Finding Historical Threads: Vocational Training and Mexican Students in South Central Los Angeles, 1930–1949

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Analyzing Voice and Discourse to Advance Research on Latina/o/x Communities (Table 2)

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the ways dominant discourse found in Los Angeles School District literature from 1930-1949 shaped educational policy and practice for students of Mexican descent attending Jefferson High in South Central Los Angeles. Grounded in the theoretical approaches offered by Critical Race Theory in education and Critical Discourse Analysis to allow us to understand the discursive practices being used to frame students of Mexican descent and the rationalizing language used to design educational policy. Utilizing Census Population Schedules from 1930 & 1940, district curricular documents, along with Jefferson High yearbooks, this study assert the deficit discourse dominant among the district during this time period shaped the creation and implementation of vocational courses to prepare a generation of workers.

Author

• Lluliana Alonso, California State University - Long Beach