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La Loteria and Creative Resistance: A Funds of Knowledge Approach to Art Education

Sat, April 29, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Floor: River Level, Room 6C

Abstract

Current art-education research has failed to recognize the systematic limitations that exist in working class schools and how those limitations constraint working class student from accessing social and academic resources. Sociology in education scholars identify social inequalities as the factors that have historically limited working class students of color (Kozol, 1991, 2005; Ochoa, 2013). As a response to these inequities, critical education scholars have also challenged traditional education approaches through practical methods of critical education theory (Duncan-Andrade 2008; Gonzalez, Moll and Amanti, 2005; Yosso 2005). Therefore, art-education scholars must recognize that students, which attend schools in marginalized communities, have unfair and inequitable access to the arts. This study identifies the unequal access of art education that exists for marginalized high school students from working class backgrounds, and uses the popular Latin American game of La Lotería to develop their creative resistance and academic resilience despite having an underfunded art program (Author, in press).

Drawing from the Funds of Knowledge (FofK) framework (Gonzalez, Moll and Amanti, 2005), this methodology uses the Latin-American game of La Lotería to develop and practice the concept of Creative Resistance. It additionally draws from Critical Pedagogy (Freire,1970) and Critical Race Theory(Solórzano, 1998, 2001; Delgado Bernal, 2002; Yosso 2005) to build on the developing concept of Creative Resistance. Drawing from the funds of knowledge framework, student parental occupations are used in the game of La Loteria to recognize that their parents knowledge’s are icons of capital that need to be validated by educators, and most importantly by themselves. It presents students with an understanding of why social hierarchy exists, how it works, and how they can resist and change their socio-political circumstances. The Lotería approach in art-education is used as a counter-storytelling tool of resistance that validates the home knowledge of families, their stories, and resources that support, resist, and build social consciousness through Creative Resistance.

The results of this study show that by experiencing the arts through a critical perspective, students showed an increase in academic and community participation, self-awareness and the ability to communicate politically as they navigated through their social and academic spaces. Art-education researchers must come to a consensus that a quality art education is not accessible for students in working class schools. Additionally, art education researchers must consent that developing the artistic skills of marginalized students will not help them address their limiting and oppressive circumstances. Therefore, art educators that work with marginalized populations need to consider an alternative approach that will help students challenge the academic, social and cultural dominant perspectives by drawing from the knowledge that exist in student homes.

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