important resource providers as well as overall supervision; a provost or executive vice chancellor, who is responsible for internal academic matters; and the deans of the colleges and schools. Top administrators are usually drawn from members of the faculty, although an increasing number

of lower-tier institutions now hire professional managers at the presidential level. Top administrators make the ultimate decisions about budget allocations, hiring and promotion, and planning for the future. However, the faculty, at the leading authorities in their specialized domains of knowledge, retain a decisive say at least in the better institutions, over all decisions involving curricular organization and instruction. They also retain the predominant say in hiring and promotion decisions within the academic departments, expecting only very rare overrules by administrators. The faculty typically play a significant advisory role in the development of new programs and centers and in discussions of institutional priorities. Top universities depend for prestige and resources on the accomplishments of their faculty; as a general rule, the less distinguished the faculty, the more powerful the administration (Blan 1973). Faculty in nonelite institutions have, consequently, sometimes chosen to organize in collective bargaining units to control administrative discretion through contractural means (Rhoades 1998).

The unique institution of tenure greatly enhances the influence of faculty. After a six-year probationary period, assistant professors come up for a decision on promotion to tenure and accompanying advancement in rank. Tenure, a conventional rather than a legal status, guarantees lifetime employment for those who continue to hold classes and act within broad bounds of moral acceptability. Together, dual authority and tenure guarantee opposition to any administrative efforts to abandon existing programs or to downgrade the work conditions and privileges of faculty.

The primary funding for colleges and universities varies by national circumstances. Most institutions of higher education in Europe and in the developing world are state-supported. Modest fees are sometimes charged students enrolling in expensive or high-demand fields. However, the idea of tuition is only now developing. In the United States, public colleges and universities are primarily supported by state appropriations, but they also charge tuition and fees. Private colleges and universities, lacking state appropriations, charge substantially higher tuitions and, therefore, attract a larger proportion of students from the higher social classes. They also use interest from their investments to support the operating budget. In

both public and private universities, research contracts and grants are another important source of funds.

COMPARISON OF NATIONAL SYSTEMS

Sociologists frequently use the term ‘‘system’’ to describe national patterns of higher education. This term should be used advisedly, since many national ‘‘systems’’ are not in fact highly coordinated. Societies with strong traditions of state planning have relatively centralized systems. The Russian, French, and Swedish systems remain among the most centralized today. But even in these countries, some private institutions operate independently of the centrally organized public system. Societies with weak traditions of state planning and strong traditions of voluntarism have decentralized and highly diverse systems. American higher education is a clear example of this pattern. Colleges and universities have been organized by religious bodies, secular elites, state legislators, and individual entrepreneurs. The result is a system of some 4,000 largely independent institutions. Institutions emulate and compete with one another in a complex ecological setting whose major dimensions are defined by level of selectivity, by institutional identity (for example, denominational or nondenominational, residential or commuter), and, perhaps most of all, by geography. One of the few forms of regulation is the requirement that curricular programs meet accreditation standards.

It is possible to classify national systems in many ways. Clark (1965) proposed dividing them by the primary influence on the coordination of the system. He placed the former Soviet Union near the pole of state-based coordination and the United States near the pole of market-based coordination. He classified Italy as the clearest example of coordination by an ‘‘academic oligarchy.’’ Here powerful academics were the decisive influence in the development of rules and policies for the system as a whole. Clark argued further that the dominant mode of coordination has important consequences for the ethos and structure of the system. State-based systems place a strong and focused emphasis on manpower planning objectives and scientific and technical development. Market-coordinated systems place consumer interests first and compete to satisfy simultaneously

the social, vocational, and educational interests of students. In ‘‘oligarchical’’ systems, faculty traditions and privileges are jealously preserved and institutions do not change easily.

