African American females have been historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career fields. Even with recent initiatives to increase the STEM persistence across all populations, African American female representation has decreased by 1.6% while other underrepresented demographics have continued to rise.…

Drawing on life stories and classroom observations, this qualitative study examined how six bilingual maestras enacted and embodied critical biliteracies through bilanguaging love. These maestras were born, raised, and now teach bilingual education on the Texas-Mexico border. Their stories revealed contradictory and complex beliefs about literacy…

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…

This reflective essay uncovers ways in which critical race theory and caring are key to crossing racial, cultural, and linguistic borders between professors and their students. Many scholars have noted how critical reflection relates to effective teaching, especially when taking into account student learning. Reflecting upon archival data and…

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 narrative inquiry examines why a well-respected English as a Second Language teacher quit teaching in an urban middle school in advance of her retirement. The work provides interpretive accounts of what attracted the teacher to start teaching ESL, what caused her to stay in the profession and the circumstances that drove her to quit. In the…

This phenomenological narrative study investigated the perceptions of successful experiences of novice alternative certification teachers in Northeast Texas rural school districts. The five questions that guided the research examined participant's personal characteristics, classroom strategies, administrative support, challenges to overcome for…

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…

This narrative inquiry traces a beginning teacher's unfolding career over a six-year period in a diverse middle school in the fourth largest city in the USA. The work revolves around two conceptualizations: "stories to live by" and "stories to leave by." How these identity-related phenomena surface and play out in an…

This qualitative study investigated the experiences of 10 superintendents in Pre-K-8, 1A, and small 2A schools located in rural areas of Texas, who have implemented an online learning program or programs. Narrative techniques were used to explore the challenges that they faced in the pre-planning, planning, implementation and evaluation of their…

In Texas, nearly half of all new teachers are alternatively certified (AC) whilst English language learners (ELL) are over one-third of the public school population in some districts. As this trend continues, the likelihood that AC teachers will teach ELLs increases and alters what Texas teachers must know upon entering the classroom. This…

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…

Teachers and their students increasingly come from different cultural backgrounds (Black, 2006). Aronson (2004) noted that 86% of the teaching populations in public schools were Caucasian and female and failing to connect with students was often cited in schools where the student populations were predominantly African American. Howard (2006)…

This research reflection explores a narrative pattern that emerged in participants' interviews on student differences. In exploring this narrative pattern, this reflection reveals tensions between participants' "structural" and "deficit" understandings of student differences of race, class, culture, and language. Framing…