Cultural Assets Across Contexts: Voices of College-Bound Latina/o Adolescents

• In Event: Educational Resilience, Agency, and Cultural Assets

Abstract

Purpose

Educational research continues to focus on the deficits of students of color. For example, while the diversity of Latinos is well documented (García & Jensen, 2009; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Rios, 2008), academic achievement discourse continues to lump the group together and compare achievement outcomes between Latino students and White students. This focus on monolithic measures of achievement and success—particularly for those of upper, middle-class White students—blinds us from the many strengths that our students from diverse backgrounds possess (Borrero & Yeh, 2012). If we, as educators, cannot counter this deficit narrative (Fine & Weis, 2003) with provocative and rigorous research showcasing the successes of students of color in our schools, we become complicit in the inequities in our system (Camangian, 2010).

Theoretical Foundation

The current research is framed in a socio-cultural approach to learning (Nieto, 2002), stressing the need to acknowledge the multiple social contexts that youth navigate daily (inside and outside of school) as learning opportunities (Morales & Hanson, 2006; Tse, 1995). For Latino youth, and many youth of color, this approach to learning is important because it creates possibilities for finding connections between students’ cultural lives at home and at school (Nieto, 2002). To do this, teachers and school counselors must find ways to build upon the learning that students are doing outside of school (e.g. Borrero & Yeh, 2010). The current study frames this work as an investigation of cultural assets (Borrero & Yeh, 2012)—building upon existing work that focuses on students’ cultural strengths as opposed to their deficits (e.g. Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzales, 1992).

Method

Longitudinal interview data with 18 Latino/a adolescents from a working class community in California were analyzed using grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed by a team of two raters—the author and a research assistant who was not involved in the data collection—to determine emergent themes.

Results

Interview data revealed three core themes about students’ reflections on their own cultural assets: dynamic family roles, school as a support system, and community resources. These findings are presented to showcase the voices of these youth and their recognition of cultural assets reaching across the social contexts they navigate daily. For example, speaking of her pride as a Latina who wants to go to college so she can come back and serve her community, Linda said,
It’s something that is around me every day—my culture—like, the food, the music, the language. And it’s not just that…It’s always going to be present in my life and I don’t want to lose my roots. I will always come back here.

Scientific or Scholarly Significance

Students’ voices are presented to showcase the importance of cultural assets as a field of study—teachers, school counselors, and educational researchers must work together to make schools places that can foster youths’ assets. This research takes a step in this direction by connecting youths’ voices about resilience and cultural strengths via scholarly inquiry.

Author

• Noah Borrero, University of San Francisco