Resisting the Neoliberal Role Model: Latino Male Mentors’ Perspectives on the Intersectional Politics of Role Modeling

Abstract

This article reports on research with two Latino male youth workers who express strong criticism of their positioning as “positive” role models for struggling Latino boys in a Latino male mentorship program. Drawing from analytic frameworks attune to the intersectional politics of race and neoliberalism, this article centers the voices of these educators to raise important questions about the neoliberal logics commonly undergirding intervention strategies aimed at boys and young men of color. In particular, these youth workers outline the ways neoliberal notions of respectability and heteropatriarchy become the expected performances for Latino men working with Latino boys. They also describe the ways they resist the positive male role model label to challenge neoliberal definitions of Latino manhood.

Out-of-School Time Programs in the United States in an Era of Racial Reckoning: Insights on Equity From Practitioners, Scholars, Policy Influencers, and Young People

“…This finding is consistent with most literature on OST programming. However, aligned with our analysis of the field's sociopolitical context, youth work is already tenuous and is exacerbated by the neoliberal context of education (Baldridge, 2019;Kwon, 2013;Singh, 2021). To sustain equity-oriented programming for marginalized youth populations, we suggest further interrogating (a) the links between youth worker precarity and its impacts on marginalized youth experiences in programs and (b) current youth workers' practices, pedagogies, and experiences in the field.…”

“…Research with programs focused on identity and sociopolitical and cultural development indicates pressure to narrow the scope of work to academic development at the expense of other forms of youth development and well-being (Baldridge, 2014; Kwon, 2013). Neoliberal programming models with racially minoritized youth encourage programs to focus on individual and cultural behaviors instead of the structural conditions young people must navigate within their schools and communities (Baldridge et al, 2017; Bax & Ferrada, 2018; Singh, 2021).…”

Teacher Diversity as Interest Convergence? A Cautionary Note

“…Simply consider calls for “intellectual diversity” or academic curricula that is more “inclusive” of conservative voices (Melamed 2011). Neoliberal multiculturalism embraces the language of diversity and social justice to promote its economic agenda and achieve consent (Singh 2021).…”

“Whatever You Become, Just Be Proud of It.” Uncovering the Ways Families Influence Black and Latino Adolescent Boys’ Postsecondary Future Selves

“…They often maneuver systemic threats to their present lives (e.g., anti-Black racism, xenophobia, violence, environmental toxins), receive inadequate supports for attaining college-based careers and have few proximal examples of lives they may yearn for (Howard, 2014; Howard et al, 2019). By deploying postsecondary future selves to nuance not only the present experiences but also the radical future imaginings of systematically marginalized Black and Latino boys, greater possibilities exist for understanding how they work toward positive futures unseen and perhaps unimagined in many schools and society (Carey, 2019b, 2020; Singh, 2021).…”

“…Instead of directing resources toward dismantling systems that foreclose on Black and Latino boys’ futures, intervention programs led by well-meaning educators and clinicians are often geared toward fixing them or re-orienting their perceived inadequacy (Carey, 2019b; Singh, 2021). One way this occurs is through a seemingly unshakeable obsession with comparing these boys’ present actions and future prospects to White middle-class standards of respectability (Oeur, 2017; Singh, 2021). We afford little space to understanding how these boys envision their futures beyond standards that perpetually marginalize them and their familial attributes.…”