Former "Pushouts" Challenging the Educational Achievement Binary

• In Event: A Critical Exploration of Educational Experiences of Boys and Men of Color

Abstract

This paper draws from extensive life history interviews of 10 Latinx male-identified adults to re(conceptualize) the way that educational scholarship defines “high achieving.” In their youth, these Latinx males identified as “push-outs,” had either attended remedial programs, experienced the juvenile justice system, or had left school during their 7th-12th-grade schooling. Twenty oral history interviews were conducted focusing on the trajectories that eventually led each student into remedial schools and/or the juvenile justice system and how they then navigated into and through postsecondary schooling. Findings from this study highlight how young men of color employed various strategies that led to transformational forms of resistance and refusal into their postsecondary and career trajectories.

Author

• Maria C. Malagon, California State University - Fullerton