From Pedagogies to Research: Engaging With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families of Students With Dis/Abilities

Abstract

For decades, educational research has focused on centering the experiences of children of color. From this research arose culturally relevant pedagogies (CRPs) and culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs). However, as countless teachers focus on developing more inclusive classroom practices, the cultural needs of parents continue to be ignored. One reason for this is that, while being manifestations of funds of knowledge, CRP and CSP are rooted in the classroom and not the home. As such, there is a need for culturally sustaining research that supports/affirms parents. This article presents how testimonios gathered in Spanish with Spanish-dominant mothers serve as counter-narratives to research that positions them as disengaged. The article also features the ways in which mothers subvert attempts to minimize their parental presence. A preliminary framework for culturally sustaining research is also shared. Participants included 10 Spanish-dominant Latinx mothers from a large immigrant community in New York City. Mothers qualified for inclusion if their child (a) attended a local public elementary school, (b) was in Grades 2 to 6, (c) was classified as having a disability, and (d) was classified as an English language learner by their school. Qualifying children were receiving services in one of three special education settings: bilingual inclusive classrooms, transitional bilingual special education, or monolingual inclusive education. This study employed a combination of qualitative research methods and consisted of two phases. During the first phase, 10 mothers took part in two narrative interviews. For the second phase, three focal mothers, chosen from the larger sample, took part in ethnographic case studies consisting of five additional interviews, two home observations, one communal recollection, and sharing of artifacts. (a) Mothers of emergent bilinguals labeled as disabled (MoEBLADs) are systematically excluded from their child’s education at both the school and district levels. (b) MoEBLADs internalize these experiences and fault themselves for their limited participation in their children’s learning. (c) MoEBLADs subversively make space for themselves in their children’s educational experiences by focusing on contributions they can make outside of school. Research about MoEBLADs typically frames them as unwilling to support and/or incapable of supporting their children academically, signaling that many of the deficit-grounded perspectives MoEBLADs encounter in schools are also present in research. Researchers must address how the language of research contributes to the reinforcement and maintenance of deficit-grounded perspectives calling for a need to shift from inclusive research to culturally sustaining research.