Clark’s framework remains useful. Depending on the question of interest, however, other dimensions of comparison may be equally important. National systems, for example, can also be characterized in relation to their (1) size and openness,

(2) institutional diversity, and (3) interinstitutional stratification structure. Countries vary significantly across these three dimensions. The United States represents an unusually large, diverse, and stratified system. Two-thirds of secondary school students enter higher education, but they enter a very heterogeneous set of institutions that are highly stratified by acceptance rates. Germany, by contrast, represents a still relatively small, homogeneous, and unstratified structure. About one-third of German high school students enter higher education. Four-year institutions are designed to be quite similar to one another, and there is no clear ranking system among them. In the United States, therefore, life fates are determined within the system; in Germany, they are determined to a greater degree by inclusion in or exclusion from the system. Some systems in the industrialized world remain relatively small but nonetheless include also a highly differentiated elite track. This is true, for example, in France, where the grandes ecoles represent a clearly defined upper tier reserved for the very best students. It is also true in Japan, where an institution such as the University of Tokyo retains very close linkages to elite positions in the Japanese state and private economy. Differences across these dimensions have important implications for student consciousness. The highly educated are, for example, more likely to be seen as a separate status group in societies in which access to higher education is relatively restricted. By contrast, opportunity consciousness tends to replace class consciousness in more open systems.

SOURCES AND CONSEQUENCES OF

GROWTH

Since the 1960s, the trend in the industrialized world has been in the direction of the American model, with an increasing proportion of students entering higher education but with stratification

among institutions and major subjects also increasing. In most countries of Europe, for example, access to higher education is now possible from all secondary school tracks (including vocational tracks) and once-rigorous secondary school– leaving examinations have been relaxed to allow a larger flow of students into higher education. Nevertheless, both attendance and graduation rates in most of the industrialized world remain at about half that in the United States. Thus, higher education in Europe and East Asia is no longer class education, but it has not reached the level of mass education found in the United States.

Theorists of postindustrial society have suggested that the growth of the knowledge sector in the economy is behind this expansion of higher education. Estimates vary on the rate of growth of the ‘‘knowledge sector,’’ depending on the definition used. Industries employing high proportions of professionals are growing faster, by and large, than other industries, but some estimates show them slowing down over time (Rubin and Huber 1986). Every estimate shows that they do not as yet contribute a dominant share of the gross national product or even a dominant share of the most dynamic export industries.

The growth of the knowledge sector is undoubtedly an important factor in the expansion of graduate and professional education. Its importance at the undergraduate level is more debatable. In relation to undergraduate enrollments, at least three other sources of growth must be given proper emphasis. One is the interest of states in expanding educational opportunities for their citizens. Another is the interest of students, given these opportunities, to differentiate themselves in the labor market. As secondary school completion approaches universality and higher education attendance becomes more feasible, more students have a motive to differentiate themselves by pursuing higher degrees (Meyer et al. 1979). Finally, and perhaps most important, is the increasing role played by educational credentials as a means of access to desirable jobs in the economy. Credentials are not simply (or in many cases primarily) a guarantee of technical skills. They also signal that their holders are likely to have cultural and personality characteristics sought by employers. These characteristics include middle-class manners, a competitive outlook, literacy and communication skills,

and persistence. Colleges both reward and inculcate these qualities (Collins 1979).

Sociologists agree that restrictive systems of higher education tend to reproduce the social inequalities of the larger society, because the cultural information, motivation, and academic skills needed to pass rigorous examinations are highly correlated with social class. Social-class advantages do not disappear in more open systems, but these systems do generally allow a higher proportion of academically able students from the lower classes to advance. The sheer size of a system does not, however, guarantee decreasing inequality (Blossfeld and Shavit 1993). Much depends on the circumstances of students in the system and the levels of stratification within in the system. Since 1980, the number of college graduates in the United States has continued to grow, but this growth has occurred almost exclusively from among students whose families are in the top quartile of household income. Students from families in the bottom quartiles are entering at higher rates, but they have not graduated at higher rates. The reasons are clear: These students are often less prepared and less motivated to succeed, more likely to feel the press of work and family responsibilities, and more likely to struggle financially with the high cost of four years of college. They are also more likely to enter two-year institutions emphasizing job-relat- ed training.

