Coloniality of Whiteness in El Sur de Tejas, Aztlán

• In Event: Critical Pedagogies of Place in Aztlán, Gran México

Abstract

Objectives

This research report seeks to study the pernicious workings of the whiteness of coloniality in a specific, local, and social context of a STEM and science classroom in el Sur de Tejas, Aztlan. Focusing on the whiteness of coloniality (Echevarría, 2016), this report advances a provocation in science and STEM education which seeks to interrupt comfortable hegemonic “gap” discourses in science and STEM education.

Theoretical frameworks

This report deploys and theoretically advances critical white studies (CWS) (Author 2a, b) and Latinx critical race theory (LatCRT) (Valdes, 2005) in teaching and learning in science education. These critical framings allow us to follow newly theorized race-based conceptual-empirical research into subject area teaching in Aztlán, Gran México, with special reference to the whiteness of coloniality present in STEM education.

Methods, Techniques or Modes of Inquiry

Using ethnographic case study (Saldaña, 2011) as a method, it serves to complement the aim of adding to race-based conceptual-empirical research in STEM by methodologically setting the stage for historicized and contextualized qualitative studies of teaching and learning in context.

Data sources, evidence, objectives, or materials

This study collected interviews, lesson observations, and reflective journals of two participants, with Author 1 as both participant and observer. Following Saldaña (2011), we performed in vivo coding theorized through our frameworks that emerged from codes, to themes, and then to patterned assertions.

Findings

Findings articulate the pernicious workings of the coloniality of whiteness with specific reference to the overwhelming presence of the English language and English in standardized science education curriculum along with teachers’ exigencies to implement and manage demands of standardized tests. Mexican-American teachers in this study struggled with personal tensions due to the Spanish language along with the Spanish language in the social context of the science classroom. Via our frameworks, these personal and professional struggles became emblematic of the whiteness of coloniality of whiteness at work in Mexican-American teachers in our region.

Scholarly Significance

Significance of this research is that it adds insight into the pernicious workings of whiteness in science classrooms exposing tensions Mexican-American teachers experience in the social context of a fifth-grade science classroom in el Sur de Tejas, Aztlán, due to their linguistic and cultural identities. Besides the pernicious whiteness of coloniality evident in our data, the multigenerationality of subtractive schooling (Valenzuela, 1999) represents a second significantly substantiated finding. Mexican-American teachers, themselves successfully whitened in the standards of science education and teacher education competencies, then later became agents of the whiteness of coloniality with new generations of immigrants.
References

Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.

Author 2a, b

Echevarría, B. (2016). Modernidad y blanquitud. Biblioteca Era. (Obra original publicada 2010)

Saldaña, J. (2011). Fundamentals of qualitative research: Understanding qualitative research. Oxford.

Valdez, F. (2005). Legal reform and social justice: An introduction to LatCrit theory, praxis, and community. Griffith Law Review, 14, 148-173.

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: US-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany:
SUNY Press.

Authors

• Nora Alicia Luna, University of Texas at Austin

• James C. Jupp, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley