- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sophia_Rodriguez
- Foucault and education, History of Education, Teacher Education, Urban Education, Cuban Studies, Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, and 23 moreGilles Deleuze, Space and Place, Youth Studies, Critical Geography, Sociology of Teaching and Learning, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Education Policy, Sociology of Knowledge, Educational Theory, Critical Race Theory and Whiteness theory, Democratic Education, Sociology of Education, Critical Pedagogy, Teacher Activism, Qualitative inquiry, Sociology of Children and Childhood, undocumented latino immigrants in the U.S., Immigration, Immigrants, Latino/A Studies, Migration Studies, and Sociology of Migrationedit
- I am an Associate Professor of Urban Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. I was recently visiting s... moreI am an Associate Professor of Urban Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. I was recently visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University School of Education -Center for the Social Organization of Schools (Spring 2020). I teach graduate courses in education policy, immigration and education, social inequality, and research methodology. My research focuses on urban education, racial and ethnic identity formation in schools, youth activism, and immigrant youth experiences in society and schools. I was recently named a William T. Grant Scholar to study how districts and community-based organizations support newcomer immigrant youth. My current research projects, sponsored by the Spencer and William T. Grant Foundations (2018-2022; 2022-2027) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (2016-2019), involve mixed-methods studies about how community-school partnerships (school district and public library) increase newcomer immigrant youth belonging, and examine the role of school social workers and school-based personnel in providing advocacy for undocumented immigrant students. For my work to date, I received the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association, Division G, Social Context of Education. My research has also appeared in the Washington Post and The Conversation.edit
This brief reports findings from a survey with middle and high school youth in a midsize district in the Mid-Atlantic. We find that belonging varies by race and ethnicity for young people. Overall, Black and Latino/x youth report lower... more
This brief reports findings from a survey with middle and high school youth in a midsize district in the Mid-Atlantic. We find that belonging varies by race and ethnicity for young people. Overall, Black and Latino/x youth report lower belonging when compared to their White peers in a pro-diversity and inclusion district. Implications for policy and practice are addressed to improve sense of belonging for racially/ethnically and linguistically diverse youth.
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This three-year multi-site ethnographic study centers undocumented high school youth’s (N = 53) perspectives on citizenship. Challenging legal conceptions of citizenship, the article advances the notion of racialized citizenship, which is... more
This three-year multi-site ethnographic study centers undocumented high school youth’s (N = 53) perspectives on citizenship. Challenging legal conceptions of citizenship, the article advances the notion of racialized citizenship, which is grounded in youth experiences and argues that deeper racial meanings and hierarchies undergird categories of citizenship. By highlighting a nuanced context of reception in the U.S. Southeast, the authors document how youth are racialized in school-community contexts and their perceptions of citizenship. This ethnographic work humanizes undocumented student’s experiences and urges educators and policymakers to reject pervasive anti-immigrant discourses and practices.
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Background/Context: Undocumented youth navigate unwelcoming and challenging federal, state, and local contexts in the United States. Although previous research shows the significant impact of immigration policy and enforcement on... more
Background/Context: Undocumented youth navigate unwelcoming and challenging federal, state, and local contexts in the United States. Although previous research shows the significant impact of immigration policy and enforcement on educational outcomes and social-emotional well-being, this study sheds light on the multiple, intersecting policy and school contexts that hinder social and educational mobility. The article specifically addresses the processes of racialization, criminalization, and exclusion that structurally and symbolically decrease belonging and mobility.
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to elicit Latinx undocumented immigrant youth experiences in a southern state to contribute to evolving research on their experiences in K–12 schools in an understudied geographic location. Additionally, the purpose was to understand how undocumented youth: (1) talk about the policies that impact their daily lives, (2) perceive the organizational-level structures that exist to support them in school and community contexts, and (3) articulate a sense of belonging through their community and school interactions in relation to processes of racialization and its impact on immigration status. Conceptually, the paper utilizes a multilevel, interactional framework to show the impact of racialization and racialized othering of Latinx undocumented immigrants in policy, school and community, and relational contexts.
Research Design: The study is a three-year critical ethnography of two Title I high schools in a focal state in the U.S. South that maintains particularly restrictive policies toward immigrants. The ethnographic data included 800+ hours of fieldwork across the two school sites and semistructured interviews with 63 undocumented youth, as well as additional school and district personnel and community-based organization staff in the schools. Centering youth voices deepens our understanding of their status of illegality—specifically how their material lives are impacted by policy and institutional-level dynamics and constraints.
Conclusions/Recommendations: From these data, the author shows how youth voice through ethnographic evidence counteracts anti-immigrant policies and criminalization of Latinx immigrants; the youth critique policies and practices as they are entrenched in them. Despite the negative schooling and societal encounters, youth critique social policy and institutions that seek to limit their progress in society. The implications for policymakers, educators, and school-based personnel is significant because they are also in an anti-immigrant political and societal (and global) climate as migration remains a feature of our global world, more recently due to civil unrest, violence, natural disasters, and global poverty. Centering youth voices and experiences provides potential “policy windows” of opportunity to disrupt processes of racialization at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although legal status may impose certain limitations on undocumented students’ educational opportunities, their educational trajectories are still highly determined by school structures. Knowing this, educators can respond effectively to ensure educational rights and equitable educational practice.
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to elicit Latinx undocumented immigrant youth experiences in a southern state to contribute to evolving research on their experiences in K–12 schools in an understudied geographic location. Additionally, the purpose was to understand how undocumented youth: (1) talk about the policies that impact their daily lives, (2) perceive the organizational-level structures that exist to support them in school and community contexts, and (3) articulate a sense of belonging through their community and school interactions in relation to processes of racialization and its impact on immigration status. Conceptually, the paper utilizes a multilevel, interactional framework to show the impact of racialization and racialized othering of Latinx undocumented immigrants in policy, school and community, and relational contexts.
Research Design: The study is a three-year critical ethnography of two Title I high schools in a focal state in the U.S. South that maintains particularly restrictive policies toward immigrants. The ethnographic data included 800+ hours of fieldwork across the two school sites and semistructured interviews with 63 undocumented youth, as well as additional school and district personnel and community-based organization staff in the schools. Centering youth voices deepens our understanding of their status of illegality—specifically how their material lives are impacted by policy and institutional-level dynamics and constraints.
Conclusions/Recommendations: From these data, the author shows how youth voice through ethnographic evidence counteracts anti-immigrant policies and criminalization of Latinx immigrants; the youth critique policies and practices as they are entrenched in them. Despite the negative schooling and societal encounters, youth critique social policy and institutions that seek to limit their progress in society. The implications for policymakers, educators, and school-based personnel is significant because they are also in an anti-immigrant political and societal (and global) climate as migration remains a feature of our global world, more recently due to civil unrest, violence, natural disasters, and global poverty. Centering youth voices and experiences provides potential “policy windows” of opportunity to disrupt processes of racialization at micro, meso, and macro levels. Although legal status may impose certain limitations on undocumented students’ educational opportunities, their educational trajectories are still highly determined by school structures. Knowing this, educators can respond effectively to ensure educational rights and equitable educational practice.
