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 leaders in the United States. All of the school leaders were current or former school principals and/or assistant principals at the time of the study, with three being from Texas and one from California. Research Approach: Drawing on the methodological tenets of testimonio, this study asked: What are Latina school leaders’ professional experiences like, both positive and negative, given the intersectionality of their social identities? Utilizing intersectionality as a theoretical framework provided the means to analyze and understand Latina school leaders’ multiple social identities and the role that such identities played in their professional roles and career trajectories as school leaders within the larger context of educational politics and systemic inequities. Findings: Testimonios of participants centered on four themes related to how they confronted gender roles and expectations of motherhood, the criticality of mentorship, how they confronted and addressed racism and sexism, and harnessed bilingualism to empower self and others. Implications: Findings help inform those seeking to meet the needs of our growing Latinx student population, including school district administrators, current and upcoming school leaders, and those working to prepare a more diverse school leadership pipeline.
As the push and expectation to attend college continues to increase, making the process of getting into college more competitive than ever before, there is a need to interrogate whether and how efforts to create a college-going culture and increase college readiness among students, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, might have an adverse impact on students. This study illuminates 59 students’ voices who participated in a multisite descriptive case study examining the strong college-going culture and college readiness efforts at three racially and economically diverse urban public high schools in different regions of Texas. Although students revealed positive aspects of their schools’ efforts, this study focuses on some of the negative, unintended consequences related to how students felt and coped with being overwhelmed, scared, and increasingly stressed as a result of the narrow focus on college readiness. Such findings must be considered by scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike.
As few studies document how teachers in urban contexts positively contribute to a college-going culture, this study adopts a counter-narrative approach, with a conceptual framework grounded in emotion and caring in teaching, to ask: How do teachers exhibit (com)passion in their efforts to support a college-going culture? Interviews with 12 teachers, supplemented by school documents, archival and observational data, and field notes from a qualitative case study at three urban high schools revealed how teachers maintained high expectations of students, exhibited high degrees of emotional understanding, and conveyed a strong commitment to students, their success, and postsecondary pursuits.
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