ABSTRACT
Demythologizing hegemonic beliefs is part of a larger process of empowerment—and innovative rethinking of interpretive research—in an effort to extend the analysis of a decolonizing methodology to the construction of subaltern scholarship. Many working-class students of color are tossed into a frustrating and debilitating dilemma: in order to be judged by their teachers—the majority of whom are white—as possessing high self-esteem they are expected to emulate hegemonic values and sensibilities foreign to their way of life. Schools, just like other institutions, hide behind a number of legitimating forms that exist to produce hegemonic ideologies. The underlying purpose of hegemonic power is to legitimate and conceal the imperial relations that undergird capitalism. As such the political work of the oppressed has always required the unveiling, naming, and challenging of asymmetrical relations of power and their consequences within schools, communities, and the larger society.
