The Irony of Year-Round Schools: Mexican Migrant Resistance in a California Community During the Civil Rights Era

Abstract

This study examines the politics of year-round education in a California community during the early 1970s. As one of the few school districts in the nation to experiment with the concept, and one of the first to test it that served a large Mexican migrant student clientele, the findings show that Mexican Americans challenged the 45-15 year-round plan because they were excluded in the decision-making process and because it conflicted with the employment pattern of Mexican migrant agricultural workers. Whereas most studies have primarily focused on middle-class concerns in urban and suburban environments, this article gives special attention to how Mexican migrant resistance differed from conventional accounts.