Background According to a growing body of research, many Latinas/os experience dissonance between their everyday cultural practices and the cultural practices prevalent in engineering. This dissonance contributes to many Latinas/os' sense that engineering is "not for me."Purpose This study sought to explore the meaning in the relationship between engineering cultural practices and the funds of knowledge found in Latina/o adolescents' familial, community, and recreational settings.Design/Method This ethnographic study followed seven groups of Latina/o adolescents as they identified problems in their communities and solved them through engineering design processes. Using a modified form of constant comparative analysis, we analyzed three data sources: individual interviews, observations of group meetings, and concurrent or retrospective protocols. We developed a coding scheme that categorized the participants' funds of knowledge as they related to engineering. ResultsThe participants' everyday skills and bodies of knowledge aligned with engineering practices. Specifically, their familial, community, and recreational funds of knowledge mapped onto the application of engineering design processes, systems thinking, ethical and empathetic reasoning, knowledge of production and processing, use of communication and construction tools, scientific and mathematical knowledge, and teamwork.Conclusions Engineering instruction for Latina/o adolescents can be reconceptualized as a third space of learning and knowing where adolescents' everyday familial, community, and recreational practices are actively solicited and connected with the cultural practices of engineering.

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Drawing upon multisited ethnographic case studies in the United States and Mexico, I demonstrate sobrevivencia, a survivalist way of knowing of Mexican‐origin families. Through an underdog mentality, family members persisted and sometimes thrived. However, the grittiness of the underdog mentality did not always work out. By understanding sobrevivencia, educators can better engage transnational families, and researchers can further explore transnational ways of knowing with continuing multisited research.

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In this article, the researchers describe and theorize the challenges and promises of exposing preservice teachers' identities to indigenous, critical second language teaching experiences in one study abroad program in Mexico. The eight teacher candidates who participated in this 4‐week program were predominantly white, like the majority of teachers of English language learners in the United States today. By analyzing teacher candidates' self‐assessments, course work samples, class discussions, focus group sessions, and ethnographic field notes, the researchers found three main themes of identity shifts: becoming socially aware, becoming empaths, and becoming creators of loving classroom spaces. These tentative changes appear to be the result of a carefully crafted curriculum, including the extracurricular activities organized in concert with the social justice language institute with whom the researchers partnered. At the same time, the teacher candidates' identities worked in tensions with former identities already created, such as being excellent “classroom managers.” The researchers show these tensions and realistic hopes regarding the teacher candidates. This program—and other alternatives to preparing preservice teachers attempting to work with culturally and linguistically minoritized communities—can serve as examples of beginning efforts to decolonize curricula. This critical approach to teacher preparation creates cracks between worlds (Anzaldúa, 2002) that allow preservice teachers to rethink their identities as second language teachers in local and global contexts.