March: Culture of Achievement: Latinx Tradition

Francesca A. López is the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Penn State University. She began her career in education as a bilingual (Spanish/English) elementary teacher, and later as an at-risk high school counselor, in El Paso, Texas. Her research is focused on the ways educational settings promote achievement for Latino youth and has been funded by the American Educational Research Association Grants Program, the Division 15 American Psychological Association Early Career Award, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. López is a National Education Policy Center Fellow, and was a Visiting Fellow for the Program for Transborder Communities at Arizona State University. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment and Contemporary Educational Psychology, and is currently senior associate editor for the American Journal of Education and co-editor of the American Educational Research Journal.

Dr. Norma “Mictlani” Gonzalez is a critical educator with 28 years of combined experience in teaching and teacher training in Ethnic Studies in public education at the K-12 level. Her approach to education is rooted in implementing decolonizing, asset-based pedagogies that center traditionally marginalized students’ lived experiences and history in curriculum and instruction. Her transformative approach seeks to maximize minoritized student academic achievement by emphasizing students’ sense of belonging, self, hope, and agency. Professionally Dr. Gonzalez is a school administrator with an equity lens toward the elimination of the achievement gap for minoritized students through the implementation of decolonizing and asset-based pedagogies and in developing teacher critical awareness. Dr. Gonzalez has extensive experience in the development of culturally relevant curriculum. She received her doctorate in the department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, at the University of Arizona wherein her research focus centered in-service teacher professional development focused on race and educational equity for minoritized students. As an educational consultant, Dr. Gonzalez works with school districts around the nation to prepare teachers to teach a diverse student demographic emphasizing decolonizing learning spaces. She is a former K-12 teacher for the renowned Mexican-American/Raza Studies in Tucson-the largest public school ethnic studies program in the nation before it was dismantled in January of 2012.

José Gonzalez has been in the field of education as a classroom teacher, curriculum specialist, and culturally relevant (CR) master teacher coach for the past thirty years. He currently works for Tucson Unified School District teaching the CR American History: Mexican American Perspective and CR American Government Social Justice Perspectives classes at Tucson High Magnet School. As a practitioner and a student advocate, José anchors his instruction by implementing a Xicanx Critical Race Theory, simultaneously interweaving a humanizing pedagogy, which at its core, is grounded in an indigenous epistemology. He operationalizes this indigenous epistemology to foster and facilitate within his students a strong sense of identity (ancestral and academic) and student's voice while infusing a self-discipline approach to life. His pedagogical approach is featured in the award-winning documentary Precious Knowledge. José received his bachelor's from Emporia State University, a master's from Northern Arizona University in Bilingual & Multicultural Education and earned his doctorate in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Arizona.