Latinx Siblings' Resistance to Pathology Within Family–Bilingual School Relations

• In Event: Toward Answerability in Our Work With and Study of Families and Communities of Color

Abstract

Purpose
U.S school systems continue to pathologize multiply-minoritized families against an idealized notion of a “normal family,” one that is imagined as white, abled-bodied, and English-dominant (Annamma et al., 2018; Cioé-Peña, 2018). At the same time, these families continue to strategically resist their subjugation as they support their children’s education. Notably, Rodela and Bertrand (2021) argue for continual efforts to center the perspectives of children within reforms geared toward heterogeneic and justice-centered family-school relations. As such, this presentation focuses on how multiply-minoritized Latinx siblings in a bilingual program contest deficit-based conceptualizations within family-school relations. It showcases how siblings’ experiences and relationships present expansive possibilities of what relationships among and with families can be in schools.

Theoretical Orientation
This paper is informed by Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit, Annamma et al., 2013) and a raciolinguistic perspective (Rosa & Flores, 2017). DisCrit exposes the interdependent relationship between racism and ableism. With regard to family-school relations, it highlights how racism and ableism intersect to naturalize families racialized as white as “normal” and racially minoritized families as “deviant.” Relatedly, Rosa and Flores (2017) argue that “a raciolinguistic perspective can contribute to understandings of the ways that categories are intersectionally assembled and communicatively co-constituted” (p.635). As such, this paper attends to how ableism and racism operate within and through language and how this relates to the pathologization (and resistance) of multiply-minoritized Latinx siblings in particular.

Methods
This paper draws from a three-year ethnographic study of a dual language bilingual program in the Greater Boston Area. Focal informants were six children (three sibling pairs). Data generation consisted of semi-structured interviews, artifacts, and observations. Data analysis was informed by Luttrell’s (2010) three-step analytical process. The first and second readings consisted of looking for recurring “images, words, phrases followed by coherence among the stories” that arose from siblings’ experiences (Luttrell, 2010, p. 262). The third reading considered patterns across the data and in relation to the theoretical framework.

Findings
Despite the school institution’s efforts to frame their families as possessing deviant and inferior behaviors, Latinx siblings reconfigured and critiqued the purposes of spaces within and outside the school as forms of survival. For example, two sibling pairs critiqued initiatives from official family-school groups and presented alternative reforms for current school structures and routines. Specifically, one sibling group explained that there should be more opportunities to engage in project-based learning experiences that allow students to generate ideas with their parents/guardians/
caretakers with and through expansive forms of languaging. Additionally, one sibling pair utilized the classroom space and scheduled breaks (e.g. snack time, water break) to leverage their dynamic literacies to learn about animals and take care of each other’s wellbeing.

Significance
This paper showcases how leveraging children’s experiences and perspectives– and particularly Latinx siblings– can support rethinking the purpose and structure of education. The children in this study exemplify the importance of attuning to forms of survival already occurring in schools and leveraging them as catalysts for liberation and self-determination.

Author

• Jasmine Alvarado, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author