Critically Seeing Students: Relationships, Struggle, and Community Wisdom as Pathway to School Belonging

• In Event: Reimaging Community-Based Inquiries and Decolonizing Knowledge Production in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

Educational research has advanced understanding regarding instructional practices that can support the learning, language development, and well-being of bi/multilingual students. Scholars have also identified how equity-oriented programs have failed to attain goals due to the underlying ideologies and power structures that shape teaching and learning (Flores & García, 2017; García & Sung, 2018). The maintenance and reproduction of colonial structures becomes normalized through the hidden curriculum (Anyon, 1981) which includes student-teacher interactions and relationships (Annamma & Handy (2019).
Decolonial pedagogies challenge master narratives such as meritocracy, independence (Mingus, 2017) and classroom control (Gay, 2010) that persist through the hidden curriculum. This work requires that educators develop critical consciousness to unmask the ideologies that devalue the knowledge, ways of being and language practices of emergent bilinguals and multiply marginalized children and youth (Annamma & Handy, 2019; Author), contributing to emotional harm and a sense of school unbelonging (Author).
The purpose of this study is to examine the ways educators’ critical consciousness contributed to instructional and curricular choices that countered master narratives. The primary research question guiding the study asked: What are the ways teachers disrupted master narratives in high school classrooms with emergent bilingual students, and what did it mean for learning?
The conceptual framework guiding this study draws on theories of critical pedagogy and critical care (Freire, 1970; Valenzuela, 1999) along with Tuhiwai-Smith’s conceptualization of struggle as a mechanism for understanding power, collective agency and the knowledge production of marginalized students and families (Tuhiwai-Smith, 2012).
This paper draws from two qualitative case studies conducted in two urban high school classrooms in neighboring midwestern public school districts that serve high numbers of emergent bilingual students. Primary participants across both studies included two classroom teachers and 15 focal emergent bilingual students from each high school. Data was collected in the form of interviews with focal students and teachers, observation of instruction, and copies of student work. Two preliminary findings will be addressed in this paper, the first titled, Challenging independence: Creating opportunities for connection, shows how the master narrative of independence in learning was disrupted through one teacher’s commitment to find ways to work with students outside of class time. Through explicit discussion and consistent actions, the teacher normalized the interconnected nature of learning and challenged the notion that learning was an individual act.
A second finding, Reimagining engagement: Building on community wisdom, highlights the variety of strategies teachers used to develop and maintain communication with students and their families. Both teachers were creative in using a range of strategies to connect with students particularly during virtual learning, but one teacher used technology to learn from families regarding their struggles, which in turn enabled improved teacher-student relationships and student sense of school belonging.
The study findings are significant as they highlight the role of critical consciousness and critical care in disrupting master narratives that normalize dehumanizing practices. This insight informs teacher educators and practitioners regarding pathways for families and students to have voice in curriculum and learning.

Authors

• Christina P. DeNicolo, Wayne State University

• Jennie L. Khalil, Wayne State University