Latino bilingual teachers: the struggle to sustain an emancipatory pedagogy in public schools

This study examines how socially conscious bilingual Latino educators, specifically prepared to teach underserved children, resist multiple layers of hegemonic structures. The participants are five beginning Spanish bilingual teachers who teach in urban and semi-rural elementary schools. The study explores how their resistance unfolds as they develop and become critical educators and how their presence in schools provides children with the potential to develop social consciousness. This participatory research design uses dialogue as a tool to identify the problem, to facilitate the emergence of voice, to construct new knowledge, and to take action. Several themes surface: (1) the isolation of bilingual teachers, (2) the manifestations of power relations among students, (3) the use of a culturally bound pedagogy, (4) the countering of hidden curriculum through critical pedagogy, and (5) development of identity and voice for both students and teachers. The participating Latino teachers linked their social consciousness with an emergent critical pedagogy, which sustained them as they encounter many obstacles in their new profession.