“I Don’t Want to Be Stereotyped”: A Study with Latinx High School Students Informed by Photovoice

ABSTRACT

Eighteen students, who self-identified as Latinx, from a rural, Midwestern community participated in this study. The participants were enrolled in their high school’s “Risk Academy,” a program designed for students labeled “at risk.” Data shared in this article stem from a larger study where we applied photovoice, a critical, participatory research methodology that utilizes participant voice and photography, to better understand the students’ sense of belonging in and connectedness to their high school. We focus here specifically on qualitative results from analyses of group conversations with the participants. In these conversations we strove to facilitate a space for the students to discuss their lived educational experiences and to engage in related critical dialogue. Qualitative results are presented through three emergent themes: Separation and Negative Narratives; Lack of Support; and Resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Latinx
• photovoice
• belonging
• at risk

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

¹ The state defines an “at risk” student as one who needs additional support and who is not meeting or not expected to meet the established goals of the educational program (academic, personal/social, career/vocational). At-risk students include but are not limited to students in the following groups: homeless children and youth, dropouts, returning dropouts, and potential dropouts. Many scholars have determined this term, “at risk,” to be ripe with deficit (e.g., Brown, 2016; Cuban, 1989; Fine, 1995; Rigelhof, 2017). Not only does it lay the responsibility on the student to carry it, it removes responsibility for schools and districts to look internally at their own policies and practices that may be putting particular students “at risk” of disengaging and comparatively underperforming in school (see, Brown, 2016; Cuban, 1989; Fine, 1995; Valencia, 2015).

² We use the term “schooling” throughout this article. We intend this term to be inclusive of the explicit academic learning and the implicit learning that occurs in schools. That is, here, this critical term includes learning about math, science, and social studies, as well as the norms, values, mores, and practices in schools that may not embrace all students’ identities, lives, epistemologies, and so on. For more on implicit “schooling” see, Valenzuela (1999).

³ We define marginalized groups as those who have historically and systemically been pushed to the “margins” including those of Color, those whose primary language is not English, those of low-income backgrounds, those who are first generation immigrant status, those who are non-Christian, those who are first generation college bound/college students, and so on.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust