Subtractive Schooling provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and U.S.-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. Valenzuela argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education and secondly, through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language. A key consequence is the erosion of students' social capital evident in the absence of academically-oriented networks among acculturated, U.S.-born youth.
Table Of Contents
Tables
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Chapter 1
Introduction
The Study
Mexican Immigrant and Mexican American Achievement
The Subtractive Elements of Caring and Cultural Assimilation
Unmasking Barriers to Progress
Chapter 2
Seguin High School in Historical Perspective: Mexican Americans' Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity in Houston
The Early Years
Changing Demographics and the "Mexicanization" of the East End and Seguin High
Ross v. Eckels and the Struggle for Just Integration
The Seguin School Walkout
Conclusion
Chapter 3
Teacher-Student Relations and the Politics of Caring
Teacher Caring
The "Uncaring Student" Prototype
"Americanized" Immigrant Youth
"Not Caring" As Student Resistance
Caring and Pedagogy
When Teachers Do Not Initiate Relation
Contributions and Limitations of the Caring and Education Literature
Love Is One Taquito Away
Chapter 4
Everyday Experiences in the Lives of Immigrant and U.S.-Born Youth
The Experience of Schooling for Mexican Immigrant Youth
Immigrant Youth and the Question of Empeno
Cross-Generational Gender and Social Capital
Social Capital among U.S.-Born Youth
Conclusion
Chapter 5
Subtractive Schooling and Divisions among Youth
Relationships and the "Politics of Difference"
Subtractive Schooling
Divisions among Youth
Conclusion
Chapter 6
Unity in Resistance to Schooling
Mutiny in Mr. Chilcoate's Classroom
Cinco de Mayo, 1993
The Talent Show
Chapter 7
Conclusion
Epilogue: Some Final Thoughts
Appendix: Research Methodology
Notes
References
Index