"Por Los Míos": Puerto Rican Mothering for More Inclusive Educational Spaces

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Transforming Family-School Partnerships: Practices for Justice and Equity

Abstract

Drawing from raciolinguistics and Critical Pedagogy, this paper centers a learning space—culture circles—that engaged displaced Puerto Rican mothers in a critical cycle of problem-posing, dialogue, and problem-solving in relation to the challenges their children face in the receiving U.S. school system. Using a qualitative, ethnographic approach, the study highlights the agency, resistance, and empowerment guiding participants’ discourses and actions as they advocate for their children to obtain the services and supports they need. Findings bear witness to the political, loving labor mothers engage in as they identify and critique oppressive conditions, informing theoretical stances used to interpret the experiences of immigrants/refugees/displaced persons by centering acts and discourses of agency and resistance through a critical inquiry model.

Author

• Astrid Nicholl Sambolín Morales, University of Pennsylvania