Asymmetrical Equity: Reconciling Cultural Relevance With School Finance to Serve Students of Color

• In Event: Roundtable Session 66
  In Roundtable Session: Transformational Spaces: Marginalized School Communities’ Projects of Resistance

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/PURPOSE
Since the Coleman Report (1966), many scholars have attributed achievement to parents’ wealth and education, claiming low-income Black and Latina/o students succeed only if they attend culturally middle-class white schools. Coleman conveniently de-emphasized funding equity, justifying disinvestment in our poorest schools. Culturally relevant programs are the first to be cut, as curriculum shrinks to “standards.” Acknowledging socioeconomic status and stark realities of school finance, I seek a new conception of equity, highlighting a path to success for students of color.

PERSPECTIVES/THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
Schools and classrooms can be spaces for multiple voices, with biculturalism as an asset (Conchas, 2006; Gándara, 1995; Gutiérrez, 2008). Cultural equity was first theorized by Alan Lomax (1977) as empowerment of non-dominant artistic expression. In terms of financial equity, despite laws that “guarantee” quality schooling for all, Black and Latina/o students attend the least-resourced schools (Frankenberg & Lee, 2002).

METHODS
This paper derives from a long-term ethnography of a school serving Chicana/o and P’urhépecha farmworker students. While my initial study focused on student media, this theoretical paper uses hermeneutic analysis to synthesize concepts that are crucial for students of color: culturally relevant pedagogy and educational equity.

DATA SOURCES
Cultural equity is achieved in this classroom by incorporating students’ cultures and languages into curriculum on video analysis and editing. This requires honest and open relationships among teachers and students. With professional cameras and editing equipment, students understand that even without financial equity per se, they have a space with particular resources that allow them to create change – and go to college.

RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS
The key to equity here is not money alone, but alignment of financial resources with cultural resources. This requires school and district personnel who understand their students’ families and work too many hours. Of course, the wealthy have (by definition) financial advantage, and their culture is highly valued by schools. Cultural equity closes the achievement gap somewhat – but “equal opportunity” remains impossible without equal inputs. Success at this school necessitates a different conception of equity. I borrow a concept from military studies: asymmetrical warfare, describing a small, poorly-equipped force’s use of innovative tactics to find areas of comparative advantage, thereby competing against a larger, better-equipped force (Dunlap, 1998).

SIGNIFICANCE
Potential success lies in what I theorize as asymmetrical equity. Asymmetrical equity means leveraging cultural sources through cultural equity, while focusing the school’s limited financial resources only on areas of advantage. This means investing in soccer instead of football; investing in AP Spanish instead of a range of languages; investing in culturally relevant fieldtrips instead of amusement parks. All the test prep in the world will not produce symmetrical test scores, whereas extra hours of editing produces films that win awards and results. Asymmetrical equity is my description, it is not an ideal. That being said, asymmetrical equity is here achieved by emphasizing this community and its strengths, because activism multiplies the effect of resources. I argue that instead of attempting to compete on equal terms, impoverished schools can and should aim for asymmetrical equity.

Author

• Kip Austin Hinton, The University of Texas - Brownsville