Community Matters: Ethnic Studies Pedagogy in Hope Valley

• In Event: 47.052 - The Power of Ethnic Studies: Impact on Teacher and Curriculum Development

Abstract

We find ourselves at a critical juncture in the struggle for Ethnic Studies (ES). In November 2016, the Governor of California Jerry Brown signed legislative Bill AB 2016 that requires the State Board of Education to develop and adopt a model ES Curriculum. Concurrently, the state of Arizona is in a legal battle, over its ban of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson. This comparison illustrates how place matters. Indigenous scholars have long argued that place needs to be conceptualized beyond a static notion of geographic location—as place is constructed by its dynamic relationship to its inhabitants, their practices, their stories, and their socio-historical rootedness (Tuck & Mckenzie, 2015). Moreover, the literature on ES pedagogy continues to support that a community responsive pedagogy is central to the epistemic foundations of ES (Tintiangco-Cubales, Kohli, Sacramento, Henning, Agarwal-Rangnath, & Sleeter, 2014). This paper examines how one ES teacher/program in Hope Valley (pseudonym) responds to place, including the role that place plays in formation of teacher student relationships, the curriculum, teacher practices, and a sense of belonging for Latino/a youth.

This paper is part of a larger project investigating effective teaching of Latino/a youth in Hope Valley. Data came from a two-year study where 137 community college students were surveyed to identify effective teachers in their community. After aggregating results, 3 teachers were identified as effective teachers, becoming the subjects of this study. For this paper, I focus my analysis on the sole ES teacher of the group. Using ethnographic methods, over 27 hours of classroom observations were collected via field notes, audio/video recordings, and written memos. In year 2 of the study, teacher and student interviews--semi-structured--were conducted to triangulate data. Finally, given my positionality as a community-based researcher, detailed memos were conducted, providing thick description of what was observed (Watson-Gegeo, 1992).

In this study, I examine how an effective ES teacher created relationship-building opportunities with students, used multiple strategies to make connections with students, created spaces for student voice, and made students feel accepted. Findings from this study illustrate the specific teacher attributes and practices Latino/a youth are identifying as effective—a perspective that is under utilized in educational research of Latino/a youth. Findings also reveal what ES is trying to achieve in this particular context. This last question has the potential of shattering old conceptual binaries (e.g., achievement gap) that have historically been used to define achievement based on the test results of affluent White students. Thus, educators would benefit from understanding what effective ES teachers are trying to achieve, in order to imagine new forms of achievement (Acosta, 2007). My hope is that through an introduction of place, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be community responsive in the tradition of ES Pedagogy.

Author

• Orlando Leonel Carreon, University of California - Davis