Course Description: An analysis of the key political, legal and sociocultural issues in the K-16 education of Latino students, the largest and fastest growing (majority-minority) population in the U.S. The course examines the historical and contemporary ways that Latino students are socially constructed along race, gender, language, and immigration status within the public schools. The Latino K-16 experience is tied to family and community involvement and examines how educational equity is a critical aspiration.
Course Narrative: This course focused on analyzing political, legal, and sociocultural issues in the k-12 education of Latino students by reading texts, the majority coming from Latino authors. We mainly discussed how the Latino community is the largest and fastest growing in the U.S, specifically we compared how our community is considered a majority, but also a minority. Along with reading the texts, we also discussed the history of Latino education within the public schools, and how race, gender, language, and immigration all somehow contribute to the experience of a Latino student's education. Throughout the semester we also discussed and focused on identifying how a Latino's education is ultimately tied to their families and community, issues within these two groups may actually cause negative effects on the student's education overall. This was the last liberal studies class I took in order to complete my education minor, which gave a deeper insight of how working with Latino children will be when I become a teacher. The writing assignments for this course, were definitely very different to the assignments I've completed for my other classes in the past since these assignments required the connection the theories found in some of these texts and our own personal experience.