Latinx Immigrant Families in the Educational Borderlands: Towards Transformative Ruptures in Family Engagement in Special Education

• In Event: Unforgetting the Past, Disrupting the Present: Border-Crossing Approaches to Inclusive Education Policy, Research, and Practice

Abstract

Objectives
This research study explores how Latinx immigrant families in an urban special education (SPED) preschool center in northern California navigate sociocultural, linguistic, migratory, and emotional borders. Research on Latinx families with children who have dis/Abilities has identified several systemic barriers that these families commonly face. For instance, SPED documents are often provided only in English (Shapiro et al., 2004). Additionally, there is a noticeable power imbalance between school personnel and families (Salas, 2004), and Latinx parents often experience challenges related to their health and well-being (Miodrag and Hodapp, 2010).

Theoretical Framework
This research paper draws on Delgado Bernal’s (2017) Critical Race Feminista Praxis to explore how Latinx (im)migrant parents collaborate with SPED teachers to address their children’s diverse educational, socioemotional, and linguistic needs. The concept of the borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987) offers important analytical insight to help us explain how visible and invisible borders between groups, “especially groups that are hierarchically organized, affect the material conditions, sociopolitical realities, and hybrid identities of those at the bottom of the hierarchies” (Delgado Bernal et al., 2009, p. 565).

Methods & Data Sources
The qualitative research design aimed to understand how immigrant Latinx families of children in SPED encountered (in)visible borders while engaging with educators in the schooling process of their children. We drew on testimonio interviews with seven Latinx parents of children (3-6 years of age) with special needs and seven early childhood SPED teachers working with Latinx parents and their children with diagnosed dis/Abilities in a SPED program. We selected parents and teachers because it would provide opportunities to critically explore bordering mechanisms and demonstrate how multiple forms of marginalization (Meiners, 2011) are experienced by Latinx immigrant families and their children in SPED, while offering hope for border transgressions.

Results and Conclusions
The study’s findings demonstrate the importance of linguistic and cultural borders in impeding meaningful relationships between parents and teachers. Parents indicated facing challenges engaging (choques) with school officials and teachers due to unavailable interpreting and translating services or an inability to read or write. A second finding revealed how emotional borders pertaining to grief and recency of dis/Ability diagnosis of the child made it challenging for parents to engage through normative school practices. While the role of the SPED teacher can sometimes be understood as a coach and guide for parents on how to best support their children, some parents resisted (choques) the process and suggestions offered. However, these choques sometimes led to transformative ruptures when relational trust was intentionally first cultivated by some teachers with parents (meeting parents where they are at) resulting in greater cohesion and collectively addressing the child’s particular needs.

Scholarly Significance
The study’s implications offer a framework (CRFP) for educators of collaboration and co-creation with Latinx families to identify and address the structural forms of marginalization (language, migration, racial, and ableist borders) to diminish the social vulnerability of children. Finally, the concept of transformative ruptures provides powerful insights into how cultures of collaboration between educators and parents can be leveraged when educators employ cultural and community-dialogic approaches when working with marginalized families.

Authors

• Argelia Lara, Santa Clara University

• Pedro E. Nava, Santa Clara University

• Mirsha Gomez, Oakland United School District