Harvesting hope and solidarity: education and organizing with migrant farmworker families

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the emerging process of participation and activism of Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the schooling of their children through their narratives and oral histories, contextualized in selected schools and rural communities of Southern California. Equitable and participatory collaborations between migrant parents and their children’s school personnel hold the potential to benefit school achievement among these students, a population whose school performance has historically lagged substantially behind their peers. This study addresses the following questions: What are the dispositions, interactions, events and contexts that support the participation, advocacy, and activism of migrant farm worker parents in the schooling of their children? and, what are the values, reflections and challenges that contextualize the migrant parents’ process of awareness, solidarity, and commitment among them?]