Agency and Equity: Perspectives From a Texas School District Serving Young Children of Latina/o Immigrants

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Agency and Identification: Equitable Opportunities for Marginalized Students

Abstract

This paper examines the ways that stakeholders in a Texas school district on the US/Mexico border think about the kinds of learning experiences young children of Latina/o immigrants should have at school using a combination of traditional ethnography and video-cued, multi-vocal ethnography. District administrators, school administrators, teachers, immigrant parents, and first grade students were shown a film and interviewed about what first grade should be like. Answers differed dramatically across groups, particularly ideas about the role of noise and conversation in learning and ideas about what children of immigrants are capable of. Findings reveal a disconnect within the hierarchical system that ultimately sends messages to children of immigrants that they must be quiet and submissive to learn.

Authors

• Kiyomi Sanchez-Suzuki Colegrove, Texas State University

• Jennifer Keys Adair, The University of Texas - Austin

• Molly Ellen McManus, University of Texas at Austin