CONTEMPORARY PRESSURES

Colleges and universities are increasingly costly operations. In state-organized systems, growth is subject to fiscal circumstances and state priorities. In market-organized systems, developments are pushed to a considerable degree by the value of college degrees in the labor market and by competition among colleges and universities. To finance the growth that allows for development of new fields without sharp cutbacks in older fields, colleges and universities compete vigorously for research funds, private gifts, and preeminence in markets for educational services. They also compete vigorously for top faculty and students, the foundations for an institution’s reputation.

The high costs of operation and the increasingly competitive environment have led to several

important developments. In the broad field of institutions of higher education, two quite separate market segments tend to develop: one for largely well-to-do students who can afford an expensive four-year residential experience and another for largely moderateto lower-income students who desire convenience and flexibility as they juggle school, family, and work. In the former, the liberal arts tradition remains strong at the undergraduate level. In the latter, the emphasis is on practical, ‘‘consumer-friendly’’ job-relevant training. As a result of this bifurcation of market segments, the lower tier of liberal arts colleges has begun to disappear in the United States. In most cases, these institutions have transformed themselves into comprehensive colleges with large undergraduate professional programs in areas such as business, engineering, technology, and education (Breneman 1994). The same general trend toward practical, job-relevant training is evident at all but the most selective public four-year colleges and universities.

The size of operations and the increasing competition among institutions have strengthened the influence of top administrators. Managers have started to think strategically about areas of comparative advantage, a striking departure from the model of the past, which emphasized representation of all major fields of study. As a result of this strategic thinking, most departments can no longer depend on automatic replacements for departing faculty, even at the senior level. Administrators have also added resources to student services and development offices to strengthen their relations with key resource providers. For the first time in the postwar period, close partnerships have been developed at some institutions with private firms, which can provide new sources of research funding (Cohen et al. 1998). The ability to attract top students and sizable research grants has improved the position of some departments and schools while weakening the relative position of others. Within institutions, power and influence has continued to shift in the direction of the major professional school faculties and faculties in scientific disciplines with access to large federal research grants. Although still far from completely rationalized along market and bureaucratic-hierarchical lines, institutions of higher education moved significantly in this direction in the last decades of the

twentieth century. Far from reinforcing the position of universities as an alternative to corporate organizations, this movement suggests a tendency for academic institutions to become more like corporations, with power concentrated in the hands of managers, who are conscious, above all, of the markets for their organization’s services. Nevertheless, as long as subject-area experts remain central to research and instruction, dual authority will be necessary for academic organization—and academic and corporate forms of organization will never completely converge.

These organizational developments help to explain weaknesses of ‘‘new-class’’ theories. ‘‘Knowledge workers’’ (including professors) do not represent a stratum with social and political interests distinct from those of business elites and nonprofessional workers. Instead, the interests of the knowledge workers are decisively influenced by their particular occupational, organizational, and market circumstances (Brint 1994). This is also true within universities. Those faculty located in professional programs are usually closely allied with top administrators, as are ‘‘star’’ faculty, while those in traditional liberal arts are more likely to express an independent, and somewhat critical, outlook.

All segments of the faculty do, however, share certain guild-like interests in maintaining control over recruitment, employment, and working conditions. The development of new electronic technologies of learning (such as distance learning, ‘‘virtual universities,’’ and Web-based courses) may pose a more significant long-run threat to these guild interests than any of the recent managerial efforts to rationalize campus operations. Studies thus far have not shown consistently significant differences in learning between students taking courses off-site in technologically mediated settings and those taking conventional, on-site courses. This tends to raise questions about the most powerful faculty rationale for the current campusbased organization of academic work. In the future, campuses will undoubtedly continue to exist for elite students, because of the importance of face-to-face contact for building networks that carry over into adult life. They will also be necessary for coursework and research requiring laboratory equipment. It is possible, however, that the number of campuses serving nonelite students will

shrink over the long run, with campus-based instruction shifting toward still more convenient and flexible computer-mediated technologies.

