Constructing Multicultural Education Through Policy: A Response to Mexican American Studies in Arizona

• In Event: 69.057 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 69.057-5 - Interests, Desires, and Identities: Understanding Educational Policy and Practices Through Ideologies of Race and Racism

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine state and local policymaking in the development, reversal, and then reinstatement of multicultural education in Arizona. Guided by the social construction and policy design framework, this case study uses multiple sources of interview and archival data to analyze the policy context of multicultural education in both Arizona and in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) as it relates to the socio-political ideologies of race and ethnicity. Preliminary results indicate that public officials constructed the Mexican American Studies program and its students as deviants (less power/resources and negatively perceived). Indeed, these social constructions influenced state and local policy development that reversed a program aimed at expanding equity within TUSD.

Authors

• Leander D. Kellogg, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Carrie Sampson, Arizona State University - West