Achieving Latina students: Aspirational counterstories and critical reflections on parental community cultural wealth

Muxeres en Acción: The Power of Community Cultural Wealth in Latinas Organizing for Health Equity

“…Together, these six forms of capital represent the cultural assets and knowledge of communities of Color, and their capacity to thrive despite institutional barriers. Research informed by a CCW framework empowers and affirms the cultural wealth and resources of muxeres, while attributing social inequities to structural factors instead of cultural differences framed as deficits (Aragon, 2018; Deeb‐Sossa & Manzo, 2020; Guzmán et al, 2018).…”

Their capital has value, too: Exploring parental educational support in low-socioeconomic single-mother families

“…Our understanding of parental educational support is that it should be much more inclusive and broader than schools' understandings, which often only link certain parent activities to educational success, namely, homework support, physical presence at children's extramural activities, and participation at meetings and school functions (Green et al, 2007;Lemmer, 2007;Mncube, 2009). Educational research has often approached single-mother families from a deficit perspective, assuming that due to a lack of economic resources and poor education, these families are an educational disadvantage for children (Aragon, 2018;Baquendano-Lopez et al, 2013;Hampden-Thompson, 2009;Koh et al, 2017). Instead, our research builds on research that has highlighted the stories of marginalised parents who wanted to, and believed that they should, be involved in their children's educational journey (Camacho-Thompson et al, 2019;Daniels, 2017;Epstein, 2011;Hoover-Demsey et al, 2001;LeFevre & Shaw, 2012;Okeke, 2014).…”

“…Although an estimated 70% of South Africa's children grow up in single-parent households (Budlender & Lund, 2011), the parent support literature has seen such families as the exception rather than the norm. Both national and international educational research has adopted a deficit approach to such families' ability to be a supportive educational environment (Aragon, 2018;Baquendano-Lopez et al, 2013;Koh et al, 2017;Newlin, 2017). These families have been described as broken, incomplete family units and presumed to be educationally disadvantaged (Gagnon, 2018;Hampden-Thompson, 2009;Hampden-Thompson & Galindo, 2015;Knowles & Holmström, 2013;Musick & Meier, 2010).…”

Deepening the Learning

“…However, most importantly, community cultural wealth focuses on the strategies, strengths, and innate experiences that people have acquired via their unique sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds (Yosso, 2005). According to Aragon (2018), counterstories are the strengths and resiliency factors that BIPOC students possess via their cultural experiences inside and outside of their homes. Aragon (2018) studied the experience of Latinx, Spanish-speaking women in college and found that students identified their parents' encouragement for them to study as reasons to complete college and be the first to graduate in their families.…”