H-Net: Mothers United

Gilda Ochoa reviews Andrea Dyrness's book about the struggle for socially just education.

Dyrness_Mothers goodFor too long, Latinas/os have been blamed for the educational inequalities that plague our schools.  Politicians, pundits, and sometimes even school officials perpetuate cultural deficiency perspectives that assume Latina/o parents do not participate in their children’s schooling and that they do not value education.  Similarly, there has been a long practice of researchers entering into Latina/o communities with a mission to supposedly understand, report on, and help the people.  These naysayers, teachers, and researchers are often far removed from the classrooms and communities that they profess to describe.  Instead, their frameworks and approaches have contributed to misrepresentations, exclusionary practices, and asymmetrical relationships that further inequality in our schools and society.  Working within Chicana/Latina feminist approaches, Andrea Dyrness’s Mothers United offers an important corrective for understanding and contesting these neocolonial relationships.

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Published in: H-Net Reviews
By: Gilda Ochoa