Subtractive Schooling and Divisions Among Youth Author: Angela ValenzuelaReproduction Theory: A Culturalist Orientation; Habitus & Cultural Capital
By Willie J Jones III, EDUC 714, Spring 2013
What drive’s subtracted schools?
Background
• Dr. Valenzuela’s ethnographic study of a large, inner-city high school in Houston, Texas, takes looks into the inner workings of the school and allows us to spend time with students and teachers. While teachers claim that they are doing things in the best interest of students, she uncovers that the students are not being cared for.
• She focuses on two conceptions of care:• Affirms and embraces their culture and community.• Attempt to sever young people from their culture and
community.
Background
• On June 2, 1998, the voters of California passed Proposition 227 in attempt to eliminate bilingual education and to designate English as not just dominant language, but the only legitimate language in which academic learning occur. Although mainstream media claimed that Latino voters supported Proposition 227 overwhelmingly, other observers reported a different story. According to California Tomorrow (1998), while Proposition 227 was supported by 67% of white voters, it received the support of only 37% of Latinos, 57% of Asians, and 48% of African Americans. The white-Latino gap was striking: two thirds of the white voters supported dismantling bilingual education, but two thirds of Latino voters, whose children constitute a majority of the bilingual education students in California, opposed doing so.
Background
• Proposition 227 maintained that bilingual education hinders language minority children’s ability to learn English and ultimately to succeed in society, and that the best way for them to learn education is to be immersed into English-speaking classrooms.
• No value in bilingualism, biculturalism, or fluency in a language or culture other than English.
• Fluency in any language except English interferes with education, or at least does not contribute to education in a meaningful way.
• Research on these issues is irrelevant. (Opinion/Personal Experience)• Monolingual Anglo members of the general public are perfectly capable of
deciding what kind of educational programming is best for non-Anglo language minority children-”other people’s children” (Delpit 1995)- and are better to make such decisions than are bilingual education teachers or the communities the children come from.
Background
• Dr. Valenzuela examines how the students themselves experienced personal relationships with teachers and a school curriculum that had the goal of mainstreaming them into a dominant society by eliminating the root of language and culture.
Schooling Process
• Many social forces contribute to the division that exist among youth at Seguin. The discussion today highlights the depth of division and undermining for cross-generalization relationships. By highlighting the school-or more pointedly, the schooling process- as a state-sanctioned instrument of cultural de-identification, or de-mexicanization. p. 355
Role Play
• Setting: School classroom. Students are excited to learn. Parents are excited to send their students to American schools. It appears to be an honor for the immigrant students to attend American schools.
• Here we see a group of Spanish speaking students waiting on their instructor. When the instructor enters the class at Juan Seguin High School the students are confused.
Role Play
• Teachers have the mentality that Spanish is a barrier, that needs to be overcome. Teacher insist that once “language barrier” is finally eliminated, Seguin’s dismissal achievement record will disappear as well. Mrs. Martinez tries to make some changes and suggestions.
Mrs. Martinez (366-367)
• Students are treated as any other immigrant group originating from distant lands, meaning that course offerings do not correspond to the needs. There are very few advanced Spanish-language courses exist. Seguin’s first and second year Spanish curriculum subjects students to material that insults their abilities. Taking the beginning Spanish means repeating such elementary phrases as “Yo me llama Maria” (My name is Maria). P.366.
Reproduction of the Organization
• Counselors are not bilingual• Counselors did not understand the importance of first-
language development. • Counselor guess which class they should be in.• Counselors placed students wherever they had an
opening.• Refer to p.367
“We must always remember that schooling should never “subtract” from a students sense of self worth.”
• “An authentically caring pedagogy would not only cease subtracting students’ identities, it would also reverse its effects. It would bridges wherever there are divisions and it would privilege biculturalism out of respect for the cultural integrity of their students.” (p. 266)
Subtractive Schooling
• “No Spanish” rules were a feature of U.S.-Mexican schooling through the early 1970’s (Rosales 1981: Miguel 1987) These laws have been abolished, but Mexican youth continue to be subjected on a daily basis to subtle, negative messages that undermine the worth of their unique culture and history. P. 364
Subtractive Schooling
• The structure of Seguin’s curriculum is designed to divest youth of their Mexican identities and to impede the prospects for fully vested bilingualism and biculturalism. Students’ cultural identities are systematically derogated and diminished. Stripped of their usual appearance, youth entering Seguin get ‘disinfected “ of their identifications in a way that bears the striking resemblance to prisoners in maximum security lockdown.
Theoretical Construct
• Dr. Valenzuela presents the concept of “care” by situating notions of caring and schooling in a structural and historical perspective. She appears to delicately ask the question, what it means to care about children in a cultural and political context?
Conclusion: What are schools for?
• What are schools suppose to do?• What do school give?• What do schools take away?• What is the function of the school?• What do schools reproduce in your society?• What social interest are expressed in schools?• What do schools take away from the culture of the family?• What would you do if your school tried to sever you
child’s language, identity, and culture.
