Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2014 I Do Activist Things Even Though I'm Nothing: A Critical Ethnography of Immigrant Youth Identity Formation in an Urban Community-School Sophia Rodriguez Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Rodriguez, Sophia, "I Do Activist Things Even Though I'm Nothing: A Critical Ethnography of Immigrant Youth Identity Formation in an Urban Community-School" (2014). Dissertations. 1110. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1110 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2014 Sophia Rodriguez LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO “I DO ACTIVIST THINGS EVEN THOUGH I’M NOTHING”: A CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF IMMIGRANT YOUTH IDENTITY FORMATION IN AN URBAN COMMUNITY-SCHOOL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY STUDIES BY SOPHIA RODRIGUEZ CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2014 Copyright by Sophia Rodriguez, 2014 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This has been a five year journey that requires many thanks to those who have helped me reach the finish line. I would first like to thank my dissertation chair, teacher, mentor, and thought partner throughout my graduate studies, Dr. Noah W. Sobe. I met Noah over the phone in my interview and he asked me who some of my favorite thinkers in education were, and for some reason this struck me as a sign of his interest and engagement in working with students. From the moment I arrived at Loyola he has been generous with his time on all matters related to graduate study. Thank you for the many kinds of support throughout this process, the research and teaching opportunities, and the many conversations we have had that deepened my thinking. Thank you to the other members of my committee. Dr. Leanne Kallemeyn has been very gracious and generous with her time as I asked endless questions about qualitative inquiry over the past three years. Dr. David Embrick, thank you for serving on my committee and for our conversations as well. I would also like to thank Loyola’s School of Education and The Graduate School for funding my doctoral studies and providing me with travel funding to attend the many conferences during my studies. I would like to acknowledge that this work would not have been possible without the support of the community organization in the study. I am deeply grateful for having met Patrick Brosnan through our mutual friend Alicia Haller, and learning of the amazing work he has done to achieve equity in low-income communities. iii I would like to thank the staff and students that I met at Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Urban Research and Learning. I especially thank David Van Zytveld for accepting me into the CURL family even though I was an outsider. I learned how to be a better researcher and mentor during my time at CURL. I also learned much about community partners and the value of working in collaborative environments. To David, thank you for reminding me to shorten my titles, to be a human being in this work, and to do this work with kindness and grace. To Julie, thank you for always being a kind, listening ear to turn to during this process and for our weekend work marathons. I would also like to thank the many friends both in academia and outside for grounding me and reminding me why I went to graduate school in the first place. I cannot possibly begin to express my gratitude for the support you all have given me. Thanks to Tim Specht and Christy Simpson for our fam dinners and thousands of laughs. Thanks to Amanda Skrzypchak, Shanna Mann and Kerin Hoffman for the two million texts over the years as well as for the bond we share after teaching in the South Bronx together. The three of you remind me to always be on the side of kids, and you have taught me time and time again the value and importance of friendship and this fight for educational equity. Thanks to Jackie Pollis for your endless cheerleading and positive energy. Thanks to Deb Baron for reading iterations of my dissertation and the raw data as I was still collecting it, for sitting on the phone with me for hours listening to my stories and helping me make sense of it. Thanks to Alicia Haller for being a loyal friend during the many moments when I did not see the bigger picture and for reminding me to be good to iv myself. To Deb and Alicia also for the countless dinners and conversations that nourished me in more ways than I can express. Thanks to Kimberly Howard for sharing your process with me as you went through it. When I met you at AERA in 2010 I could not have imagined the hilarious and profound moments we would share. Thank you for teaching me that this work is personal, and that it is okay to be emotionally invested. I am so grateful for our friendship and for your willingness to be a mentor to me in your times of struggle. Thanks to David Kupferman for your brutal honesty, your willingness to engage with me on all matters related to theory, and for reminding me to “lay off on the post structuralism” at times. I would like to thank my mother for all she has sacrificed for me throughout the years. She has always shown me the value of hard work and kindness, and truly what it means to be selfless and to fight for those in need. Last, I would like to thank the youth in this study as well as the teachers and community organizers. You are the story. You opened your hearts and minds, and your classrooms and after-school programs so that I may capture all of the positive ways you work for social justice in your community. I was transformed by this work, and am forever grateful that I got to be a part of the social justice work that you do. A special thanks to two incredible teachers, Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Alex, who helped me tell the stories that are in this dissertation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ x ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION, REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................... 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................. 3 Coming to Research on Identity ...................................................................................... 5 Research Question ........................................................................................................... 7 Significance of the Research ............................................................................................ 7 Review of Literature ........................................................................................................ 9 Theoretical and Empirical Approaches to Racial and Ethnic Minorities’ Identity Formation ................................................................................................... 15 Latino Immigrants’ Schooling Experiences and Identity Formation .......................... 20 Anthropological Studies of Latino Immigrants’ Identity Formation Process and Schooling ............................................................................................. 25 Identity in Relation to Community and Community-School Partnerships ................. 30 Summary of Review of Literature .............................................................................. 33 Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................. 34 Identity as an Analytic in Education Research ........................................................... 34 Limits of Gee’s (2000) Model of Identity................................................................... 40 Applying an Adapted Version of Gee’s (2000) to O’Donnell .................................... 43 A Note on Key Terms .................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................. 52 Why Ethnography? ........................................................................................................ 55 Ethnography ................................................................................................................ 56 Critical Ethnography ................................................................................................... 57 Researcher Positionality................................................................................................. 61