Latina Teachers: Creating Careers and Guarding Culture

by Glenda M. Flores

Overview

Winner, 2018 Outstanding Contribution to Scholarship Book Award presented by the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender

Honorable Mention, 2018 Distinguished Contribution to Research Book Award presented by the American Sociological Association's Latina/o Sociology Section



How Latina teachers are making careers and helping students stay in touch with their roots.



Latina women make up the fastest growing non-white group entering the teaching profession at a time when it is estimated that 20% of all students nationwide now identify as Latina/o. Through ethnographic and participant observation in two underperforming majority-minority schools in Los Angeles, as well as interviews with teachers, parents and staff, Latina Teachers examines the complexities stemming from a growing workforce of Latina teachers.



The teachers profiled use Latino cultural resources and serve as agents of ethnic mobility. They actively teach their students how to navigate American race and class structures while retaining their cultural roots, necessary tactics in an American education system that has not fully caught up with the nation’s demographic changes. Flores also explores the challenges faced by Latina teachers, including language barriers and cultural acclimation, and professional inequalities that continue to affect women of color at work.



An unprecedented look at an understudied population, Latina Teachers presents an important picture of the women who are increasingly shaping the way America’s children are educated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479886210
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Series:	Latina/o Sociology , #3
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Glenda M. Flores is an Assistant Professor of Chicano/Latino Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She was born and raised in Santa Ana, CA.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 From "Americanization" to "Latinization" 5

2 "I Just Fell into It": Pathways into the Teaching Profession 35

3 Cultural Guardians: The Professional Missions of Latina Teachers 65

4 Co-ethnic Cultural Guardianship: Space, Race, and Region 97

5 Bicultural Myths, Rifts, and Shifts 127

6 Standardized Tests and Workplace Tensions 157

Conclusion and Epilogue: The New U.S. Teaching Profession 188

Appendices

Appendix A Demographic Characteristics of Latina Teachers 200

Appendix B Chronicles of a Mexican Woman PhD 203

Notes 221

Bibliography 237

Index 253

About the Author 265

Editorial Reviews

"Vividly detailed, offering stimulating ethnography and insightful analysis of the quiet but important transformations today underway in the classrooms of Latina teachers. Glenda Flores does not shy away from acknowledging the multiple challenges facing Latino children in U.S. schools, but her focus on Chicana/Latina teachers shines light on the unique contributions and doors that these teachers are opening for Latino children. This book makes significant contributions to the sociology of work, race/ethnicity and occupations, and it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding an asset perspective of Latino education."

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

"Glenda Flores has crafted a milestone study on Latinas in the classroom. Interrogating familiar cultural practices as assets not deficits and Latino parents as allies not obstacles, Professor Flores brings out the 'difference' Latina teachers make in racially diverse schools. Moving well beyond a dialectic of European American teacher and Latino student, she deals with the everyday challenges of diversity with white, Latino, African American, and Asian students, parents, educators, and administrators and the types of coalitions and tensions that evolve along interracial lines. Timely, astute, and heartfelt, Latina Teachers is essential reading."

Vicki L. Ruiz

"Glenda Flores has crafted a milestone study on Latinas in the classroom. Interrogating familiar cultural practices as assets not deficits and Latino parents as allies not obstacles, Professor Flores brings out the
'difference' Latina teachers make in racially diverse schools. Moving well beyond a dialectic of European American teacher and Latino student, she deals with the everyday challenges of diversity with white, Latino, African American, and Asian students, parents, educators, and administrators and the types of coalitions and tensions that evolve along interracial lines. Timely, astute, and heartfelt, Latina Teachers is essential reading."-Vicki L. Ruiz,author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America

"Vividly detailed, offering stimulating ethnography and insightful analysis of the quiet but important transformations today underway in the classrooms of Latina teachers. Glenda Flores does not shy away from acknowledging the multiple challenges facing Latino children in U.S. schools, but her focus on Chicana/Latina teachers shines light on the unique contributions and doors that these teachers are opening for Latino children. This book makes significant contributions to the sociology of work,
race/ethnicity and occupations, and it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding an asset perspective of Latino education."-Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo,author of Paradise Transplanted: Migration and the Making of California Gardens

From the Publisher