REFERENCES

Blan, Peter M. 1973 The Organization of Academic Work. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Blossfeld, Hans-Peter, and Yossi Shavit 1993 ‘‘Persisting Barriers: Changes in Educational Opportunities in 13 Countries.’’ In Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfeld, eds., Persistent Inequalities. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Breneman, David W. 1994 Liberal Arts Colleges—Thriv- ing, Surviving or Endangered? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Brint, Steven 1994 In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

———, and Jerome Karabel 1989 The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity, 1900–1985. New York: Oxford University Press.

Clark, Burton R. 1965 The Higher Education System. Berkeley: University of California Press.

——— 1998 Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organizational Pathways of Transformation. New York: Pergamon.

Cohen, Wesley M., et al. 1998 ‘‘Industry and the Academy: Uneasy Partners in the Cause of Technological Advance.’’ In Roger G. Noll, ed., Challenges to Research Universities. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Collins, Randall 1979 The Credential Society. New York:

Academic Press.

Kerr, Clark 1963 The Uses of the University. New York: Harper and Row.

Marrou, Henri [1948] 1982 A History of Education in Antiquity. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

McClelland, Charles E. 1980 State, Society, and Univeristy

in Germany, 1700–1914. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge

University Press.

Meyer, John W., Francisco O. Ramirez, Richard Rubinson, and John Boli-Bennett 1979 ‘‘The World Education Revolution, 1950–1970.’’ In John W. Meyer and Michael T. Hannan, eds., National Development and the World System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rashdall, Hastings [1895] 1936 The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rhoades, Gary 1998 Managed Professionals: Unionized

Faculty and Restructuring of Academic Labor. Albany,

N.Y.: SUNY Press.

Rubin, Michael R., and Mary Taylor Huber 1986 The Knowledge Industry in the United States, 1960–1980. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

STEVEN BRINT

HISPANIC AMERICANS

Despite their common linguistic heritage, Hispanic Americans are a heterogeneous and rapidly growing population that includes no less than twenty-three distinct national identities and combines recent legal and undocumented immigrants with groups whose ancestors predate the formation of the United States as we know it today. The label Hispanic is derived from Hispania, the Latin word for Iberia. In 1973 the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare adopted the term ‘‘Hispanic’’ at the recommendation of the Task Force on Racial/Ethnic Categories to designate U.S. residents who trace their origins to a Spanishspeaking country. Following suit, the U.S. Census Bureau adopted this label as a statistical shorthand for the Hispanic national-origin groups (del Pinal and Singer 1997; Haverluk 1997). Originating in the western United States, the term ‘‘Latino’’ has been adopted as an alternative by groups that view ‘‘Hispanic’’ as a conservative pan-ethnic label imposed by the government that ignores their political and economic struggles for equality and representation. These distinctions notwithstanding, both labels serve as umbrellas for a highly diverse segment of the U.S. population.

Hispanics are one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. High levels of immigration combined with high fertility rates yield a growth rate for Hispanics that is seven times that of the non-Hispanic population (U.S. Department of Commerce 1993). In 1990 the U.S. Census Bureau enumerated 22.4 million Hispanics, representing 9 percent of the aggregate population, but the 1997 population estimate reached 29.7 million, accounting for 11 percent of the national total (U.S. Department of Commerce 1998). Hispanics accounted for about one-third of national population growth during the 1980s, and their

contribution to aggregate demographic growth is expected to increase in the future. Census Bureau projections made in 1995 predicted that by the year 2000 the Hispanic population would reach 31.4 million, but this estimate is conservative because annual estimates since that time have consistently been exceeded (U.S. Department of Commerce 1996). Hispanics are projected to surpass blacks as the largest minority by 2003—perhaps sooner, depending on the volume of legal and undocumented immigration from Central and South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Already in 1998, Hispanic children outnumbered black children.

