In the United States parental involvement is an important part of a child's education, and teachers often rely on parents to boost student achievement. This qualitative analysis employs a two-step process, first examining the data with regards to parental involvement and then using critical theories in education to examine the intersections between parental involvement findings and subtractive schooling practices in order to highlight how educational praxis, teacher perspectives, and school climate impact both parental involvement and school achievement for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students.

This action research study, supported by a quantitative data analysis, presents a counternarrative to the deficit discourse regarding Latino/a First Time in Any College (FTIAC) departure during the first year of college. It argues that an intentional learning community model, that is culturally and linguistically responsive to Latino/a student needs, can produce significant gains in first-to second-year retention rates and better predicts retention than either high school grade point average or standardized test scores. ResumenEste estudio de investigación en acción, apoyado por análisis de información cuantitativa, presenta una narrativa contraria al discurso de déficit en cuanto al abandono durante el primer año de la Universidad del [estudiante] Latino/a Por Primera Vez Universitario/a (siglas en Ingles FTIAC). Además, argumenta que un modelo de aprendizaje comunitario internacional, que responde a las necesidades de estudiantes Latino/as culturales y linguísticas, puede producir ganancias significativas en taza de retención del primer y segundo año y predice mejor la retención que el puntaje promedio de preparatoria y el resultado de pruebas estandarizadas.

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This autoethnographic inquiry examines the intersection of elder epistemology and subtractive education, exploring how one abuelita countered her granddaughter's divestment of Mexican-ness. I demonstrate how the grandmother used abuelita epistemologies to navigate this tension and resist the assimilative pressures felt by her granddaughter from school by consistently modeling, at home, a love for Mexican language and culture. I argue that grandmothers play a vital role in rooting young people to their linguistic and cultural assets, a sacred function that many Mexican elders have preserved and brought forward from the precontact era in the Americas to the contemporary era.

Using critical theory and an analysis of missionary reports and documentation describing education in colonial Puerto Rico and Mexico, the authors cross borders and time periods to socially and historically situate Spanish colonial educational methodologies and their contemporary use in one low-income Latino community in urban Detroit, Michigan. By invoking associations from the colonial past to shed light on contemporary struggles, this study problematizes US educational reform initiatives such as high stakes testing and school turnaround policies. The authors found that when the playing field is not equal, such reform efforts are but another in a long line of colonial and neo-colonial methodologies that further disenfranchise Latino youth and push them out of school.