Cultivating Knowledge of Self Through Autoethnography and Community Listening Parties in Middle School Ethnic Studies

• In Event: Freedom Dreaming Towards Ethnic Studies in Tumultuous Times: Teacher-and-Researcher Reflections on Race, Pedagogy, and Power

Abstract

In this nation, we are taught to think in individualist terms, which lessens our sense of community and opportunities to create conditions for fostering critical self-reflection. Ethnic Studies serves as a counter to allow a reorientation to a more profound understanding of collectivism. This paper explores the use of autoethnography as a social studies assignment to promote a crucial Ethnic Studies tenet–“knowledge of self”–amongst my students (Sleeter, 2011; Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2015). Here, self is utilized in a conceptually expansive way to include not only the individual, but the social and historical standpoints students are embedded in. Building upon the methodological infrastructure of paper #1, this paper uses cultural-historical activity theory (Gutierrez, 2012) to analyze how my pedagogical practices and the implementation of “Imagine a world” community symposium final presentation improved the school-community relationship, enhanced student learning, and cultivated a pedagogical practice responsive to students, parents, and community needs. I analyze student artifacts, video recordings, and ethnographic field notes as data sources to inform my analysis. As a first-year teacher, I aim to share my glows and grows from productively experimenting with Ethnic Studies pedagogies, curriculum, and community assessment in a middle school environment.

During my first months teaching, I assigned students to create a “knowledge of self” zine. The assignment asked them to reflect on themselves, the story of their name, who they are in community with, and where home is. I quickly noticed that students struggled to engage in critical self-reflection, and from that point forward, I made the pedagogical decision to nurture students’ capacity to situate themselves within larger cultural and historical narratives (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). Through these classroom experiences, I conceptualized and enacted three conditions for fostering critical self-reflection in middle school Ethnic Studies: 1) choirs of relationships, 2) creative agency, and 3) historical grounding. In this paper, I offer the learnings from our class’s culminating project: a “Imagine a world” community symposium. This was a novel pedagogical practice in which students transformed their autoethnographies into short podcast-style recordings and then presented their projects to their peers, staff, and family members. This celebratory event deepened engagement, built relational trust, and offered students a sense of pride. For students initially reluctant to engage, the public and communal format motivated meaningful participation and connected their reflections to a larger collective audience. Thus, I argue that autoethnography in middle school Ethnic Studies is not just an assignment but a process requiring intentional relational, creative, and historical scaffolds. When students learn about the history of social justice, they begin to see themselves as agents of change, which empowers them to imagine different ways to change their world and their experiences in that world.

This paper contributes to K-12 Ethnic Studies pedagogy by demonstrating how creative, community-oriented autoethnographic practices, culminating in events like listening parties, can cultivate critical self-reflection, foster identity development, and expand students’ capacity to see themselves as active participants in their communities and histories.

Author

• Elias Bautista, San Francisco Unified School District