Realizing and Responding: Teacher Participatory Action Research at Skyline College

• In Event: 35.071 - Making Filipina/o Students' Voices Matter: Pin@y Educational Partnerships' Teacher Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Objectives
As ethnic studies courses at the community college level are reduced and removed from course schedules around the nation, our research investigated how our students in Sociology 142: Filipina/o Community Issues at Skyline College in San Bruno, California were impacted by an ethnic studies curriculum that practiced problem-posing critical pedagogy and praxis in the classroom (Freire, 2005). In our paper, we use the concepts of transformative resistance (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001) and reading the world to read the word and reading the word to read the world (Freire, 1983) to show how our students were able to critique social oppressions and exhibit how the curriculum and readings in our course allowed our students to see themselves in the curriculum and also understand the readings through their own lived experiences. Our research questions were: How can ethnic studies affect the way students read and transform their world? What are the ways ethnic studies allows a space for students to build transformative agency to personally combat oppression?

Theory
In this paper, we applied transformative resistance (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001) and reading the world to read the word and also reading the word to read the world (Freire, 1983) to investigate how our students responded to the ethnic studies curriculum we taught during the first eight weeks of our course. By framing our research around qualitative research methods, we discovered the relevance of the curriculum to their lives and challenged dominant narratives and essentialized notions of ethnic identities.

Methods/Data Sources
We used qualitative research methods: ethnography of our classroom, student group blogs, individual student journals, and personal narrative assignments utilized throughout the semester. Qualitative research allowed us to assess the impact our curriculum had within the first eight weeks of the semester.

Results and Significance
From our data collection, we discovered three common themes: (re)discovery, resistance, and reflection. Our students understood their identities through (re)discovering new perspectives by learning about Filipina/o American history and connecting these histories to their personal, family, and community experiences. Ethnic Studies provided a counterspace of resistance to oppressions students faced in their daily lives. Our students were encouraged to share their stories as a form of resistance to dominant narratives. Our class provided a space for reflection where students could take a step back from their lived experiences and understand how their experiences contributed to who they are and how they have become who they are.
As the research took place during the first eight weeks of the semester, we were also able to create recommendations for our class that were feasible to implement and take action during the remaining weeks of the course. Our two recommendations and action plans were: 1) Students within assigned groups created a short documentary showing the importance of Ethnic Studies at community colleges as a component of their final semester project and 2) Created and maintained a classroom environment that nurtured the R’s (relationships, relevance, responsibility, resistance, responsiveness, and reflection), where students and teachers continued to build transformative agency to combat oppressions.

Author

• Von Torres, Fresno City College