Context of Education in the Las Vegas Valley and Southern Nevada

Topic 2: Context of Education in the Las Vegas Valley and Southern Nevada

Overview and Goal of Lesson

This lesson will introduce learners to the context of education in the Las Vegas Valley, Southern Nevada, and the broader Mountain West. Learners will gain a deeper, multi-layered understanding of issues in this region. This lesson can be used to further support, challenge, and implement educational policies that will [continue to] promote the educational advancements and successes of individuals and various marginalized and minoritized communities in the Las Vegas Valley and Southern Nevada. To do so, close attention must be paid to the educational attainment, enrollment, and completion of college-going individuals in these areas. This lesson centers the question of:

How do the geographic, socio-political, economic, and cultural features of the Las Vegas Valley and Southern Nevada influence educational access, opportunity, and attainment in the region?

Keywords: College Access, College Persistence and Completion

Scholarly Engagements

College Attainment:

• Horsford, S. D. (2016). Race and education in the Mountain West: Charting new territory in America’s racial frontier. In Race, Equity, and Education (pp. 155-173). Springer, Cham. Available here.
• Nehls, K., Schneider, H., Espinoza-Parra, O., Hines, J., Tyler, T. (2017). College Pipeline Issues for Students of Color in Southern Nevada. Policy Issues in Nevada Education, 2, 1-14. Available here.

Minority and Hispanic-Serving Institutions:

• Martínez, M. (2015). Organizational change through Nevada's emerging Hispanic-erving institutions. New Directions for Higher Education, 2015(172), 19-28. Available here.
• Video: Professors' Circle Fall 2021: What Do We Mean by “Minority Serving Institution?
• News Source: What is a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and what does becoming one mean for the University?

Discussion Questions

• What policies, interventions, and practices can address educational inequities in the Las Vegas Valley and Southern Nevada?
• As institutions become minority-serving institutions, what lessons can be learned from Nevada’s context?

Additional Resources

Horsford, S. D., Sampson, C., & Forletta, F. (2013). School resegregation in the Mississippi of the West: Community counternarratives on the return to neighborhood schools in Las Vegas, 1968–1994. Teachers College Record, 115(11), 1-28. Available here.

Reeves, R. (2019). Making a middle class: Colleges and cities in the Mountain West, 1-20. Brookings Mountain West. Available here.

United Way of Southern Nevada. (2017). Post-Secondary Attainment, 1-7. United Way of Southern Nevada Community Reports. Available here.