Reflections on Teacher Education Practices of First-Year Tenure-Track Professors at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

• In Event: 51.078 - MTCC Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: 51.078-3 - Forging an HSI Identity: Institutionally Supported Research and the Meaning of "Hispanic-Serving"

Abstract

Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) research has often focused on student outcomes on the basis of graduation rates. Scholars have found non-academic measures such as connections with faculty on the basis of language and a sense of belonging to campus (Arbelo-Marrero & Milacci, 2016, Maestas, Vaquera, & Muñoz Zehr, 2007). Others have explored their own cultural identities as faculty and their propensity toward educational equity at an HSI (Nuñez, Ramalho, & Cuero, 2010). As a way to contribute to HSI research, this paper examines a self-study of four tenure-track first-year faculty members in a teacher preparation program at an HSI who learned about Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) through a weekly book club in an effort to explore how CSP could fit into their pedagogical practices.
The theoretical framework of Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001) and CSP (Paris & Alim, 2014) inform the study. LatCrit centers its focus on the lived experiences of Latinxs to address issues of subordination based on immigration status, language, ethnicity, culture, phenotype, identity, and sexuality, as well as race (Hernandez-Truyol, 1997; Montoya, 1994; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). CSP seeks to foster teachers who are responsive and seek to sustain cultural pluralism, linguistic repertoires, and literacies of their students as a way to address systemic racism.
Through qualitative research, the authors employed a self-study (Zeichner & Noffke, 2001), to document their weekly book club meetings of the book titled, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (Paris & Alim, 2017). The study took place at one of the largest HSIs in the United States along the borderlands. At the time of the study, all four assistant professor participants (Chicana, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Japanese) were new to the area and university.
Data sources consisted of weekly chapter reflections and discussions, transcribed audio recording of book club meetings, and course syllabi. Constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was utilized to analyze the artifact collection and generated initial codes, patterns, and emerging themes. The three themes that emerged were: ongoing critical reflection, centering students’ cultural and linguistic assets, and de-centering whiteness.
CSP is apt when considering the diverse Latinx student population HSIs serve. CSP challenges educators to act beyond acknowledging the diversity of their students or even the inclusion of their diverse learners’ backgrounds. Sustaining makes for an intentional, sometimes subversive, attempt to create spaces where power relations are uncovered when discussing the experiences and the inclusion of marginalized learners. Part of this work meant recognizing the heterogeneity of the Latinx population and actively making space for the histories and ways of knowing outside of traditionally Western philosophies. As teacher educators, it is vital that we develop critical consciousness so that we can support our preservice teachers in developing their critical consciousness in sustaining, reclaiming, and claiming their linguistic and cultural assets. In doing so, we model how our preservice teachers can do the same for their future students.

Authors

• María G Leija, University of Texas at San Antonio

• Gilberto P. Lara, The University of Texas - San Antonio

• Hitomi Kambara, The University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

• Gerardo Joel Aponte-Safe, University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse