UW–Madison alum Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who earned her PhD from the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction in 2018, is the author of a new book released Oct. 1.
In “How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America,” Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. She sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism.
Through this provocative and groundbreaking work, Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to other racial groups. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students’ critical consciousness about race and racialization.
Chávez-Moreno is an award-winning researcher, qualitative scientist, and assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Departments of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and Education.
Learn more about “How Schools Make Race.”