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As 20-some-year-old Chaney Bell sat across from an elder at the Flathead Reservation in rural western Montana, he fumbled through his gear--handling video cassettes, stripping a tripod out of its bag, and pulling out a digital video camera, microphone, and the obligatory headphones. He seemed nervous, exceedingly cautious, yet displayed a demeanor of great respect as he prepared to speak with a tribal elder. The source of Chaney's anxiety was the presence of the camera and other technology. Although the elder had agreed to be interviewed, Chaney wasn't certain whether the technology would be a distraction to the conversation, or whether that same equipment would be a symbol of disrespect to the elder or his stories, which Chaney so passionately wanted to capture on videotape.

Digital storytelling can be used as a tool in participatory action research. An organization developed to enhance teaching and learning in high schools used this method as a way to collect narratives from the rural community it served. The staff and students who participated in digital storytelling became researchers focused on the personal narrative. Digital storytelling was used to give voice to community members and also to explain policy initiatives that directly affected the community. Digital storytelling was a way for the organization to engage its members in a way that would benefit all stakeholders.

This article uses story as a process to highlight the work in a South Texas community that focuses on the education of youth and the development of community. The work is guided by a new consciousness of place, community engagement, and identity formation. The work is local, but breaking the isolation of youth, families, and ideas has been part of an emerging theory of change. The document takes us in and out of stories of place in an attempt to transfer the work to other communities. It presents the voices of witnesses to take the concepts used in this Mexican-American community into other spaces. The work is informed by place, theory, and practice.

The Llano. Grande Research Project in south Texas directs research methods and special projects classes that assist students in developing effective academic, research, and social skills. Students in these classes pursue a curriculum based on pedagogy of place principles and gain an understanding of their community's environment and culture. This document outlines principles, objectives, and activities of the place-based curriculum. The principles focus on experiencing the local environment, history, and economy; spirituality; and community participation and politics. Almost all of the local students are of Mexican descent, and Llano Grande addresses the lack of culturally relevant textbook materials through student oral history projects. Course objectives are presented for two half-credit courses in social studies: special projects and researchmethods. Objectives cover academic skills in reading, writing, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, computer skills, and research; fund raising; conducting community meetings; .seeking and using information; written and oral communication; and problem solving. Elementary and secondary activities are described that encompass interviewing family and community members, journal writing, art and performance activities, journalism, environmental study, and uses of mathematics in the real world. (SV) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the ori inal document. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Off ice of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality.

An introduction to ecologies of engaged scholarship: stories from activist-academics This special edition of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 'Ecologies of engaged scholarship: stories from activist-academics, ' is a product of a distinct form of peer review journal production. 'Ecologies' captures an emerging epistemology of academic activism through a process congruent with the values and work the authors live by in their commitment to their respective communities, as they perform their privilege and agency for the public good. An invitation to participate was granted to a group of academics vetted by the editors, by senior scholars, and by other witnesses engaged in social change work. The edition has been produced through a community building process, as the guest editors convened the authors in rural South Texas in February 2015 to get-to-know each other and to think collectively about each of our stories as activist-academics. We came together a day before the start of the annual conference of the North Dakota Study Group, a national organization of progressive educators dedicated to advocacy of fair and appropriate teaching, learning, and evaluation practices. We spent three-and-a-half days building community: very purposefully, we broke bread together, shared stories, and established a level of trust where we could challenge each other as critical friends to find the stories that inspire us to engage in research, service, and teaching. This developmental process did not begin with the preparation for the February get-together, nor did it start with the proposal to guest-edit this special edition. A more accurate origin for this volume takes us to our doctoral seminars at the University of Texas and at Texas A&M, when the three guest editors, at different times, sat in the classrooms of the respective colleges of education. Each of us can point to the significance of Jim Scheurich in our lives and to the importance of finding the interrelatedness between the concepts of scholarship, advocacy, and activism that took shape as we read, wrote, talked, and engaged with Jim as part of our graduate education. We can similarly point to key mentors such as Henry Trueba, Maenette Benham, Joe Feagin, our parents, and other non-academics from our communities who have shaped the foundation of our work. Our academic genealogy is the product of stories we share with them, and with so many more. And Scheurich has been key to this developmentin ways he set up his classes, in ways he provoked, in ways he behaved. One of us recalls the day of a dissertation defense, when Jim stood up for a provocative argument one of us was making, and then reflected on the moment when he admittedly used his privilege. Jim said, 'Did you like the way I exercised my white privilege in your defense?' We love that candor, and the vulnerability that comes with it. Jim has taught us a great deal about privilege, especially white privilege. He and our mentors showed us how to use whatever privilege we have for the greater good. That's what this special edition is about. It is about using this place of privilege, the space that is a well-respected academic journal, to tell stories and to push for new ways of engaging scholarship and activism, and to push for ways of being as members of the academy. The storytellers in this edition come from different geographical, classed, racial, and cultural upbringings. They come from the American Midwest, they come as Mexican immigrants into the US, they come from the Island of Oahu in Hawaii, they come from Native lands in the American Northwest, they come from Italian immigrants who settled in Michigan, they come from Haitian and African-American communities in Florida, they come from the Texas-Mexican borderlands, they come as South

