Tuck has argued that educational research and practice intending to support disenfranchised communities continue to frame individuals from a damaged-centered perspective, in that students are articulated as broken and in need of mending by the institution; instead, research should capture the complexity. Focusing instead on students’ identities and spaces in which those identities can be fostered, new opportunities emerge for students to be framed as agentive and complex instead of simply underprepared. This article utilizes Bakhtin’s concept of self-authorship and Holland, Lachoicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s concept of figured worlds to explore the influence of a community college intervention program that sought to foster thoughtful and agentive conceptions of students’ identities. A unique feature of the focal program is that students are asked to leverage their earlier trauma to find success in college. Data include interviews with focal students and their instructors, classroom observations, theoretical memos, and curricular artifacts. Findings indicate that the program offered students an important space to use written and spoken narratives to make sense of earlier educational experiences and as a conduit to construct identities as college students in relation to those experiences. This article concludes with implications for stakeholders envisioning the construction, revision, or continued success of transformative educational spaces for underserved college students.
Objective: To inform efforts to boost college completion and professional preparation for the linguistically diverse New Mainstream, we explored language and literacy demands, and how faculty conceive of those demands, in one allied health program at one community college in California. We also explore the implications for the preparation of community college students in academic and professional preparation programs more generally. Method: We examined program documents and outlines of courses in the allied health program and interviewed eight faculty members teaching these courses. We analyzed data using deductive and inductive codes and drafted a program overview of assignments, associated language and literacy demands, and identifiable genres and metagenres. We also conducted member checks with key faculty members to clarify and deepen our understanding. Results: Despite our efforts to focus on disciplinary dimensions of language and literacy in the allied health program, we found that course outlines and instructors tended instead to emphasize general reading and writing competencies, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Discussing students’ language and literacy challenges, instructors underscored challenges common to English-dominant and language-minority students, including problems with students’ study skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, or time committed to their studies. Contributions: We argue that, although focusing on general academic and life skills is important for the diversity of students served by community colleges, a deeper focus on disciplinary and professional language and literacy practices is warranted by both instructors and institutions to prepare and support the New Mainstream in completing college and succeeding in the workforce.
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