PAR EntreMundos: A Pedagogy of the Americas challenges the standard narratives of "achievement" to think about how Latinx students can experience an education that forges new possibilities of liberation and justice. Growing Latinx student populations have led to concerns about "assimilating" them into mainstream academic frameworks. This book offers an alternative, decolonizing approach that embraces complex Latinx identities and clears a path toward resisting systems of oppression. Educating Latinx students should involve more than just helping them achieve in school but rather having them recognize their agency to transform the larger structure of education to promote justice-oriented practices. The authors offer a framework for such transformation by honoring their theoretical lineages, proposing a set of guiding principles, and sharing stories about collective social action within and outside Latinx communities. PAR EntreMundos: A Pedagogy of the Americas is a practice of liberation and freedom.

PAR EntreMundos: A Pedagogy of the Americas challenges the standard narratives of "achievement" to think about how Latinx students can experience an education that forges new possibilities of liberation and justice. Growing Latinx student populations have led to concerns about "assimilating" them into mainstream academic frameworks. This book offers an alternative, decolonizing approach that embraces complex Latinx identities and clears a path toward resisting systems of oppression. Educating Latinx students should involve more than just helping them achieve in school but rather having them recognize their agency to transform the larger structure of education to promote justice-oriented practices. The authors offer a framework for such transformation by honoring their theoretical lineages, proposing a set of guiding principles, and sharing stories about collective social action within and outside Latinx communities. PAR EntreMundos: A Pedagogy of the Americas is a practice of liberation and freedom.

Are we bold enough to recognize our own excellence in our schools and communities? This question drives Intentional Excellence, an audacious attempt at developing a Pedagogy of Excellence in Latina/o schools and communities as a result of observations, insights, and lessons learned from work with schools and communities across the United States. Louie F. Rodriguez argues that while there is no shortage of excellence in some of the schools and communities that struggle the most, there is a pedagogical void, or an Excellence Paradox, that has disallowed excellence from being used as a potential tool to transform the culture of education. This book offers an additive framework for committed stakeholders and outlines six key observations including the contagious nature of excellence, excellence as a responsibility, the political viability of excellence, the additive possibilities of excellence, the role of excellence as a curricular and pedagogical tool, and the role of excellence in working toward equity and social justice in education. Rodriguez discusses a series of case studies that have used Excellence Campaigns to organize, define, and recognize their own excellence. The book also discusses the possibilities of excellence beyond education and proposes a new role in education to make excellence happen: Excellence Engineers. The book concludes with a theory of action that is necessary for excellence to thrive in the twenty-first century. Our children and communities deserve to see themselves as "models of excellence" and this book proposes a pedagogy to help get us there.

The fact that 30% of all high school students and 50% of African American, Latina/o, and Native American students fail to graduate from high school is grounds for alarm in the United States. The Time Is Now argues that understanding and responding to the dropout crisis facing the United States has overlooked one major element - school culture. Using the PUEDES approach as an analytical framework, this book highlights how schools matter and, in fact, hold many of the solutions that contribute to student engagement and disengagement in school, particularly among low-income students of color. Drawing on more than 10 years of school-based research in Boston, Miami, and Southern California, a 10-Point Plan is proposed. The book provides a practical theory of action aimed at challenging the ways schools and communities work together to transform education practice, policy, and, ultimately, student engagement and achievement, particularly among African American and Latina/o students across the United States.

Members of communities of color in the United States often struggle for equity, autonomy, survival, and justice. Community-Based Participatory Research is an edited volume from activist-scholars who present personal testimonies showcasing how community-based participatory research (CBPR) can lead to sustainable change and empowerment. Editor Natalia Deeb-Sossa has chosen contributors whose diverse interdisciplinary projects are grounded in politically engaged research in Chicanx and Latinx communities. The scholars' advocacy work is a core component of the research design of their studies, challenging the idea that research needs to be neutral or unbiased. The testimonies tell of projects that stem from community demands for truly collaborative research addressing locally identified issues and promoting community social change. Contributors share their personal experiences in conducting CBPR, focusing on the complexities of implementing this method and how it may create sustainable change and community empowerment. Along with a retrospective analysis of how CBPR has been at the center of the Chicana/o Movement and Chicana/o studies, the book includes a discussion of consejos y advertencias (advice and warnings). The most knowledgeable people on community issues are the very members of the communities themselves. Recognizing a need to identify the experiences and voices (testimonios) of communities of color, activist- scholars showcase how to incorporate the perspectives of the true experts: the poor, women, farmworkers, students, activists, elders, and immigrants.

This book explores in-depth the unique aspects of school culture and student personalization characteristic of small learning communities in order to offer insights and suggestions to school reformers, particularly those in urban centers, at all levels and in any kind of school. The authors share conclusions from their original research based in four small learning communities in Boston, MA and Oakland, CA, offering student voice, implications for practice, and suggestions for improving school reform based on the school culture and personalization found in these small learning communities.