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This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, including their perceptions of immigration enforcement and school climates that support or hinder immigrant student experiences. We conceptually... more
This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, including their perceptions of immigration enforcement and school climates that support or hinder immigrant student experiences. We conceptually expand understandings of nested contexts of reception and racialized organizations across macro, meso, micro levels, and how they affect immigrant students’ educational experiences, mobility, and belonging. Utilizing open-ended responses from a unique national survey data set, we examine school social workers’ perceptions of the macro, meso, micro racialized contexts that immigrant students encounter, how school social worker perceptions reflect racial attitudes as part of the racialized organization of schools in which they work, and how such racial attitudes influence their actions and potentially disrupt racial inequality in schools. Discussion of the impact of school social workers’ racial attitudes, and perceptions of racialized contexts and how they influence school social workers’ advocacy for immigrant students is offered.
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Anti-immigrant rhetoric increasingly depicts immigrants as undeserving, but schools are social institutions where these perceptions can be challenged and, ideally, where inequities confronting immigrant students can be ameliorated.... more
Anti-immigrant rhetoric increasingly depicts immigrants as undeserving, but schools are social institutions where these perceptions can be challenged and, ideally, where inequities confronting immigrant students can be ameliorated. Existing research suggests that teachers and administrators are central to this task, but it also raises questions about the role of other personnel in immigrant-serving schools. Drawing on the concept of nepantlera, this study examines how school social workers (SSWs) pursue equity for immigrant students by challenging intersecting power structures. The authors present preliminary findings that attest to the importance of nepantleras for SSWs and the importance of SSWs for immigrant-serving schools.
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The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized... more
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
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This article problematizes methodological practices, specifically the use of surveys as tools of measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we investigate the knowledge created about... more
This article problematizes methodological practices, specifically the use of surveys as tools of
measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we
investigate the knowledge created about particular minoritized groups through the author’s current
evaluation, the power relations involved, and the ethical dimensions of evaluation. We argue that
ethical questions for evaluators are entangled in an era of neoliberal, audit culture in educational
research. We offer a theoretical orientation for productive critique of methodological practice.
measurement in evaluation with migrant youth. Drawing from Foucault’s Genealogy of Ethics, we
investigate the knowledge created about particular minoritized groups through the author’s current
evaluation, the power relations involved, and the ethical dimensions of evaluation. We argue that
ethical questions for evaluators are entangled in an era of neoliberal, audit culture in educational
research. We offer a theoretical orientation for productive critique of methodological practice.
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Key facts: 1.) Anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of immigration enforcement in the United States negatively impact academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to... more
Key facts: 1.) Anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of immigration
enforcement in the United States negatively impact
academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to resources, cultivate
a more welcoming climate in schools, and provide traumainformed interventions for immigrant students. 3.) Many school social workers
advocate for immigrant students and take action to connect with their families, develop trust, and be a bridge between schools and families.
enforcement in the United States negatively impact
academic performance among immigrant students. 2.) School social workers are uniquely placed to connect families to resources, cultivate
a more welcoming climate in schools, and provide traumainformed interventions for immigrant students. 3.) Many school social workers
advocate for immigrant students and take action to connect with their families, develop trust, and be a bridge between schools and families.
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This 3-year multi-site critical ethnography in a focal state in the New Latino South provides insight into the everyday experiences of racism, racialization, and racial inequality that undocumented students face. Specifically, the study... more
This 3-year multi-site critical ethnography in a focal state in the New Latino South provides insight into the everyday experiences of racism, racialization, and racial inequality that undocumented students face. Specifically, the study showcases how undocumented students' interactions with their teachers manifest in racialized organizations such as schools. Drawing on interviews and participant observations in two Title I public high schools with rising numbers of Latinx undocumented students, including recently arrived youth, the article illustrates the challenges of racialization in particular, and the resulting lack of belonging these youth experience. Leveraging a framework of racialization, including how schools are racialized organizations (Ray in Am Sociol Rev 84(1):26-53, 2019) where racialized microaggressions devalue Latinx undocumented youth experiences, resistance also allows for interrupting these damaging practices toward this population.
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The article conceptualizes community-school partnerships (CSP) as racial projects. Drawing on data from a mixed-methods study of how CSPs increase belonging for migrant youth, the article reveals existing tensions in CSPs from migrant... more
The article conceptualizes community-school partnerships (CSP) as racial projects. Drawing on data from a mixed-methods study of how CSPs increase belonging for migrant youth, the article reveals existing tensions in CSPs from migrant youth (N = 63) and stakeholder perspectives. Viewing CSPs through a racial project lens allows researchers and practitioners to identify, in both design and implementation, spaces of tension where attempts to disrupt the existing status quo and structure opportunity can ultimately reproduce inequality, especially given the "commonsense" logic of racial projects and coherence of neoliberal ones about belonging and immigrant integration. Implications for understanding CSPs as racial projects are discussed.
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This article provides ethnographic evidence of how Latinx undocumented youth navigate racialization processes. The research occurs in a focal state in the New Latino South, a highly restrictive and hostile context toward immigrants... more
This article provides ethnographic evidence of how Latinx undocumented youth navigate racialization processes. The research occurs in a focal state in the New Latino South, a highly restrictive and hostile context toward immigrants broadly and undocumented ones specifically. The author situates this research in Rogelio Sáenz and Karen Douglas' call for the racialization of immigration studies, considering notions of race and racism in the study of undocumented youth experiences of identity, discrimination, social isolation, and belonging, and how processes of racialization mark the bodies of undocumented youth in negative, punitive ways in school and societal contexts in a restrictive policy context like South Carolina. Drawing on data from a three-year, multisite ethnography in two Title I public high schools in South Carolina, the study shows how youth are racialized in their schools and communities. Their narratives provide moments when undocumented youth elaborate their experiences in schools, which the author argues is an act of resistance where they broker, dismantle, and overcome their position of marginality. This cultural elaboration by undocumented youth positions them as active agents and re-centers and humanizes their experience of racism and racialization in order to make visible the systemic oppression they encounter. It is through their cultural elaboration of their undocumentedness that they can powerfully critique immigration policy and schools' roles in perpetuating deficit discourses about the "problems" the undocumented subjectivity presents. [Immigrant, New Latino South, Racialization, Undocumented, Youth] "I am overdetermined from without. I am the slave not of the 'idea' that others have of me but of my own appearance." Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
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The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity and advocating for immigrant students in K-12 settings. The authors explore and conceptualize the notion of nepantlera from Anzaldúa’s work... more
The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity and advocating for immigrant students in K-12 settings. The authors explore and conceptualize the notion of nepantlera from Anzaldúa’s work and draw from qualitative data to support how SSWs function as nepantleras in service and advocacy roles for undocumented immigrant students. We argue for the importance of expanding the conceptual framework to describe the kind of work SSWs need to do within the borderlands of schools. As part of our conceptual exploration we ask: What is a paradigm for SSW practice with immigrant students that is informed by the concept of nepantlera? How do we begin to think about and understand such a paradigm in a way that honors the complexity of Anzaldúa’s work? These are questions we explore throughout the paper alongside our qualitative data with a national sample of school workers. We offer implications for a nepantlera-informed paradigm in school social work practice.
