Service, Social Action, and Ethnic Studies

• In Event: Placing Reciprocity: Centering Relationality in Community-Rooted Education

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose:
Ethnic Studies has always challenged the divisions between academic and community-based knowledge formations. While scholars have demonstrated the manner in which Ethnic Studies (ES) positively supports students’ academic abilities, engagement, and critical literacies, this study is interested in the explicit development of community-embedded pedagogies, including curriculum making, that is responsive to the dreams, histories, and struggles of the local communities. This particular emphasis is multi-faceted: democratizing archival materials; fostering civic action through participatory action research projects; creating critical service learning and ES pipelines between the local high schools and the local public state university, CSUMB; and finally, creating meaningful partnerships that bridge schools and community contexts. In this paper, I describe a collaboration with local educators, organizers, and artists with substantial ES expertise, constituting the Ethnic Studies Participatory Action Research Collective (ESPARC)–and our work with classroom teachers to develop and assess a localized ES curriculum and praxis.

Research Question: How does the localization of history and civics curriculum support the development of Ethnic Studies praxis for students, teachers, and community members? Central to ES praxis, this project expands upon making meaningful connections between classrooms (content, people, and practice) and communities (histories, civic action, and activism). The development of this community-embedded curriculum also informs the sub-question: How can students, teachers, and community members document and act on community-driven visions of liberation and experiences of oppressions in Salinas through the creation of a community-centered archive and youth participatory action research (YPAR) curriculum?

Theoretical Framework:
The conceptual framework guiding this project is informed by the nexus of PAR, Critical Service Learning, and ES (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Mitchell, 2007, 2008; Rice & Pollack, 2000; Rosenberger, 2000; Cuauhtin et al., 2019). Each of these field formations offer complementary and complex praxes, and legacies. Building on these legacies, this project and our collective prioritize four tenets: (1) social action; (2) community embeddedness; (3) uplifting marginalized voices and histories; and (4) reciprocity. These orientations have influenced the emphasis on the development of a localized ES methodology.

Findings and Scholarly Significance:
ESPARC launched our multi-year collaboration in Fall 2021. The pilot phase outcomes include: (a) five ES teachers partnered with ESPARC members and CSUMB service learners to integrate YPAR methodologies into their classrooms, (b) CSUMB service learners digitized school district board minutes pertinent to building a locally-informed ES curriculum, and (C) an ES rubric was developed and piloted with high school and college students. This pilot year has been essential to developing research and curricular tools that will serve as the foundation for the formal start of the study. This paper will consider these best practices and how they further inform a place-based Ethnic Studies praxis.

Author

• Chrissy Hernandez, California State University - Monterey Bay
  Presenting Author