Hope, Potential, and Possibility: Hallmarks and Contradictions of Ethnic Studies in K–12 Contexts

• In Event: Policy and Protest: K–12 Education in the Era of Critical Race Theory

Abstract

Ethnic Studies classrooms are a critical space of hope for youth, educators, and communities. Still, these classrooms exist inside the unrelenting and thrashing tentacles of white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, and neoliberal schools. It is in this context that we ask: How can ethnic studies thrive within schools that serve to reproduce hegemonic systems of control over youth? What contradictions surface in these classrooms, and how do teachers nevertheless create spaces of radical possibility? Based on a long-term partnership with a public-school ethnic studies program, this paper uses participant-observation data to illustrate key characteristics, tenets, or “hallmarks” of ethnic studies pedagogy (Sleeter & Zavala, 2020) while illuminating its inherent contradictions. It expands definitions of ethnic studies pedagogy and reaffirms its urgency.

Authors

• Dana Altshuler, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Kysa Nygreen, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Laura A. Valdiviezo, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Keisha L. Green, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Joel A. Arce, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Presenting Author