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In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of... more
In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of evaluation, theorize it as a truth-telling practice that aims to control populations and futures, and consider the implications of this for a current evaluation project with transnational newcomer migrant youth in the United States. The authors raise the following questions about evaluation as a social practice: Who/what knowledge is produced in the process? What mechanisms/technologies are deployed to reason, compare, and quantify migrant youth experiences, and at what cost? What are the ethical imperatives underlying this truth-telling process? The article offers a productive critique of current evaluation practices, providing theoretical and methodological implications of this analysis, arguing to expose the politics of governance embedded in evaluation.
Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social mobility along with significant isolation within the school context. Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth and their families. Drawing... more
Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social
mobility along with significant isolation within the school context.
Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth
and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author
describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for
undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and
providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to
effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.
mobility along with significant isolation within the school context.
Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth
and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author
describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for
undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and
providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to
effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.
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The article is about a set of methodological disruptions that occur in ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and experiences of the ethnographic self.... more
The article is about a set of methodological disruptions that occur in
ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for
ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and
experiences of the ethnographic self. This article documents the process
of a minoritized youth, Queen, entering the research space and the
emergent relations among Queen and Latinx undocumented youth.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s analytics, I theorize disruption as a core
concept in this particular experience of engaging in fieldwork as part of a
multi-site critical ethnography. Presenting three frames of disruption—
relating to the research space, analyses and findings, and the
ethnographic self—I complicate who gets included and excluded from a
study and the implications for relational ethnics in ethnographic
fieldwork. Ultimately, I argue that our methodological practices and
selves need to be disrupted in order to enhance our views of who/what
gets included/excluded during our fieldwork.
ethnographic fieldwork and what these disruptions mean for
ethnographic studies, including analysis, representation of data, and
experiences of the ethnographic self. This article documents the process
of a minoritized youth, Queen, entering the research space and the
emergent relations among Queen and Latinx undocumented youth.
Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s analytics, I theorize disruption as a core
concept in this particular experience of engaging in fieldwork as part of a
multi-site critical ethnography. Presenting three frames of disruption—
relating to the research space, analyses and findings, and the
ethnographic self—I complicate who gets included and excluded from a
study and the implications for relational ethnics in ethnographic
fieldwork. Ultimately, I argue that our methodological practices and
selves need to be disrupted in order to enhance our views of who/what
gets included/excluded during our fieldwork.
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This community-based mixed-methods evaluation study investigates how a library-based program increases belonging for newcomer youth. This article presents the qualitative analysis from a mixed-methods study in progress. The article... more
This community-based mixed-methods evaluation study investigates how a library-based program increases belonging for newcomer youth. This article presents the qualitative analysis from a mixed-methods study in progress. The article describes the library's community practice of advocating for newcomers with meaningful programming that increases understanding of community resources, local politics, and belonging. Key findings relate to the project leaders' perceptions of the library as a hub for democracy, how the program positively increased belonging for newcomers, and challenges and lessons learned from the first year of the program. Implications for practice demonstrate how the asset-based program through the library-school district partnership counteracts hostile political climates toward newcomers.
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This study investigates teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how it impacts their attitudes toward undocumented students using an explanatory mixed-methods design in a focal state in the New Latino South, i.e.,... more
This study investigates teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how it impacts their attitudes toward undocumented students using an explanatory mixed-methods design in a focal state in the New Latino South, i.e., South Carolina. Data were collected in 2016-2018 during the height of post-Trump anti-immigrant rhetoric and a flurry of xeno-phobic initiatives. The article shares descriptive survey data results (n = 101) that reveal an insignificant correlation between teachers' awareness and attitudes but illustrate an alarming lack of awareness of policies related to immigration and a range of attitudes regarding these policies. Qualitative interviews showcase more deeply teachers' attitudes about immi-grants/immigration policy. The paper argues for increasing teacher awareness in the form of sociopolitical knowledge of policy contexts and a nuanced conceptualization of teacher empathy. The significance of this study is that to date there has not been a large-scale study that examines teachers' awareness of federal and state immigration policy and how that awareness shapes attitudes toward undocumented students specifically, yielding practical knowledge for teacher preparation programs and professional development. Implications suggest that teachers who lack sociopolitical awareness are more likely to believe in false or inaccurate narratives about immigrants, which negatively impacts undocumented students.
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This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants. This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions... more
This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants. This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions of good immigrants in order to exclude Latinx immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility. Drawing on a content analysis of 67 policy documents from the state’s legislative database from 2003-2017, the analysis revealed examples of explicit and implicit exclusion. The main findings related to these forms of explicit and implicit exclusion, highlighting how policy discourse constructs notions of good immigrants in state policy and policy enactments restrict resources. As Latinx populations reconfigure the landscape of the U.S. South, states like South Carolina continue to embed racist, discriminatory language and actions into enacted and proposed policies. This has severe implications for undocumented children and families and their access to public and social resources.
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In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to expand the literature about how teachers understand and apply multiculturalism specifically when working with newcomer undocumented... more
In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to expand the literature about how teachers understand and apply multiculturalism specifically when working with newcomer undocumented immigrant youth. The co-authors identify an implementation gap between what is known about critical multicultural education and how it is put into practice by educators, specifically in regions that can be characterized as constrained policy contexts. Findings from collective analyses of data across all three studies add to multicultural education literature by directly addressing the ways in which policies govern the everyday lives of newcomers and inform the practices of their teachers. Key findings that represent generative dispositions and practices among teachers of newcomer students were strategic teacher empathy and sociopolitical awareness. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for practice and future research.
