LatCrit in Spirit: How Diluted Commitments and Functions Undermine Education Policy Reform

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Analysis and Perspectives on Education Policy for Equity (Table 13)

Abstract

This scoping review explores the state of Latino Critical Legal Theory (LatCrit) in education policy research. We reviewed 23 peer-reviewed articles that study policy through a LatCrit framework to examine how researchers employ it and its spokes (commitments and functions) to advance transformative education policy. We present the significant patterns revealed to include 1) employing testimonio as the go-to mechanism 2) engaging in discourse/narrative analysis methodology and 3) fusing divergent LatCrit with CRT as the foundational lens. By not leveraging the totality of the LatCrit framework, we conclude that researchers dilute the “antisubordination punch” originally intended by the commitments and functions defined by LatCrit founders. We offer recommendations to reconceptualize LatCrit as a powerful mechanism to transform education policy.

Authors

• Araseli Martinez-Pena, University of South Florida

• Lorien S. Jordan, University of South Florida