Jurez Girls Rising: Transformative Education in Times of Dystopia

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Description

Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon explores the vital role that transformative secondary education plays in promoting self-empowerment and a spirit of resistance to the violence and social injustice working-class girls encounter in Ciudad Jurez. Bringing together the voices of ten female students at Preparatoria Altavista, Cervantes-Soon analyzes how students and teachers enact a transformative educational philosophy that promotes learning, self-authorship, and hope.

Reviews

"Rarely do we read about the on-the-ground liberatory work of teachers and youths in schools and the agency of young women to live meaningful and joyous lives. In Jurez Girls Rising, the stories of the women and the school are beautifully interwoven, providing a powerful, nuanced, and compelling ethnography that neither victimizes nor romanticizes young, working-class women as they form meaningful identities and future possibilities in the context of gender-, race- and class-based violence."Sofia Villenas, Cornell University

"An important and unique insider's perspective on the city of Jurez, Jurez Girls Rising provides a complex, detailed, and nuanced lens to better understand the multiple barriers young women in the city encounter."Gilda L. Ochoa, author of Academic Profiling: Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Achievement Gap

"The nuance with which Cervantes-Soon reflexively offers insights as an insider/outsider in ways that are deeply reflective of humanizing research make it an ideal fit for courses on ethnography, qualitative methods, critical pedagogy, or culturally sustaining pedagogies."Teachers College Record

"Cervantes-Soon provides the reader with an understanding that moves beyond the often stigmatizing or pathologizing discourses constructing the city. This engages the reader in the compassionate empathy that characterizes the school ethos." American Journal of Sociology

Author Bio

Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon is assistant professor of bilingual/bicultural education at the University of Texas at Austin.