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This article argues that assimilationist narratives of migration are dominant and hinder the political potential of migrant subjectivities. The article further problematizes the linear, dualistic paradigms and essentialist tendencies... more
This article argues that assimilationist narratives of migration are dominant and hinder the political potential of migrant subjectivities. The article further problematizes the linear, dualistic paradigms and essentialist tendencies present within social science scholarship on migration that often relies upon deficit-based thinking about minoritized groups such as migrants as well as their cultural positioning as a problem and yet vulnerable. In this theoretical article, the author considers migration as risk, drawing on Biesta’s (2013) notion of risk. The author explores how productive risk connects with emancipation, seeing the risky migrant subjects in societies in new ways rather than positioning them as marginalized, dangerous threats to societies. Finally, the author connects the theory of migration as risk to current ethnographic data from empirical research in the U.S. Implications of the theorizing are also discussed.
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This article expands the discussion on youth activism, arguing for a new materialist conception of youthspaces. Centering this article around the concept of youthspaces, a term that refers to the agency, relationality and resistance... more
This article expands the discussion on youth activism, arguing for a new materialist conception of youthspaces. Centering this article around the concept of youthspaces, a term that refers to the agency, relationality and resistance engendered in youthspaces, the article urges that a new materialist understanding of youthspaces and youth studies, in particular, opens up new opportunities to observe how minoritized youth are making sense of education policy and practice as well as cultivating positive identities and affinities among each other in the context of education and social justice efforts.
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This article examines how state-level policy discourse articulates a category of knowledge about immigrants in South Carolina that governs the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants. In the analysis of proposed and enacted... more
This article examines how state-level policy discourse articulates a category of knowledge about immigrants in South Carolina that governs the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants. In the analysis of proposed and enacted immigration legislation from 2005 to the present, we use a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis to better understand how policy forms out of a problematization of marginalized groups such as undocumented immigrants. We find that policy constitutes immigrants as an economic and security threat and as Othered, outsiders to the state. This allows for policy makers to propose seemingly rational solutions such as " proving one's status " and " increased law enforcement. " We suggest that this categorization of knowledge about immigrants has clear implications for educational attainment, social mobility, and public life while highlighting the viability of a Foucauldian-inspired theorization of discourse and critical discourse analysis as a method for inquiry.
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This article sheds light on the educational trajectories of undocumented youth who engage in forms of organizing through a community-school partnership in an urban public school in Chicago. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study in an... more
This article sheds light on the educational trajectories of undocumented youth who engage in forms of organizing through a community-school partnership in an urban public school in Chicago. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study in an urban public high school, readers learn that undocumented youth gain a positive sense of identity and belonging to their school and community by participating in a community-based after-school program called The Dream Act Club. First, the article argues that undocumented youth participation in community organizing helps them make sense of their identity in relation to the larger community and societal context. Second, the article argues that social spaces like The Dream Act Club provide networks of support and what Levinson calls (2001) “intimate cultures,” enabling undocumented youth to accomplish two things (a) critique and dismantle negative stereotypes around the undocumented status that are perpetuated through the media and political figures on a larger scale, and through school-based personnel perceptions’ of undocumented youth on a local, school level; and, (b) critique larger immigration policies through community organizing ef- forts. By situating these powerful narratives of undocumented youth in the context of current issues in immigration policy, I (they/we) can write against the negative discourses that circulate in the national immigration debate in the United States about undocumented youth. These narratives enable us to consider the voices and needs of undocumented youth through their eyes. Their narratives challenge educators, researchers, and policy-makers to humanize the complicated identity formation processes in contentious political climates to better understand their social worlds and impoverished realities.
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This article documents minority youth sense-making around the concept of diversity and the founding of a youth activist group that seeks spaces for policy thinking and protesting against racial inequalities in selective enrollment schools... more
This article documents minority youth sense-making around the concept of diversity and the founding of a youth activist group that seeks spaces for policy thinking and protesting against racial inequalities in selective enrollment schools and access to the high quality education that those schools often provide. Utilizing the sociological theory of racial formation and the concept of racial projects, this article draws on data from a critical ethnography. The author argues that youth activists offer a critical perspective for researchers and policy-makers in the face of neoliberal school choice policy. Findings reveal that youth activists understand a lack of diversity as racial imbalance in high status schools, and that they expose structural inequalities that are embedded in policy structures and processes such as selective enrollment high schools. Implications are discussed to show how re- conceptualizing policy as a racial formation can bring structural and institutional racist practices into view in hopes of transforming district policies to offer access to high quality schools for all students.
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This article examines how qualitative researchers, specifically ethnographers, might utilize complex philosophical concepts in order to disrupt the normative truth-telling practices embedded in social science research. Drawing on my own... more
This article examines how qualitative researchers, specifically ethnographers, might utilize complex philosophical concepts in order to disrupt the normative truth-telling practices embedded in social science research. Drawing on my own research experiences, I move toward a methodology of death (for researcher/researched alike) grounded in Deleuze's philosophy-as-method and his concept of event. I approach ethnographic research with this concept in mind in order to unpack the experiences of Latino immigrant youth activism during a critical ethnography in Chicago. I suggest that new ways of thinking with Deleuze in qualitative inquiry might offer a breakthrough/breakdown and death of systems of thought that position research subjects in limiting ways, ultimately arguing that Deleuzian " event " offers the possibility for the birth of new selves. We were arrested. The handcuffs felt tight on our wrists. We claimed that space. I do activist things even though I'm nothing. –Youth Activists, Amelia and Penny
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Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and... more
Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and childhoods. This article argues that traditional fairy tales and contemporary stories derived from them use complex means to mould the ways that children live and experience their childhoods. This argument is illustrated through representations of childhoods and children in a selection of stories and an analysis of the ways they act on and produce the child subjects and childhoods they convey. The selected stories are examined through different philosophical lenses, utilizing Foucault, Lyotard and Rousseau. By problematizing these selected stories, the article analyses what lies beneath the surface of the obvious meanings of the text and enticing pictures in stories, as published or performed. Finally, this article argues for a careful recognition of the complexities of stories used in early childhood settings and their powerful and multifaceted influences on children and childhoods.
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The argument of this article is primarily a theoretical one that engages with conceptual ideas in critical geography scholarship and more recent theorizing in comparative education literature on globalization and education. I see... more
The argument of this article is primarily a theoretical one that engages with conceptual ideas in critical geography scholarship and more recent theorizing in comparative education literature on globalization and education. I see continuity within the critical geography theorizing found in Edward Soja’s work in Seeking Spatial Justice and more recent literature on “scale” by comparative education researchers (Roberston & Dale, 2008). Thus, I explore the relationship between critical geography and comparative education research on globalization theory. As Helfenbein (2010) notes, “Critical geographers are interested in space, place, power and identity” (p. 304). This article engages with these elements of spatial analysis but by drawing attention to the nuances of space as distinct from place. In addition, it argues that we need to theorize space as “relational” and fluid through poststructuralist theories of becoming offered by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Huge Tomlinson, and Graham Burchell entitled, What is philosophy? and the individual work of Gilles Deleuze entitled Bergsonism. Ultimately, in exam-ining the critical geography literature from Edward Soja (2010), this article tests the limits of Edward Soja’s conception of space. In addition, I discuss the Cuban teaching context to shed some light on how we might reconceptualize space as distinct from place. Finally, I argue for a more nuanced theorization of space using Deleuzian (1988, 1994) concepts of becoming and multiplicity to understand space as fluid, contested, negotiated and emergent. Within this latter discussion of Deleuze’s concepts I will define “becoming” and argue that it is a concept that can potentially capture the materiality of lived experiences in spaces of possibility. The call for a nuanced post-structuralist conceptualization of space draws attention to alternative spaces that are not governed by normative, positivistic ontologies, and thus merges the historical, the social and the spatial.