Although immigration has figured prominently in the growth of the Hispanic population since 1941, its influence on demographic growth, ethnic diversification and renewal, and population replenishment has been especially pronounced during the 1980s and 1990s. Immigration was responsible for approximately one-third of the phenomenal growth of the Hispanic population in the 1980s and 1990s. At the end of the 1990s, two-thirds of the population were immigrants or children of immigrants (del Pinal and Singer 1997), and trends in fertility and immigration suggested higher growth of the Hispanic population well into the twentyfirst century. By the year 2020, the U.S. Hispanic population is projected to reach 52.6 million, representing approximately 16 percent of the national total (U.S. Department of Commerce 1996).

Nearly two-thirds of all U.S. Hispanics (64 percent) are of Mexican origin, while 11 percent trace their origins to Puerto Rico, 4 percent to Cuba, and 14 percent to other Central and South American nations. An additional 7 percent of Hispanics are of unspecified national origin, which includes mixed Spanish-speaking nationalities, Spaniards, and ‘‘Hispanos,’’ the descendants of the original Spanish settlers in what came to be known as Colorado and New Mexico. This nation- al-origin profile of the Hispanic population has evolved since 1970 because of the differential growth of selected groups. In particular, since 1970 the Mexican, Central American, and South American population shares have increased, while the Cuban, Puerto Rican, and other Hispanic shares have declined (Bean and Tienda 1987; del Pinal and Singer 1997). Differential growth rates derive from rising immigration flows combined with high fertility among the foreign-born.

Defining features of the U.S. Hispanic population, in addition to vigorous growth, include increasing diversity, segmented integration, and rising political influence. Among the more salient aspects of diversity are immigrant and generational status, national origin, residential distribution, socioeconomic status, political participation, and reproductive behavior. Segmented integration is evident in the emergence of a solid middle class coupled with rising poverty, especially among children and immigrants, and greater geographic dispersion coupled with persisting residential con- centration—nationally in a few large metropolitan areas and locally in ethnic neighborhoods within major cities (Haverluk 1997). As the number of Hispanics increases, politics also becomes increasingly important in determining their social and economic destiny. Greater political influence is already evident in the growing presence of Hispanics among elected officials. However, Hispanic voter turnout remains exceedingly low, suggesting that the potential political impacts of population growth have not fully unfolded.

The continued rapid growth of U.S. Hispanic population coupled with increased diversification raises concerns about long-term prospects for their social integration, particularly recent arrivals from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Among casual observers who note the emergence of ethnic neighborhoods where Spanish is spoken publicly as well as privately, the growing Hispanic presence has raised fears about the potential ‘‘Latinization’’ or ‘‘Hispanicization’’ of the United States. However, larger numbers are not likely to be the most decisive force shaping the Hispanic imprint on the U.S. social and economic landscape, for size automatically confers neither power nor status. Therefore, to evaluate the recent past and future imprint of Hispanics in the United States, what follows summarizes several themes that have developed in the sociological literature on Hispanic Americans. These include: (1) the origin of current ethnic labels, (2) the roots of diversification, (3) the changing social, demographic, and economic composition of the population, and (4) the implications for societal integration of recent social and economic trends. A concluding section summarizes key lessons from existing studies and identifies areas for future investigation.

EVOLVING LABELS

Ethnic labels are partly imposed by the host society and partly chosen by immigrant groups who wish to preserve their national identity. The labels ‘‘Spanish origin’’ and ‘‘Hispanic’’ originally were coined as terms of convenience for official reporting purposes. Before the mid-1960s, Hispanics were unfamiliar to most observers outside the Southwest, where persons of Mexican ancestry were well represented, and the Northeast, where Puerto Rican communities began to flourish after World War II. Therefore, until 1960 the ‘‘Spanish surname’’ concept was adequate for identifying persons of Mexican origin residing in the Southwest, and ‘‘Puerto Rican stock’’ was used to identify persons who resided in the Northeast (predominantly New York) and who were born in or whose parents were born in Puerto Rico. However, with increasing intermarriage, residential dispersion, and generational succession, these concepts became progressively less viable to identify persons from Mexico and Puerto Rico. Furthermore, the influx of immigrants from Central and South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean into areas traditionally inhabited by Mexicans and Puerto Ricans necessitated labels that could more adequately represent the growing diversity along national-origin lines.

