Creating Equitable Learning Contexts for Indigenous Mexican Communities: Cultural Knowledge, Networks, Practices, and Empowerment

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Indigenous Mexican students attain cultural knowledge through transnational learning communities outside of traditional K-12 classrooms, but educators are often unaware of the strengths these learning contexts foster in these students. This session focuses on highlighting equitable and inclusive learning communities Indigenous Mexicans recreate and sustain across diasporic contexts. The symposium includes four studies that examine the Indigenous knowledge and practices that foster assets, such as agency, multilingualism, identity development, and sense of belonging in the youth which extend beyond their Indigenous communities. By recentering on Indigenous youth and community voices, our findings recommend that educators take a critical perspective in understanding the learning experiences of Indigenous Mexican students by centering on their Indigeneity and acknowledging their transnational community learning experiences.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Inquiry, Transformation, and Communities

Chair

• Saskias Casanova, UC Santa Cruz

Papers

• Voices of Indigenous Resistance: Indigeneity and Schooling in Rural California - Sarait Martinez Ortega

• Community-Based Organizations as Empowering Spaces for Yucatec-Maya Youth - Saskias Casanova, UC Santa Cruz

• Understanding Indigenous Cultural Practices as Learning Communities: The Case of an Intergenerational Zapotec-Origin Band - Melissa Mesinas, Scripps College

• "Aquí es donde agrarramos valor": Community-Based Learning Spaces by and for Indigenous Mexican Youth - Gabriela Kovats Sanchez, San Diego State University

Discussant

• Luis Urrieta, The University of Texas at Austin