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This article considers timely effects of globalization on the American educational system, particularly the ways in which social science research attempts to ‘know’ students from a variety of cultural backgrounds and migration journeys.... more
This article considers timely effects of globalization on the American educational system, particularly the ways in which social science research attempts to ‘know’ students from a variety of cultural backgrounds and migration journeys. Research findings trickle down into and through teacher preparation for K-12 schools. Thus, this article locates its inquiry in discourse on refugees and considers how researchers and teacher preparation programs may disrupt the “therapeutic paradigm” and the “trauma discourse” that circulates around the refugee student and positions him/her as vulnerable (Ingamells & Westoby, 2008; Pupavac, 2002). The research examined in this article on refugees has the potential limiting effect of shaping pedagogic action precisely due to the fact that much of it approaches refugee students through psychological lenses that treat the refugee like a vulnerable problem to be fixed through education and other services. This article challenges us to reconsider the discourse that social science research and policy produces, and the effects of discourse on the lived experiences of individuals. This is critical as we prepare teachers for building relationships with diverse students, particularly with students occupying refugee status.
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In the midst of neoliberal governance and policies of privatizing public education in the U.S., to what extent do the voice, emotion, body, and resistance of a teacher matter? This project considers the experiences of teachers as they... more
In the midst of neoliberal governance and policies of privatizing public education in the U.S., to what extent do the voice, emotion, body, and resistance of a teacher matter? This project considers the experiences of teachers as they develop a critical consciousness and attempt to resist the neoliberal practices that are dismantling public education and omitting teacher voice from educational matters. Utilizing Giroux’s (1988) conceptual frame of “critical consciousness” and additional frameworks around neoliberal governmentality in educational settings to situate the study (Foucault, 1994; Rose, 1996, 1999; Rose & Miller, 1992), this article draws on ethnographic field notes and interviews to showcase how teachers protested, organized, and agitated against local educational policies. Emphasizing interviews with three teachers, the author considers the purpose of public education from teacher perspectives as well as teacher’s motivation for speaking against policies of neoliberal governmentality (Foucault, Rabinow, & Rose, 2003). Implications from the study speak to how we might reframe teacher resistance in order to resuscitate democratic education and political action as part of teachers’ work.
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Abstract: This chapter addresses the considerably complex web of inequality produced out of neoliberal competitive school choice policies in a southern community with a legacy of segregationist practices. Using a case study design (Yin,... more
Abstract: This chapter addresses the considerably complex web of inequality produced out of neoliberal competitive school choice policies in a southern community with a legacy of segregationist practices. Using a case study design (Yin, 2014) and data sources such as school board meeting minutes, field notes from participant observations at youth and parent advocacy meetings, and interviews with parents and youth affected by the lack of racial balance and the lack of transparency in selective enrollment schools, we unravel how these actors challenged the school district to generate equitable choice policies. Guided by Bonilla-Silva’s (1997) notion of structural racism and Leonardo’s (2007) concept of colorblindness, we emphasize the effect of policy on individuals and document how parents and youth made sense of and called for social, systemic change. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of colorblind diversity policies as part of school choice on communities of color, calling attention to how we might expose structural mechanisms that promote or inhibit diversity and equity.
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This chapter contributes to the bourgeoning area of research on spatial theory and critical geography and its applications to education. Drawing on data from a critical ethnography of Latino youth immigrant activism in Chicago during the... more
This chapter contributes to the bourgeoning area of research on spatial theory and critical geography and its applications to education. Drawing on data from a critical ethnography of Latino youth immigrant activism in Chicago during the historic number of school closings in the 2012-2013 academic year, this chapter disrupts the dominant narratives on neoliberal policies and practices that are negatively impacting low-income communities of color by re-conceptualizing space as an entry point into excavating important narratives from key stakeholders in the educational process—youth. To re-conceptualize space and contribute to more recent materialist methodologies, this chapter draws on Gilles Deleuze’s (1990, 1993, 1995) relational space theory, through the concept of ‘event,” and Critical Geography theories of space (Buendia, Ares, Juarez, & Peercy, 2004; Gupta & Ferguson, 2002; Helfenbein & Taylor, 2009; Webb & Gulson, 2013) in order to understand how “youth cultural practices create social space” (Ares, 2010, p. 67). By narrating “event”, the author illuminates how minoritized and often silenced youth engage in productive activism and develop positive identities in the face of negative institutional labels. Youth experiences offer readers insight into how young people might “deterrorialize,” and thus remake, educational spaces that seek to exclude them. Implications for how minoritized youth can enact positive, activist identities as they resist the forces of neoliberalism are discussed. In addition, the author argues that a Deleuzian theory of space enables educators and policy-makers to envision the positive contributions young people from low-income communities make in educational spaces as they defend the public institution(s) of education and schooling.
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This chapter problematizes the model minority stereotype by considering the educational narratives of female “Asian,” youth at an urban, public high school that is largely Latino. These narratives are situated in a national and local... more
This chapter problematizes the model minority stereotype by considering the educational narratives of female “Asian,” youth at an urban, public high school that is largely Latino. These narratives are situated in a national and local policy context that includes debates about immigration, and an additional local education policy context that includes massive school closures by the district’s Mayor. These youth make-sense of their racial and ethnic identities and their achievement, and they also pursue social and cultural identities that are not often permitted in the school spaces. This chapter contributes to the literature on the ways in which Asian Americans encounter differential educational experiences in relation to Latino peers and “talk back” to the model minority stereotype (Chae, 2004; Conchas & Perez, 2003). This chapter offers findings based on micro-level interactions and cultural experiences of Asian American female students in an urban high school, nested in a neighborhood of highly concentrated poverty, and a majority population of Latino immigrants. The identity formation process for the female youth here provides insight into the ways that teacher-student relationships impact identity formation of youth and their sense of belonging school, the way female youth critique immigration issues and stereotyping through their own sense-making of their racial and ethnic identity, and their desire for cultural identities that are free from racist discourse that are perpetuated through “racialized epithets” such as the model minority stereotype (Embrick & Henricks, 2013). Through a cultural study of immigrant youth identity, we can begin to dismantle the model minority stereotype by insisting that we move beyond ascription of identity.
