The Hidden Chicana/Latina Cultural Pedagogy in Multiracial Elementary Schools

• In Event: 593 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Paper Session. The Latino/a Middle Class

Abstract

This study uses qualitative data to investigate how middle-class Latina teachers incorporate Latino cultural resources into their teaching in order to help Latino students and their parents in the context of multiracial schools. Previous scholarship argues that Latino cultural resources are unwelcome in many educational settings, but multiracial schools allow for a different scenario. Drawing on ethnographic research in two “majority-minority” multiracial elementary schools in Los Angeles County, this study argues that Latina teachers exercise the “hidden Chicana/Latina cultural pedagogy” in their teaching to facilitate Latino children and immigrant parents’ incorporation into American society. The pedagogy is comprised of communication styles, immigrant narratives, and alternative mathematical problem solving, all vibrant elements of Latino culture that rupture the “normative” school curriculum. Latina teachers’ efforts, however, are met in contrasting ways in each of the schools. This study has implications for future work on racial/ethnic minority teachers that work in “majority-minority” schools, and points to the understudied importance of the deployment of Latino cultural resources in these environments.

Author

• Glenda M. Flores, University of California-Irvine