Additive Teachers in Subtractive Contexts: Developing Critically Conscious Teachers Through Language and Cultural Revitalization

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This study explores the impact of a fourth- and fifth-grade Saturday academy, Academia Cuauhtli, born from the effort of a community-based, language and cultural revitalization project that sought to counter the rapid gentrification of their community and the subtractive elements of schooling for both students and teachers. More specifically, this study is about the personal and professional schooling experiences of nine bilingual, dual-language Latina/o educators, Cuauhtli teachers, who continue to teach in traditional schooling contexts.

Using additive schooling (Bartlett & Garcia, 2011) as the guiding theoretical framework, this research examines Academia Cuauhtli as a learning space that promotes the curricular recognition of alternative epistemologies and the development of pedagogies that recognize and foster the students’ culture, language, and funds of knowledge. I explored the delivery of culturally and linguistically relevant curricula along with institutional supports to teach it as a means to counter the subtractive elements of schooling while promoting an enhanced sense of individual and collective identities. There is a growing body of research that supports this theory of action as a means to reverse patterns of student academic underachievement. However, little is known about the effects on the teachers themselves, their classroom practice, and leadership development. This work is especially critical given our context of widespread teacher shortages, including the disproportionate turnover and attrition rates of educators of color relative to the predominately Anglo educator population.

By using a phenomenological approach, this study seeks to understand the experience of Cuauhtli teachers along a continuum, focusing on their journey from the beginning of their K-12 education up to their present day professional experiences in schools. The purpose of this study was to understand how Cuauhtli teachers, chosen through purposeful sampling methods, have understood and coped with their own subtractive schooling (Valenzuela, 1999) and how these experiences in turn shaped their pedagogical practice. Furthermore, I examined through ethnographic data collection methods (two semi-structured, hour-long interviews; informal observations of the Cuauhtli classroom, meetings and events; and document collection), the critical learnings and insights that have result from their participation in Cuauhtli and explore shifts in their practice that occurred as a result.

Author

• Brenda Rubio, The University of Texas - Austin