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This piece explores the issue of doing social justice research in academia. Rodriguez piece on p. 28.
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<p>Since 1978, the Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation (CASA, a standing committee of the American Educational Studies Association) has maintained the Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations... more
<p>Since 1978, the Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation (CASA, a standing committee of the American Educational Studies Association) has maintained the Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations of Education, Educational Studies, and Educational Policy Studies. The Standards are a policy document intended as a powerful curriculum policy tool for faculty and higher education administrators across North America to use to develop foundations and educator preparation programming with disciplinary integrity and to maintain said programs with fidelity. As pressures to provide accountability and improvement measures or attach outcomes to disciplines in education increase, especially teacher education, foundations faculty and programs are challenged in their efforts to both build strong foundations programming and resist the push to dilute or otherwise embed the intellectual and practical work of the discipline into other, mostly unrelated, courses. The Standards provide language and support for foundations scholars housed in teacher education departments to hone their craft, generate good programming, and develop good scholars and P–12 practitioners.</p>
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This article examines how qualitative researchers, specifically ethnographers, might utilize complex philosophical concepts in order to disrupt the normative truth-telling practices embedded in social science research. Drawing on my own... more
This article examines how qualitative researchers, specifically ethnographers, might utilize complex philosophical concepts in order to disrupt the normative truth-telling practices embedded in social science research. Drawing on my own research experiences, I move toward a methodology of death (for researcher/researched alike) grounded in Deleuze’s philosophy-as-method and his concept of event. I approach ethnographic research with this concept in mind in order to unpack the experiences of Latino immigrant youth activism during a critical ethnography in Chicago. I suggest that new ways of thinking with Deleuze in qualitative inquiry might offer a breakthrough/breakdown and death of systems of thought that position research subjects in limiting ways, ultimately arguing that Deleuzian “event” offers the possibility for the birth of new selves.
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In the midst of neoliberal governing mentalities, policies of privatizing public education in the U.S., and corporate reform, to what extent do the voice, emotion, body and resistance of a teacher matter? This article considers the... more
In the midst of neoliberal governing mentalities, policies of privatizing public education in the U.S., and corporate reform, to what extent do the voice, emotion, body and resistance of a teacher matter? This article considers the experiences of teachers as they develop a critical consciousness and attempt to resist the global and local forces that seek to (de)professionalize them in particular ways that omit their voice from educational matters. Instead of accepting that teacher bodies have become regulated through disciplinary acts such as policies of privatization, corporate reform models or mechanisms of standardization in education such as value-added analysis as part of teacher evaluations across the U.S., this article explores the ways in which teachers in the local context of Chicago “talk back” to policy reform. Utilizing Giroux’s (1988) conceptual frame of “critical consciousness” coupled with teacher as “radical organic intellectual” and additional frameworks around neol...
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Background/Context Undocumented and DACAmented students face substantial restrictions in higher education as well as in U.S. society. Though there has been significant research on the effects of these policies on the lives and educational... more
Background/Context Undocumented and DACAmented students face substantial restrictions in higher education as well as in U.S. society. Though there has been significant research on the effects of these policies on the lives and educational outcomes of immigrant students, including how undocumented students are accessing higher education, there is less understanding of K–12 teachers’ awareness of these policies and their attitudes toward these policies. This is especially true in regard to aggregated, nationwide quantitative research. Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of teachers nationwide toward the educational experiences and policies of immigrant students, their awareness of false immigration narratives, and teachers’ attitudes toward education policies for immigrant students. In addition, the relationship between teachers’ awareness and attitudes was analyzed. This research is relevant because the awareness of teachers toward the educational experience...
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In this special issue, we continue a dialogue on educating hope, radicalizing imagination, and politicizing possibility. The articles selected for this special issue, both conceptual and empirical, challenge traditional ways of engaging... more
In this special issue, we continue a dialogue on educating hope, radicalizing imagination, and politicizing possibility. The articles selected for this special issue, both conceptual and empirical, challenge traditional ways of engaging in and interpreting research, and affirm the significance of educational inquiry as a form of liberatory or radical democratic practice. They illuminate creative strategies for us to research and write to resist and fight for human dignity and social justice (e.g., Bae-Dimitriadis, 2017, 2020; Baszle, Edwards, & Guillory, 2016; Bell, 1992; Coates, 2008, 2015; Delgado & Stefancic, 1997; Fine, 2018; He, Ross, & Seay, 2015; Hill, 2009, 2016; hooks, 1994; Matias, 2016, 2020; Nettles, 2012; Ngo, 2010; Rodriguez, 2020; Sharma, 2013, 2016; Sol orzano & Yosso, 2002, 2009; Tatum, 2009, 2013; Tuck, 2012; Urrieta, 2010; Urrieta & Noblit, 2018; Valenzuela, 1999; Walker, 1983/1967). These articles help counter authoritarian and dominant narratives about minoritized populations and communities and transgress orthodoxies, bureaucratic and hierarchical procedures embedded in research practices (e.g., Archibald, 2008; Archibald, Xiiem, Lee-Morgan, & De Santolo, 2019; Bae-Dimitriadis, 2020; Chilisa, 2012; Delgado & & others, 1989; Dillard, 2000, 2012; hooks, 1994; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006; Love, 2019; Lynn & Dixson, 2013; Maparyan, 2012; Morrison, 1993; Oliveira & Wright, 2016; Paris & Winn, 2014; Parker, Deyhle, & Villenas, 1999; Phillips, 2006; Sandoval, 2000; Tate, 2008, 2012; Tuck, 2009; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999/2012; Tuhiwai Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2018; Twine & Warren, 2000; Tyson, 1998; Walker, 1997; Wilson, 2008). First, in “A Radical Doctrine: Abolitionist Education in Hard Times,” Damaris C. Dunn, Alex Chisholm, Elizabeth Spaulding, and Bettina L. Love remind us that 2020 was “a year of sorrow, infection, greed, violence, loss, devastation, protest, resistance, and death,” which can be traced to “a long history of anti-Blackness, racism, white supremacy, violence, and capitalism” in the United States. The authors argue that “there is no need to (re)imagine or reform schools; instead, we need to abolish schools with a radical doctrine”—a set of principles based on “radical joy, radical trust, radical imagination, and radical disruption.” Sabrina N. Ross, in her article, “Matters of Life and Love: Some Preliminary Mappings of Womanist Pedagogical Futures,” explores “revolutionary possibilities” that
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Abstract This article problematizes the role of the interview as a methodological strategy that loses its easy replication when employed in studies with undocumented youth. We raise questions about the contingencies of conducting... more
Abstract This article problematizes the role of the interview as a methodological strategy that loses its easy replication when employed in studies with undocumented youth. We raise questions about the contingencies of conducting qualitative interviews with undocumented youth – what does it mean leverage the interview-event as a space of healing for them? What does it mean to recognize, or potentially mis-recognize one’s identity in the context of a research interview? How might inquiry function in exploring the uncertainties of an avowed identity and contribute not to normalization but to healing and justice? To engage such questions, we specifically examine the implications of interview practices as a dangerous (and productive) site where concerns of confession entangle with the potential for avowal as a resistive participatory practice. This paper argues that the confessional interview offers a moment of advocacy and healing through the avowal of their experience occupying undocumented identities.
