"We are Beautiful People:" The Schooling Experiences of Puerto Rican School-Aged Mothers.
Colón, Melissa.
2019
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Guided by Sociocultural Perspectives of Human Development (Mistry et al., 2016; Rogoff, 2003), and Critical Race Feminisms (Bernal Delgado, 2002; Vaught, 2011; Crenshaw, 1991), this study explores the educational attainment, trajectories, and schooling experiences of Puerto Rican (PR) school-aged mothers in Massachusetts (MA). Together, the theories emphasize the importance of situating human ... read moreoutcomes, trajectories, and experiences relative to the sociocultural and historical contexts in which development take place. Inherently, this requires that structural level factors, in the form of policies, programs, practices, and ideologies, and how they contribute to social organization and to the development of people be critically examined. In this study, a multi-method longitudinal approach, including descriptive statistical analysis and Testimonio Inquiry Analysis were employed. Quantitative and qualitative data from 145 PR school-aged mothers, including the collection of Testimonios from a subsample (n=10) comprised the data corpus. The analysis revealed four main findings: (1) Prior to pregnancy, participants attended schools that were fundamentally different than most students in MA. Their schools were largely segregated, economically disadvantaged, with long histories of educational inequities, all of which contributed to negative schooling experiences. Upon becoming pregnant, (2) participants experienced school-based policies in practice that made completing their education increasingly laborious. (3) Despite these challenges, participants had heterogenous educational outcomes and trajectories. (4) Familial, social support, as well as their own aspirational capital were instrumental in navigating educational contexts. Together, the findings elucidate how the schooling lives of the participants, pre and post pregnancy, were largely shaped by racist and gendered ideologies of unbelonging. Specifically, the Testimonios demonstrate how the power of the state, through public schooling, is mechanized to uphold gendered, racialized, classed, aged, and an anti-parental writ at large and how schooling, as a developmental context, is shaped by larger intersecting systems of oppression that privilege majoritarian notions of normative development. Recognizing their own beautiful humanity, however, PR school-aged mothers resisted and persisted in pursuing their educational dreams
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2019.
Submitted to the Dept. of Child Development.
Advisor: Jayanthy Mistry.
Committee: Ellen Pinderhughues, Sabina Vaught, and Sonia Nieto.
Keywords: Education, Women's studies, and Latin American studies.read less - ID:
- cc08ht497
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