¡Voces de Resistencia! Using LatCrit to Explore the Resilient and Transformational Resistance in Latin@ Pre-Service Teachers
Apr 11 @ 9:00 AM
LSC 710
Latin@ students remain underrepresented in higher education and in teacher education programs. They often face challenges that stem from economic factors, language barriers, citizenship status, acculturation issues and an isolating campus climate. The purpose of this study was to observe and analyze the particular challenges Latin@ students in an undergraduate teacher preparation program faced and to document behaviors, relationships and resources they utilized to overcome challenges in ineffective educational practices that reproduce race and class inequalities in both their higher education institution and PK-12 institutions. This critical ethnographic approach used participant observation, semi-structured interviews, testimonios and artifacts that captured the lived experiences of Latin@ college students and ways that they were navigating and resisting policies, structures and processes while transforming systems of higher education and PK-12 systems. Using a LatCrit conceptual framework and drawing on previous work of Giroux, Bernal and Solórzano’s (2001) race and gender conscious framework the study examined student resistance as a way for students to actively or passively resist with a potential for social change. The findings showed that students were able to navigate and resist in resilient and transformational ways by reclaiming their truths through a critique of past schooling experiences; building agency with the truth of their assets; and unveiling the truth by diverging from power in norms. These positive forms of youth resistance were a momentum for social justice that empowered students to take action and begin the transformation of inequitable educational systems.