“Why Should I Bother if the School Didn’t Bother with Me?”: Navigating the Effects of Subtractive Schooling in an Alternative Learning Program

ABSTRACT

Subtractive schooling can have lasting effects on Latinx learners’ lives that go beyond missed opportunities to develop academic literacies in English. Subtractive schooling itself can be a significant source of trauma for Latinx youth, complicating efforts to repair harm done to young people through the school-based remedies of culturally-responsive or trauma-informed pedagogies. Through analysis of narratives shared by a participant, Mariana, a high school student in the “second-chance” Conexiónes program, this study builds knowledge on one student’s sense of who she is in the multiple schooling spaces of her K-12 education. Specifically, this study documents shifts in Mariana’s figured world of schooling. With support, Mariana worked to navigate the social positionings of school itself, which are subtractive in nature and reflect broader discourses of ethnocentrism, racism, colorism, and class bias. Analysis of narratives shared by Mariana, an 18-year-old about to graduate from high school, demonstrates the importance of positionings by educators, relationships and community as secondary-level scholars work to create new meanings of their pasts and build desired life paths.

KEYWORDS:

• Subtractive schooling
• identity
• narrative analysis
• Latinx youth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ This is a pseudonym, and the description of her identity is her own.

² All names, including the names of participants, cities, and educational institutions/districts, are pseudonyms.

³ Latinx immigrants comprise over 45% of San Sebastian’s population, and Latinx people comprise over three fourths of the city’s population. This is in contrast with Mariana’s earlier schooling experiences in nearby Hanover, which is over fifty percent Caucasian. She describes her experiences there as attending a “white school.”

⁴ This harm is understood to be caused by the problematic teaching and learning practices, and not as an entrenched deficit. As can be seen from her experiences at Huerta, when given the right support and conditions for learning, Mariana flourishes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation [201900237] and English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE) Research Initiative.