A novel process--"dialogic cartographic narratives"--is introduced as a method for facilitating faculty members' understanding of their own privilege(s) and their complicity in maintaining systemic injustices in higher education institutions. The process involves critical interrogation of life stories and privileged identities over time…

This paper explores my experiences as a Latina/Chicana educator from the borderlands of South Texas and acknowledges my innermost battle with identity through my own "testimonio." The purpose is to re-examine administrator and teacher language ideologies and the detrimental effect on curriculum development for all students learning in…

One of the critical issues in education today is how to help all students to maximize their fullest potential. Achieving this goal seems to be difficult for many people who come from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. At all levels, they endure direct and indirect disenfranchisements, disadvantages, and disillusionments,…

This narrative inquiry highlights the experiences of three high school students labeled Long-term English learners (LTEL) in a North Texas high school. This narrative inquiry study uses semi-structured interviews to restory the students' lives, emphasizing the emergent themes of family (the strongest pillar) and the language of the home (Spanish).…

Purpose: With the rise of the Latinx student population in the United States and the urgency to meet the needs of this diverse community, there has been an increased concern and interest in preparing more Latinx educators and school leaders. This study contributes to this knowledge base by centering the voices and experiences of four Latina school…

In the U.S./Mexico borderlands, local language varieties face frequent discrimination and delegitimization or "linguistic terrorism." The present study uses the three-level positioning framework to analyze how young adults in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in south Texas construct borderland identities by positioning themselves with respect…

Currently, there is limited research examining the barriers that immigrant professionals experience when becoming a bilingual teacher in the United States. This study examines the trajectory of a Mexican national, trained as a teacher in his home country, who became a bilingual dual-language educator in a Central Texas school district. Drawing on…

This paper draws from data from a year long study looking at teachers' perceptions of border violence in tandem with my autoethnographic exploration of the lived experience of border violence as a teacher, mother and as a daughter still grieving for her murdered father. The first steps in starting my research critically exploring educator…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…

Relying on Latina/Chicana feminist and critical race theories of identity, and "testimonio" as methodology of knowledge production (Latina Feminist Group, 2001), the authors examine the complexity of their professional and personal identities as academics and members of families and communities to theorize their common experiences as…

The study examined the influence of culture on the desire of a group of six aspirantes (Spanish/English bilingual education teacher candidates) from Texas to become bilingual education teachers of Latin@ bilingual learners. Chicana/Latina feminist thought is utilized as a lens to understand the role teacher education programs can play in helping…

The narrative creation of identity by young adolescents has so far been addressed mainly from an identity-in-interaction perspective, focusing attention on the multiplicity and variability of identity negotiation as adolescents interact with others, typically with peers. In contrast, a sociocultural/dialogical perspective draws attention to the…

This article introduces a social innovation that contributes to the formation of educational leaders. Digital storytelling is employed as a process for data creation, analysis, and synthesis. Emerging educational leaders are guided through a process to better understand the experiences and social constructs that inform their identity. Through a…

Relying on life history and memory as methodology, this essay unearths the memories of schooling of five Mexican American teachers at a dual-language school in San Antonio, locating their memories of trauma within the history of language oppression and cultural exclusion in U.S. public schools. In re(membering) their schooling experiences as…

The study aimed to gain a better understanding of the learning experiences of adult Latino college students, as described directly in their own voices. The study was guided by two research questions: RQ1: "How do adult Latinos describe their undergraduate college learning experiences?" and RQ2: "How do culture, gender, and ethnic…