Using Pláticas to Move Beyond Silos: Equitable Education for Latina/o/x Students and Communities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Carceral Histories of Youth to Interrogate Identities Positioned in Deficit Discourses (Table 22)

Abstract

This paper uses pláticas methodology to illustrate the intricate contradictions and tensions that Latino/a/x students and teachers experience within the U.S. educational system. Collectively the authors reflect upon their own professional experiences as they grappled with outcomes of the profoundly negative impact of the increased derogatory characterization of Latino/a/x communities, students and educators across the education landscape. Our embrace of pláticas as a way to reach across different educational communities (K-12, higher ed, community-based organization) serves to forefront ways educators can enact the messages inherent in the work of these authors and improve our educational systems from within. Specific examples of resulting pedagogical and curricular changes in our work are presented.

Authors

• Margarita Jimenez-Silva, University of California - Davis

• Eleonora Villegas-Reimers, Boston University

• Janine Bempechat, Boston University

• Evelyn C Baca, Illinois State University

• Melody Esqueda, Los Angeles City Unified School District

• Patricia D. Quijada Cerecer, University of California - Davis

• Leticia Alvarez Gutiérrez, University of Utah