“Not to Be Pro-Latino”: The Impact of Majoritarian Tales on Latina Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Bilingual Education Teacher Professional Development and Practices

Abstract

As school districts continue to recruit Latina/o teachers to meet Richard Riley’s (1998) expectations, “Our teachers should be excellent, and they should look like America,” a closer look at Latina teachers’ contributions to schooling communities is needed. Recent studies document that Latina teachers sometimes struggle to negotiate their Latina teacher identity, in turn, they distance themselves from Latina/o students, silence themselves in school contexts, or internalize the mainstream values and perspectives of their colleagues (Aguilar, MacGillivray, & Walker, 2003; Weisman & Hansen, 2008). To further this discussion, this multiple case study presents the voices of administrators, faculty, and Latina teachers to reveal schooling contexts in which majoritarian tales persist and how Latina teachers either dispute or sustain these deficit beliefs.

Author

• Soria Elizabeth Colomer, University of South Florida