Deportation dialogue: Platicas and movidas as strategies for sociocultural critique

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Research in Precarious Times

Abstract

We analyze bilingual teacher discursive moves in an out-of-school cultural enrichment program, La Academia, highlighting their discursive moves, or movidas de plática. This discursive space for teachers engaged in sociocultural critique while developing and teaching Mexican American studies curricula for elementary grade students. We ethnographically and qualitatively analyze these pláticas as discursive spaces that worked to resist the deficit and violent discourses which dominated the schools and societal discourses. We ethnographically analyze a plática on addressing student fear of family deportations to argue that teachers used movidas to differentially open up the discursive space to critique the affective and epistemic violence they experienced as bilingual teachers and construct transformative knowledge by promoting a more culturally revitalizing discourse.

Authors

• Christopher L. Milk Bonilla, Texas State University

• Brenda Rubio, University of North Texas