Situating Abuelita Epistemologies in Urban Schools Through a University Partnership

• In Event: Embracing Authentic Cariño and Community Cultural Wealth in School-University Partnerships

Abstract

Purpose
“We have to be the ones to teach los chiquitos about what we know, how we learned it, and who we learned it from. If we don’t do it, who will? I’m so blessed that we are dancing for these niños because that could have been me a really long time ago”.

Manuela, Abuelita Dancer

The purpose of this paper is to document the living history of an elementary school and university partnership during the 2023-2024 school year. During the months of October and November, schools around the city partake in a myriad of experiences related to Día de Los Muertos (DDLM). Manuela’s quote above was captured during a plática over lunch before the Abuelitas group performed with and for students. In her own words, Manuela shares why she feels it is important for abuelitas to share experiences related to culture with students. The niños Manuela refers to attend a school within the neighborhood surrounding the university. During early fall, the board of trustees voted to close 15 schools as part of the district's right-sizing initiative, Lopez Academy was one of the closures. With the closing of Lopez, the purpose of this piece is to share an experience that took place at the school to document the richness of the school community, community members, and our students’ reactions to engaging in work embedded in culturally sustainable practices.
For this piece, the following research question guided the inquiry:
How can our research and teaching connect service opportunities grounded in a school community’s needs and interests?

Perspective(s)
Gonzalez (2015) autoethnographic inquiry grounds abuelita epistemologies as a critical tool for counteracting subtractive schooling practices in education. Drawing from her memories of her grandmother, she asserts that abuelita ways of knowing and being are often shared through culturally sensitive ways, including music, food, storytelling, and other epistemically specific forms. As such, she argues that schools should draw from the knowledge students carry with them from their grandmothers and insert these opportunities into school pedagogical practices.

Data Sources
This study is grounded in qualitative methods (Saldaña, 2021) these forms of data include: pláticas with the abuelitas and pre-service teachers along with pre-service teachers’ critical reflections that were done in class. Artifacts that reflect these experiences will also be presented.

Results
What began as one classroom and one teacher spread to an end-of-year experience that incorporated three dual-language classrooms and teachers. As the University continues to explore and commit to future partnerships with other public schools in our surrounding community, we must continue to find ways to build partnerships grounded in culturally sustainable practices. As teacher educators, we continue learning from each other and collaborating with schools, teachers, students, and communities.

Scholarly Significance
This study aligns explicitly with abuelita epistemological approaches to language arts instruction through storytelling and read-alouds. This piece extends these previous works by connecting abuelita epistemologies to school praxis in culturally sustaining ways through dance, baile folklórico, and DDLM.

Author

• Katherine Espinoza-Talati, Trinity University