Navigating K–12 Schools: The Experience of Latinx Parents in Rural Idaho

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Social Justice Praxis in K–12 Schooling Contexts

Abstract

Rural areas are becoming more diverse with diaspora communities (Parmar, 2017). In the last ten years, Idaho’s Latinx population rose 30.5%, compared to a 14% rise in the general population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). Hispanic and Latinx people are 33% more likely than non-Hispanic or non-Latinx people to live in rural Idaho areas (Dearien & Salant, 2016). Using ethnographic and autoethnographic methodologies, this study explores the experience of parents who navigated rural schools in Idaho. Findings highlight the parents’ use of navigational, aspirational, and familial capital as the parents negotiated educational success for their children in rural Idaho schools. This study reframes deficit narratives of Latinx students and in rural educational spaces and imagines more equitable educational outcomes.

Author

• Eulalia Gallegos Buitron, The University of Idaho