In recognition of the growing residential, marital, and generational heterogeneity of the Spanishspeaking population, in 1970 the U.S. Census Bureau adopted the ‘‘Spanish origin’’ concept, which was based on self-identification and could be administered to the U.S. population on a national level (Bean and Tienda 1987). Symbolically, this decision, which was also an important political gesture, recognized Hispanics as a national minority group rather than as regionally distributed subgroups. And in 1980 the term ‘‘Hispanic’’ accompanied the ‘‘Spanish origin’’ item on the census schedule to identify persons from Latin America, Spain, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. However, through the 1980s the term ‘‘Latino’’ came into popular use as an alternative to ‘‘Hispanic.’’ As a symbol of self-determination and selfdefinition, ‘‘Latino’’ is the label preferred by many ethnic scholars.

Despite their popular use and administrative legitimacy, pan-ethnic terms such as ‘‘Latino’’ or ‘‘Hispanic’’ are less desirable than specific nation- al-origin designations, such as Puerto Rican,

Venezuelan, Cuban, or Mexican, which better reveal the appreciable socioeconomic and generational diversity of Hispanic Americans. Not surprisingly, diversity along national-origin lines became a major intellectual theme in the scholarly writings about Hispanics during the midto late 1980s and remained so at the turn of the century as the powerful forces of international and internal migration continued to diversify the composition of this rapidly growing population.

ROOTS OF DIVERSIFICATION

Social science interest in Hispanic Americans has increased greatly since 1960, and the scope of topics investigated has expanded accordingly. Whereas studies conducted during the 1960s and through the mid-1970s tended to focus on regionally localized populations, the 1980s witnessed a proliferation of designs that compare group experiences. This shift in the research agenda, which coincided with the designation of Hispanics as a national population, also brought into focus the theme of diversity and inequality among nationalorigin groups. More recent studies have focused on economic opportunities afforded by geographic dispersal and the changing fortunes of the burgeoning second generation—especially the children of recent immigrants.

The Hispanic presence in the United States predates the formation of the nation as we currently know it. Over a decade before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Spaniards had already settled in present-day New Mexico. Several subsequent events shaped the Hispanic imprint on the United States. These include (1) the Louisiana Purchase, which provided a powerful impetus for westward expansion during the 1800s; (2) the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and ceded all Mexican territories north of the Rio Grande to the United States; (3) the Mexican Revolution, which propelled thousands of Mexicans north to seek refuge from the bloody conflict; (4) the Cuban Revolution, which provided the impetus for several unprecedented refugee flows; (5) the political instability in Central America during the 1980s, which has augmented legal and undocumented migrant streams from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua; and (6) the economic crisis of the 1980s, which encouraged higher levels of documented

and undocumented migration from South America, especially Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador (U.S. Department of Commerce 1993). International events in Latin America continue to influence the U.S. Hispanic population by altering immigration streams and their reception as refugees or labor migrants.

The uneven integration experiences of the various national-origin groups are as powerful in diversifying the U.S. Hispanic population as are migration streams of largely unskilled workers from Latin America. The cultural and socioeconomic diversity of Hispanic Americans can be traced partly to the diverse modes of their incorporation into the United States and partly to the changing opportunities to become Americanized. Nelson and Tienda (1985) proposed a framework for conceptualizing the emergence, consolidation, and persistence of distinct Hispanic ethnic groups. They identified three domains of immigrant incorporation that are pertinent for understanding the socioeconomic stratification of Hispanics: (1) the mode of entry, namely, the conditions of migration as voluntary labor or as political migrants; (2) the mode of integration, that is, the climate of reception at the time of mass entrance to the host society; and (3) the circumstances that precipitate reaffirmation of national origin. The latter emphasizes the distinction between the cultural or symbolic content of Hispanic origin and the economic consequences of ethnicity that result in the formation of minority groups. This distinction between the economic and the cultural underpinnings of Hispanic ethnicity is pertinent for theorizing about the long-term integration prospects of specific nationality groups.