This article contributes to the study of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) through a narrative grounded on two points of innovation. It offers frameworks to decenter the conversation on HSIs from normative practices in higher education to focus on pedagogical, cultural, and political relational processes that find greater congruence between nominal HSIs and the Latina/o students, families, and the communities that populate those universities. It looks at points of innovation that emerged in two different parts of the country at different places, spaces, and time. One was initiated at the University of North Florida (UNF) in the early-to-mid-1970s, and the second is taking place at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in South Texas (UTRGV). The UNF experience placed race relations front and center of its innovation, and offers an appropriate historical lens through which to understand the social and institutional change taking place in South Texas. The UTRGV work provides an...

This document traverses through a series of genealogical stories that span close to a century to provide context to higher learning, education, and development. The stories of elders help us re-member their dreams, re-frame the process for growth, and re-imagine the possibilities for development at the self, organizational, and community levels. Grounded in a community context, the authors present the history of people, place, and work as they learn to become more effective educators.

A consequence of the development of modern states has been the concept of “minority” as used to refer to subsets of the population that are differentiated from that portion of the population which is seen as the “majority.” These minorities are at times distinguished from each other using terms such as national minorities and immigrant minorities. Some scholars have challenged the distinctions drawn by these constructs. An example of how such constructs are not always accurate can be found in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where ethnic and linguistic, immigrant and national, minority and majority are not always clear cut. “The Valley,” as the region is locally known, has a long history of the numerical majority being in a minoritized position. In this context, a local university administered a “speech test” to Mexican American students who enrolled between the 1950s and the 1970s. The purpose, according to Anzaldúa (1987), was to tame their “wild tongue.” This same university, now transf...

This essay contributes to the growing literature on Mexican American Studies in K-12 within the broader field of Ethnic Studies. While most of the literature on the movement for Ethnic Studies within Texas and across the nation mainly focuses on the impact of Ethnic Studies courses on students’ academic success, this essay highlights a professional development program for K-12 social studies teachers in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas entitled Historias Americanas: Engaging History and Citizenship in the Rio Grande Valley, funded by a federal grant. This essay provides an overview of Historias Americanas, the objectives and structure of the program, and the ways in which the program contributes to the discourse on Mexican American Studies in K-12. It also describes the frameworks that form the crux of the professional development process: place-based education and culturally relevant pedagogical frameworks.

This article identifies the Edcouch-Elsa High School Walkout of 1968 as a pivotal event in the educational history of Mexican American students in south Texas. It presents elements of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Brown decision, the rise of Mexican American political organizations, and the actions of community youth. The authors use oral histories that they and their high school students produced between 1997 and 2002, through the work of the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, a nonprofit organization founded by the authors and their students. Through the use of secondary literature, local stories, and micro–macro integrative theory, this study describes how the Brown decision and other national events affected Edcouch-Elsa schools between 1954 and 1968.

