Get to know the texts and theorists that have inspired my work

In On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh offer a rich critique of global epistemic relations; epistemology being the politics of what constitutes valid knowledge. Mignolo and Walsh term the power structure which enables the domination of epistemologies developed and observed in the third world and by marginalized groups coloniality. By offering an understanding and interpretation of this power structure, Mignolo and Walsh aspire to dismantle it. They then turn to the concept of interculturality. Interculturality transcends politics of recognition and warrants a complete dismantling of colonial systems of domination. To do this, the terms of conversations must be transformed to justly reflect all epistemologies. They posit that cultural difference mustn't be ignored, rather considered integral to political and epistemic negotiations.

Informed by ethnographic research and personal experience, Paulo Freire set the stage for work on educational critique and colonialism in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The text offers a theory of social domination in the school context and beyond. Freire critiques what he terms the "banking concept of education," a system which socializes students to be passive repositories of information, as held by the teacher, which is presented as objectively truthful and non-malleable, reality. As a response, Freire, having been a schoolteacher, presents a liberating alternative which he terms the "problem-posing concept." In problem-posing educational situations, reality and curricula are presented as subjective and malleable, calling for challenges to dominant order. Freire concludes by offering his experience with problem-posing praxis and highlights the dismantling of epistemic hierarchy and other mechanisms of de-colonization as central to the pursuit of becoming fully human.

The text, The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice provides a lens for which to analyze mainstream perceptions of marginalized students and families in schools. Valencia posits that marginalized groups are seen as deficit within the education system due to their cultural practices which have historically been perceived to be incompatible with success. As a response, approaches to education reform under the deficit model aim to change the victim, rather than the system. This argument is supported by a historical analysis of the culture of poverty and American perceptions of why marginalized groups fail to attain mainstream indicators of success: because they are seen to be lazy, careless, and unmotivated. Central to deficit thinking is the assumption that institutions are objectively fair, it is the inhabitants that cause failure.

While her work centers social class divides, sociologist Annette Lareau is at the forefront of the work on the reproduction of inequality through education, with a focus on relationships between parents and schools. Lareau's ethnographic book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, offers a framework for how black and white middle class families, engage in what she terms "concerted cultivation," while black and white poor and working class families engage in "the accomplishment of natural growth." She attributes the differences to cultural perceptions and values which inform approaches to parenthood. While Lareau does not make the argument that one approach is more beneficial to children than the other, she does show how schools privilege the approach akin to middle class families. Ultimately, Lareau communicates that parental involvement in schooling is not universally enacted, understood, or rewarded. Similarly, schools do not shape their practices with varying approaches in mind.