Unaccompanied Youth in an Urban School

• In Event: Aspiring and Practicing School Leaders Engaging in Participatory Action Research Alongside Minoritized Youth

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to learn about the schooling experiences of unaccompanied youth from Central America and southern Mexico at an urban school in the Los Angeles area. The goal was to engage with youth to have them describe what an educación in a U.S. school meant to them. The term educación was used because for Latinx families education encompasses more than a formal and solely academic education (Auerbach, 1999; Valenzuela, 2002; Yosso, 2006).

Theoretical Frameworks

This study centers Critical Race Theory to (a) understand the racialization of Latinx immigrant youth within their new setting; (b) leverage the power of new narratives to combat dominant ideologies about immigrant youth from Central America and Mexico, and (c) give saliency to the youth’s experience as a source of knowledge (Bernal, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Solorzano & Yosso, 2001, 2002).

YPAR allowed for a shift in the research process where the youth were the agents of knowledge creation and emancipatory actions to enhance the schooling process (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Fine, 2016; Fine, 2018; Mirra et al., 2016).

Methods

Youth co-constructed the interview protocol and conducted virtual interviews. Analysis of school documents, field notes, and research team meeting notes supplemented the student interview data. Member check-ins supported the process and data triangulation. The first data analysis was open and inductive (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018). This process then generated broader themes which were mapped onto the shared commitments of CRT and YPAR (Torre, 2009).

Data

The data included rich descriptions of translanguaging as the norm in classrooms. Students were allowed to share their experiences openly and socio-emotional supports were present. School documents and meeting notes revealed a commitment to supporting immigrant youth through various efforts and structures.

Findings

Youth epistemology demonstrated: (1) the importance of listening to youth, especially those at the margins; (2) immigrant youth, particularly unaccompanied youth, possess a high degree of agency and self-awareness; and (3) leveraging and engaging youth voice through participatory methodologies creates emancipatory schooling spaces. This form of enacting school creates a dialogical process that enhances the adults’ practices while creating a much more responsive system for the youth served by the school community.

Scholarly Significance

School leadership research must invest in radical leadership practices that center student voice and agency. YPAR is one way in which a community's wealth and capital (Yosso, 2005) can genuinely inform the project of schooling. Centering the voices of those closest to those who experience school, students, can advance and shape research agendas that truly address the challenges faced by schools. This study is in line with Caraballo et al. (2017) in positing YPAR as a promising methodology to both center and leverage the voices of students as knowledge producers and change agents for social justice, alongside practitioners, policy makers, and researchers.

Author

• Leyda Waleska Garcia, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author