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This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants. This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions... more
This timely article engages in a content analysis of South Carolina state policies that exclude resources from (un)documented Latinx immigrants. This research explores how state policy enacts tropes of deservingness and constructs notions of good immigrants in order to exclude Latinx immigrants from educational opportunity and social mobility. Drawing on a content analysis of 67 policy documents from the state’s legislative database from 2003-2017, the analysis revealed examples of explicit and implicit exclusion. The main findings related to these forms of explicit and implicit exclusion, highlighting how policy discourse constructs notions of good immigrants in state policy and policy enactments restrict resources. As Latinx populations reconfigure the landscape of the U.S. South, states like South Carolina continue to embed racist, discriminatory language and actions into enacted and proposed policies. This has severe implications for undocumented children and families and their ...
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This study examines how school-based personnel (i.e., principals, assistant principals, and school social workers) defined and engaged in collective leadership to support undocumented students. This instrumental, comparative case study... more
This study examines how school-based personnel (i.e., principals, assistant principals, and school social workers) defined and engaged in collective leadership to support undocumented students. This instrumental, comparative case study explores their roles, relational processes, and the extent to which school-based personnel’s relationships expanded or inhibited advocacy and equity work. Findings showcase a continuum of collective leadership, role management, and boundary work that influence advocacy for immigrant students. This research expands understandings of collective leadership, decision-making, and engagement with immigrant students. Implications for a social justice-oriented collective leadership model are discussed.
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This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, including their perceptions of immigration enforcement and school climates that support or hinder immigrant student experiences. We conceptually... more
This qualitative analysis examines school social workers’ equity work for immigrant students, including their perceptions of immigration enforcement and school climates that support or hinder immigrant student experiences. We conceptually expand understandings of nested contexts of reception and racialized organizations across macro, meso, micro levels, and how they affect immigrant students’ educational experiences, mobility, and belonging. Utilizing open-ended responses from a unique national survey data set, we examine school social workers’ perceptions of the macro, meso, micro racialized contexts that immigrant students encounter, how school social worker perceptions reflect racial attitudes as part of the racialized organization of schools in which they work, and how such racial attitudes influence their actions and potentially disrupt racial inequality in schools. Discussion of the impact of school social workers’ racial attitudes, and perceptions of racialized contexts and h...
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In this article, four critical ethnographers reflect on dilemmas that arose during individual research projects. We grappled with the question: What does critical ethnography require from us as we work to represent stories that emerge in... more
In this article, four critical ethnographers reflect on dilemmas that arose during individual research projects. We grappled with the question: What does critical ethnography require from us as we work to represent stories that emerge in contexts where students and/or teachers have been marginalized? After engaging in a three-year process of diffractive analysis, we arrived at the notion of missing stories, as stories that involve messy processes, multifaceted risks and multiple roles in the telling and hearing of people’s stories in research.
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Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and... more
Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and childhoods. This article argues that traditional fairy tales and contemporary stories derived from them use complex means to mould the ways that children live and experience their childhoods. This argument is illustrated through representations of childhoods and children in a selection of stories and an analysis of the ways they act on and produce the child subjects and childhoods they convey. The selected stories are examined through different philosophical lenses, utilizing Foucault, Lyotard and Rousseau. By problematizing these selected stories, the article analyses what lies beneath the surface of the obvious meanings of the text and enticing pictures in stories, as published or performed. Finally, this article argues for a careful recognition of the comp...
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Education, Early Childhood Education, Anthropology of Children and Childhood, Children and Youth, and 15 moreChildren and Media, Early Childhood, Children and Films, Early Childhood Care and Education, Cultural Foundations of Education, Children, Childhood studies, Childhood, Czechoslovakia, Early Childhood Development, Childrens Literature, Educational Foundation, Educational Foundations, Czechoslovakia In Literature, and Communism in Czechoslovakia
This article expands the discussion on youth activism, arguing for a new materialist conception of youthspaces. Centering this article around the concept of youthspaces, a term that refers to the agency, relationality and resistance... more
This article expands the discussion on youth activism, arguing for a new materialist conception of youthspaces. Centering this article around the concept of youthspaces, a term that refers to the agency, relationality and resistance engendered in youthspaces, the article urges that a new materialist understanding of youthspaces and youth studies, in particular, opens up new opportunities to observe how minoritized youth are making sense of education policy and practice as well as cultivating positive identities and affinities among each other in the context of education and social justice efforts.
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Background/Context: Undocumented and DACAmented students face substantial restrictions in higher education as well as in U.S. society. Though there has been significant research on the effects of these policies on the lives and... more
Background/Context: Undocumented and DACAmented students face substantial restrictions in higher education as well as in U.S. society. Though there has been significant research on the effects of these policies on the lives and educational outcomes of immigrant students, including how undocumented students are accessing higher education, there is less understanding of K-12 teachers' awareness of these policies and their attitudes towards these policies. This is especially true in regard to aggregated, nationwide quantitative research. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of teachers nationwide towards the educational experiences and policies of immigrant students, the awareness of false immigration narratives, and teachers' attitudes towards education policies for immigrant students. There was also an analysis of the relationship between teachers' awareness and attitudes. This research is relevant since the awareness of teachers towards the educ...
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The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity and advocating for immigrant students in K-12 settings. The authors explore and conceptualize the notion of nepantlera from Anzaldúa’s work... more
The project investigates the critical role school social workers (SSWs) play in promoting equity and advocating for immigrant students in K-12 settings. The authors explore and conceptualize the notion of nepantlera from Anzaldúa’s work and draw from qualitative data to support how SSWs function as nepantleras in service and advocacy roles for undocumented immigrant students. We argue for the importance of expanding the conceptual framework to describe the kind of work SSWs need to do within the borderlands of schools. As part of our conceptual exploration we ask: What is a paradigm for SSW practice with immigrant students that is informed by the concept of nepantlera? How do we begin to think about and understand such a paradigm in a way that honors the complexity of Anzaldúa’s work? These are questions we explore throughout the paper alongside our qualitative data with a national sample of school workers. We offer implications for a nepantlera-informed paradigm in school social work practice.