Along these three domains of ethnic incorporation, the major national-origin groups exhibit considerable diversity. For example, the origin of the Mexican and Puerto Rican communities can be traced to annexation, although the timing and particulars of the two cases were quite distinct. The annexation of Mexican territory resulted from a political settlement subsequent to military struggle and was followed by massive and voluntary wage-labor migration throughout the twentieth century, but particularly after 1960. The Puerto Rican annexation, which was formalized at the culmination of the Spanish-American War, will remain an incomplete process until statehood or

independence is achieved. However, like the Mexican experience, the Puerto Rican presence on the U.S. mainland was characterized by a massive wagelabor flow after World War II that has ebbed and flowed according to economic conditions on both the island and the mainland.

Mexico has been the leading source country for Latin American immigrants since 1820, but the Mexican flow began in earnest during the time of the Mexican Revolution. The Bracero Program, which was a binational agreement that allowed entry of temporary agricultural workers, institutionalized migrant streams that persisted long after the formal agreement was terminated in 1964. Also, Mexico is the leading source of undocumented migrants to the United States. Although 2.3 million Mexicans obtained legal status under the provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, undocumented migrant workers continue to enter the United States and are currently settling in such nontraditional areas as North Carolina, Atlanta, New Jersey, and New York.

These distinct modes of incorporation are sharpened by the experience of Cubans, whose socioeconomic success is as striking as the limited socioeconomic achievements of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Although the U.S. Cuban community was established before Fidel Castro’s rise to power, Cuba’s internal politics are largely responsible for the dramatic growth of the Cuban population in the United States since 1960. The Cuban Revolution created a wave of U.S.-bound political refugees who were themselves differentiated by social classes. The so-called golden exile cohort, which virtually gutted the Cuban middle class, was followed by the exodus of skilled and semiskilled workers who made up the vast majority of Cuban emigrés. Although the distinction between political and economic migrants is murky, political refugees, unlike wage-labor migrants, usually command immediate acceptance from the host society. The Cuban experience, however, stands in sharp contrast to that of later political refugees from Central America (primarily El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala), whose refugee story is one of clandestine entry and extended legal and political struggles for recognition. Probably this difference reflects the fact that Cubans were fleeing a communist regime while this was not the case for Central American refugees.

Immigration from Central and South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean has continued to diversify not only the national-origin composition of the Hispanic population but also the socioeconomic position of the various groups. The Dominican Republic, a country of only 8 million inhabitants, was the fourth-largest source of U.S. immigrants in 1995, including many who entered without documentation (del Pinal and Singer 1997). Although internal political problems precipitated Dominican emigration after 1960, declining economic conditions fueled the migrant stream during the 1970s. Likewise, the Central American wage labor-flow has been propelled by poor economic conditions coupled with political upheavals, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. That more than two-thirds of Central Americans residing in the United States in 1995 entered after 1980 testifies to the recency and intensity of this wage-labor flow. South American immigration to the United States derives mainly from Colombia, but there is a growing presence of Ecuadorians and Argentineans among this stream. Compared to Mexican, Central American, and Dominican flows, undocumented migrants are less common among South American immigrants.

The future role of immigration in stratifying the Hispanic population is highly uncertain, as it depends both on changes in U.S. foreign policy toward Central and South America and on revisions in immigration policy concerning the disposition of undocumented aliens and quotas on admissions of close family members of legal residents. Equally important is the role of expanded social networks in drawing new migrants to U.S. shores. Trends in the 1990s indicate that these flows are likely to continue into the foreseeable future. A comparison of wage-labor migration histories of Hispanics clearly illustrates how diverse modes of entry and integration have fueled the diversification of Hispanic Americans.

