Resisting Deficit Approaches to Student Engagement: Latinx Students and Culturally Sustaining Self-Determination

• In Event: Critical Professional Development and the Racial Justice Possibilities of Teachers of Color in K–12 Schools

Abstract

While U.S. schools continue to hyperfocus on the "achievement gap," defined as “the disparities in standardized test scores between Black and White, Latina/o and White, and recent immigrant and White students,” Ladson-Billings (2006) helps us reframe this to instead recognize the irreparable damage done to Black and Brown communities that have amassed an educational debt. This paper explores a self-study of my process as a Latino teacher in a predominantly white California high school who, alongside students of Color, pushed back against deficit-framed reform efforts at my school aimed at closing an "achievement gap." I collaborated with Latinx students to start a racial justice-oriented Latinx Student Union (LSU)— a student organization built upon racial justice theories and models I was exposed to at the CPD and focused on empowerment.
Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) has been conceptualized as a way to “sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation… It exists wherever education sustains the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling” (Paris & Alim, 2017, p.1). Furthermore, Irizarry (2017) found that “Latinx students’ approach to educating themselves and their peers offers a framework with the potential to inform culturally sustaining teaching across contexts” (p. 96).
Guided by CSP and Irizarry’s student-led framework, in LSU, Latinx students were able to self-determine their specific needs, identify structures they felt could help them address those needs, and then prioritize their actionable goals. Collectively, we focused on community engagement, autonomy over our own community’s growth and empowerment, a communal space to build and heal, and staff education on the difference between deficit and asset-based approaches to schooling. Over a span of three years with a focus on those goals, we developed a Latinx-centered conference, leadership opportunities, curriculum changes, a mural, a student retreat, relationships with our feeder schools, and a financial scholarship for undocumented and English Learner students.
After three years of collectively building LSU with the students there have been positive shifts at district, school, and personal levels. The district recognizes LSU as an exemplar for school clubs, and has connected multiple students and teachers from other schools to our work in order to help them build their own versions of “LSU” at their schools. At our school, we have become well-known as a positive force on campus, with our membership growing each year. Teachers have sent emails about the conversations they’ve had with their Latinx students in class about LSU: how it has given them a safe space, provided them a connection to school, and even, as one student recently claimed, “saved his life.” There are more Latinx students engaged in school now because of LSU, and some have felt empowered to join the Associated Student Body and other leadership positions after realizing their self-worth. The success of this model pushes back on deficit explanations of Latinx student underachievement, and instead highlights the power of culturally sustaining and self-determined approaches to student engagement.

Author

• Michael Espinoza, Campbell Union High School District