Overview

Fracturing Opportunity demonstrates a simple yet profound idea – that educational opportunity is learned. And if it is learned, then it can be taught and taught more equitably. This book brings sociocultural theories of learning and development to bear on the persistent problems of inequality in college access, and presents an innovative framework for understanding and addressing the historic inequities that plague educational opportunity. Through ethnographic documentation of Mexican migrants’ educational experiences, the book moves beyond traditional inquiry on aspiration, academic preparation, and college matriculation to explore the deeper, more fundamental sense-making processes that mediate how students among the most vulnerable cultural communities in the United States engage in college-going. This is an excellent text for educators and researchers interested in equal educational opportunity generally, Mexican migrant and Chicano education in particular, and scholars interested in applied critical sociocultural theory and critical ethnographic methods.

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9781433105531

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Reviews

Grounded in a critical sociocultural theory of learning and development, this book uses rigorous ethnographic methods to improve our understanding of not only the forces that influence college-going for an under-examined population (i.e., Mexican migrant students), but also the most appropriate framework for understanding college-going more generally. By reframing college-going as literacy development and identifying the transformative learning opportunities that promote college-going for a population that faces multiple barriers to higher education, this book offers important insights for K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and pre-college outreach programs, as well as future research. (Laura W. Perna, Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania) 'Fracturing Opportunity' provides an important and fresh approach to understanding education as it could be for adolescent youth from migrant farm-worker backgrounds. Using a critical cultural-historical lens, this book both challenges and reframes current approaches to the ways we theorize and study the college-going trajectories of youth from non-dominant communities. College access and opportunity are lifelong processes, mediated by a constellation of factors; Gildersleeve's powerful and robust notion of 'college-going literacy' captures this dynamic and complex process in ways that give hope and possibility to meaningful educational opportunity. (Kris D. Gutierrez, Professor and Provost's Chair, School of Education, University of Colorado, Boulder)

Author Information

The Author: R. Evely Gildersleeve is an assistant professor at Iowa State University. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA and is a graduate of Occidental College.

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