Ethnic reaffirmation and consolidation can best be understood as immigrant minority communities define themselves vis-à-vis the host society. For groups that were relatively successful in adapting to the host society, such as Cubans, national heritage acquired a highly symbolic character that is used for economic relationships when expedient and downplayed otherwise. Alternatively, class position and national origin become inextricably linked when immigrants are destined for

the lower ranks of the social hierarchy, as seems to have occurred for Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Central Americans, or when illegal status forces many underground. Thus, the distinction between symbolic ethnicity and minority status revolves around the degree of choice groups have in controlling their socioeconomic destiny (Vincent 1974).

SOCIAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND

ECONOMIC TRENDS

Until the 1960s, the U.S. Hispanic population was overwhelmingly Mexican and almost exclusively located in the Southwest (Haverluk 1997). But migration from Puerto Rico to the Northeast during the 1950s and the arrival of thousands of Cubans in south Florida and the Northeast following the 1959 Cuban Revolution led to the establishment of distinct Hispanic communities in Miami and New York City. Heavy migration from Mexico and other Latin American countries since the 1970s has altered the regional landscape and created a more geographically and socially heterogeneous Hispanic population whose imprint reaches well beyond the traditional states of residence.

Although Hispanics reside in all states, historically the population has been concentrated in nine states, where 85 percent of Latinos reside. These include the five southwestern states of California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey. Two states—California and Texas—were home to more than half of all Hispanics in 1995, with Mexicans and Central Americans disproportionately concentrated in these states. Despite residential dispersion of Hispanics during the 1980s and 1990s, the visibility of distinct Hispanic communities is reinforced by persisting regional concentration along national origin lines. Puerto Ricans remain concentrated in the Northeast—predomi- nantly in major cities of New York and New Jer- sey—while Cubans have become bimodally distributed in south Florida and large northeastern cities (Bean and Tienda 1987). Mexicans remain disproportionately concentrated in the major cities of the Southwest and Chicago.

Cities with large Hispanic populations witnessed the greatest growth during the 1990s (Frey 1998). The ten metro areas with the largest Hispanic populations experienced the largest population gains. These include Miami, New York City,

and Chicago as well as others close to the Mexican border. In San Antonio, Miami, and El Paso, Hispanics are the majority population. In 1996, more than 6 million Hispanics resided in Los Angeles, making it the second largest Latino city in the world (behind Mexico City). Residential segregation further compounds geographic concentration by spatially isolating Hispanics of low socioeconomic status and recent immigrants from nonHispanic whites. This segregation reinforces the cultural distinctiveness of Hispanics in regions where visible communities have been established even as increased residential dispersion concurrently fosters national integration. It is in this sense—increasing geographic dispersion combined with persisting concentration—that Hispanics experience segmented residential integration.

The demography of the Hispanic population helps in understanding other characteristics, such as educational standing and economic well-being. For instance, the high immigrant composition of the population means that many have not had the opportunity to acquire a U.S. education, or much education at all. The youthful age structure also means that Hispanic school enrollment rates are higher and retirement rates lower compared to other population groups.

A social and economic profile of the Hispanic population since 1960 provides signals of both optimism and pessimism for the long-term economic prospects of distinct nationality groups. Because education is key for economic and social mobility, as well as for integration of new arrivals, trends in educational attainment are quite revealing about the diverse futures facing Hispanics. On the one hand, from 1960 to 1996 Hispanics witnessed an unmistakable improvement in their educational attainment. Whereas only 30 percent of Hispanics aged 25 and over had completed a high school education or more in 1970, by 1996 more than 53 percent had done so (del Pinal and Singer 1997; U.S. Department of Commerce 1993). However, there have been very modest gains in educational progress since 1980. More disturbing is evidence that educational gaps between Hispanics and non-Hispanics have widened because gains of the latter have been faster. These widened gaps are evident at all levels of educational attainment, beginning in preschool. Because Hispanics average less pre-school experience, they begin elementary school with fewer social skills. Furthermore,