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This essay engages with the notion of Anthropocene as both context and concept, and how it might be useful as a tool of inquiry in the study of higher education, specifically with populations that I argue are deemed by society as less... more
This essay engages with the notion of Anthropocene as both context and concept, and how it might be useful as a tool of inquiry in the study of higher education, specifically with populations that I argue are deemed by society as less than human/nonhuman, that is, the undocumented alien bodies dwelling in higher education spaces. The concept of the Anthropocene demands a shift in our thinking about the social world, specifically notions of agency and identity in relation to culture. This primarily conceptual argument connects the Anthropocene as context and concept to the experiences of undocumented youth activists in higher education settings. The essay experiments with thinking about the Anthropocene as context, connecting its features to that of a risk society that impacts the identity formation and fragmented experiences of undocumented youth activists, and as a concept, utilizing the example and data from a current critical qualitative and ethnographic study of undocumented imm...
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In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of... more
In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of evaluation, theorize it as a truth-telling practice that aims to control populations and futures, and consider the implications of this for a current evaluation project with transnational newcomer migrant youth in the United States. The authors raise the following questions about evaluation as a social practice: Who/what knowledge is produced in the process? What mechanisms/technologies are deployed to reason, compare, and quantify migrant youth experiences, and at what cost? What are the ethical imperatives underlying this truth-telling process? The article offers a productive critique of current evaluation practices, providing theoretical and methodological implications of this analysis, arguing to expose the politics of governance embedded in eval...
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In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to expand the literature about how teachers understand and apply multiculturalism specifically when working with newcomer undocumented... more
In this article the co-authors draw from three separate ethnographic studies in the U.S. South to expand the literature about how teachers understand and apply multiculturalism specifically when working with newcomer undocumented immigrant youth. The co-authors identify an implementation gap between what is known about critical multicultural education and how it is put into practice by educators, specifically in regions that can be characterized as constrained policy contexts. Findings from collective analyses of data across all three studies add to multicultural education literature by directly addressing the ways in which policies govern the everyday lives of newcomers and inform the practices of their teachers. Key findings that represent generative dispositions and practices among teachers of newcomer students were strategic teacher empathy and sociopolitical awareness. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for practice and future research.
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This article documents minority youth sense-making around the concept of diversity and the founding of a youth activist group that seeks spaces for policy thinking and protesting against racial inequalities in selective enrollment schools... more
This article documents minority youth sense-making around the concept of diversity and the founding of a youth activist group that seeks spaces for policy thinking and protesting against racial inequalities in selective enrollment schools and access to the high quality education that those schools often provide. Utilizing the sociological theory of racial formation and the concept of racial projects, this article draws on data from a critical ethnography. The author argues that youth activists offer a critical perspective for researchers and policy-makers in the face of neoliberal school choice policy. Findings reveal that youth activists understand a lack of diversity as racial imbalance in high status schools, and that they expose structural inequalities that are embedded in policy structures and processes such as selective enrollment high schools. Implications are discussed to show how re- conceptualizing policy as a racial formation can bring structural and institutional racist practices into view in hopes of transforming district policies to offer access to high quality schools for all students.
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This article examines how state-level policy discourse articulates a category of knowledge about immigrants in South Carolina that governs the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants. In the analysis of proposed and enacted... more
This article examines how state-level policy discourse articulates a category of knowledge about immigrants in South Carolina that governs the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants. In the analysis of proposed and enacted immigration legislation from 2005 to the present, we use a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis to better understand how policy forms out of a problematization of marginalized groups such as undocumented immigrants. We find that policy constitutes immigrants as an economic and security threat and as Othered, outsiders to the state. This allows for policy makers to propose seemingly rational solutions such as “proving one’s status” and “increased law enforcement.” We suggest that this categorization of knowledge about immigrants has clear implications for educational attainment, social mobility, and public life while highlighting the viability of a Foucauldian-inspired theorization of discourse and critical discourse analysis as a method for in...
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In this article, four critical ethnographers reflect on dilemmas that arose during individual research projects. We grappled with the question: What does critical ethnography require from us as we work to represent stories that emerge in... more
In this article, four critical ethnographers reflect on dilemmas that arose during individual research projects. We grappled with the question: What does critical ethnography require from us as we work to represent stories that emerge in contexts where students and/or teachers have been marginalized? After engaging in a three-year process of diffractive analysis, we arrived at the notion of missing stories, as stories that involve messy processes , multifaceted risks and multiple roles in the telling and hearing of people's stories in research. There are not many people in this world who value the stories of those who struggle with what to most seems simple. The honor of sharing those stories ties you to the one speaking. Like a book the heart can open and close, unlike a book the heart bleeds: be mindful of the hearts you open. –Haver Jim, Yakama Nation The opening epigraph by Haver Jim, a former student who worked with Joy in an equity-centered project, grounds our thinking about what happens when we hear, tell, and elicit personal stories from vulnerable populations. It requires that we take seriously questions about who/how we are as researchers and what counts as good scholarship. In this article, we respond to critical race and feminist scholars who have urged us to think with theory (Jackson and Mazzei 2012) and move toward representing and doing critical qualitative research that centers on justice for marginalized communities—not merely as a means for promoting our social capital within the academy (Pillow 2003; Villenas 2012). As four early career scholars, we often reflected upon and discussed " stuck " places, dilemmas of belonging, and representation in our critical ethnographic work. Our ongoing dialogue and diffractive readings (Jackson and Mazzei 2012) yielded the concept of missing stories. We conceptualize missing stories as encompassing the processes, risks, and roles of the stories we hear and tell in our scholarly work toward justice. By attending to missing stories, we open ourselves
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Forthcoming book review: Rodriguez, S. & Thompson, E.A. (In press). Invited book review, Fragile Families: Foster Care, Immigration, and Citizenship by Naomi Glenn-Levin Rodriguez, Anthropological Quarterly, 91(1).
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Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and... more
Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and childhoods. This article argues that traditional fairy tales and contemporary stories derived from them use complex means to mould the ways that children live and experience their childhoods. This argument is illustrated through representations of childhoods and children in a selection of stories and an analysis of the ways they act on and produce the child subjects and childhoods they convey. The selected stories are examined through different philosophical lenses, utilizing Foucault, Lyotard and Rousseau. By problematizing these selected stories, the article analyses what lies beneath the surface of the obvious meanings of the text and enticing pictures in stories, as published or performed. Finally, this article argues for a careful recognition of the complexities of stories used in early childhood settings and their powerful and multifaceted influences on children and childhoods.