Disrupting Deficit Discourses by Creating Sanctuary Within the Classroom

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Anti-Immigrant Discourse, Latinx Undocumented Student Resistance, and Sanctuary in School and Out-of-School Spaces

Abstract

Utilizing Borderland Theory (Anzaldúa, 2007; Elenes, 2006) as a theoretical lens to examine the disruption dominant deficit discourses in a public high school Spanish classroom of Latinx students, this paper draws from a larger autoethnographic study based on eight years of personal and professional journals. Key findings include the rejection of carceral classroom practices in the form of dominant classroom management strategies and the use of the intersticios (Anzaldúa, 2007) as ways to disrupt deficit discourses and create sanctuary within the classroom space.
 

Author

• Rosemary Hendriks, California State University - Los Angeles