This article chronicles the work of the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, an educational nonprofit organization in South Texas, by following the narrative of one of its students and two of the authors, who are also founders of Llano Grande. Through the use of ethnography, visuals, and storytelling, they present an emerging theory of practice and a hybrid methodology that has contributed to the development of the work, the school, and the community. An activist agenda informed by practice and supported with theory is woven through the text in biographical form. The text also documents the cornerstones of the work: building strong relationships; work originating from self, place, and community; and engaging in meaningful work. When integrated into a seamless practice, this combination of guiding principles yields a certain power that youth and adults alike begin to negotiate within and between their peers, teachers, and community for change. This sense of self, efficacy, and power then informs much of their work as adults. [Latino epistemology and education, activist ethnography, Llano Grande Center, storytelling, community as text, pedagogy of hope] Carmen's Chronicle When Carmen Valdez was 12 years old, her mother hired a coyote to transport her two young daughters and herself from Mexico into the United States. They fled particular domestic troubles and risked the dangerous sojourn, "para buscar la vida" (to search for life), as Carmen noted in her oral history a few years later. They began their trip in Durango, where Carmen and her sister had been fully immersed in school life and where their mother took odd jobs to make ends meet. Life was good for Carmen in Durango; she was primed, after all, to be the school's next abanderada, an honor given to a top student who would carry the Mexican flag at school functions, and she also had her circle of close friends. Her mother, however, found it difficult to provide for the family, particularly after escaping a controlling and abusive husband who had previously been the main provider. One fateful evening, when Carmen, her mother, and her sister slipped into the inner tubes that would float them across the Rio Grande River, the river that also served as the U.S.-Mexico international boundary, they did not know what to expect. Crossing was a profound experience, and it would become part of a narrative that would help Carmen generate personal and academic power as she moved through high school and into higher education.

This article examines the exercise practices of a group of faculty members at a regional university who for a decade have participated in their own racquetball league. These professors self-organized their exercise regimen and during the period of their participation have found significant benefits beyond the physical benefits, as a result. Through the production of reflective narratives focused on the impact of their racquetball participation, their self-reported data show two broad themes and numerous sub-themes that emerge from their exercise experience. They reveal significant health benefits, and they express more deeply the benefits of the positive social interaction that impacts many aspects of their personal and professional lives. The self-reported data from six players was requested and collected during a 6-week period. Faculty members were asked to write freely on the self-organizational aspects of their racquetball participation as well as their perceived benefits of this particular exercise. A qualitative textual analysis was applied to these narratives after they were coded for anonymity. Subsequent conclusions were drawn from the analyses of the content of each narrative.

A consequence of the development of modern states has been the concept of “minority” as used to refer to subsets of the population that are differentiated from that portion of the population which is seen as the “majority.” These minorities are at times distinguished from each other using terms such as national minorities and immigrant minorities. Some scholars have challenged the distinctions drawn by these constructs. An example of how such constructs are not always accurate can be found in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where ethnic and linguistic, immigrant and national, minority and majority are not always clear cut. “The Valley,” as the region is locally known, has a long history of the numerical majority being in a minoritized position. In this context, a local university administered a “speech test” to Mexican American students who enrolled between the 1950s and the 1970s. The purpose, according to Anzaldúa (1987), was to tame their “wild tongue.”  This same university, now trans...

pivotal event in the educational history of Mexican American students in south Texas. It presents elements of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Brown decision, the rise of Mexican American political organizations, and the actions of communityyouth. The authors use oral histories that they and their high school students produced between 1997 and 2002, through the work of the Llano Grande Centerfor Research and Development, a nonprofit organization founded by the authors and their students. Through the use of secondary literature, local stories, and micro-macro integrative theory, this study describes how the Brown decision and other national events affected Edcouch-Elsa schools between 1954 and 1968.