Personal Agency Inspired by Hardship: Bilingual Latinas as Liberatory Educators
This qualitative multiple case study focused on eleven non traditional, bilingual, Latinas within a teacher education program. The study explored various factors that influenced participants' desire to pursue and ability to persist as pre service teachers. The overarching theme identified among participant discourse was personal agency inspired by hardship. Findings indicated that, as a result of their cultural and experiential understandings, participants enacted culturally responsive teaching with their Latino/a students. Furthermore, participants demonstrated a strong sense of personal agency to improve the educational outcomes of culturally and linguistically diverse students and a desire to advocate specifically on behalf of English learner Latino/a students.