ABSTRACT
The following paper examines the narratives of three Latina women who support Pedro, a Latino, Spanish-dominant student with dis/abilities in a bilingual school in Philadelphia. Their narratives describe Pedro’s transition from a team of bilingual, Latina specialists to white, monolingual specialists. Darder’s theory of critical biculturalism and Moll’s assertion of funds of knowledge as pedagogical assets drive this qualitative case study. Critical analysis of narrative data indicated that the shift from Latina bilingual specialists to white, monolingual specialists had the following implications: It (1) contributed to cultural erasure for a Latino student with special needs; (2) produced a decline in his parental involvement in school; and (3) contributed to professional clashes, which displaced a Latina paraeducator from a professional role of agency and power to the passive role of an observer. These findings suggest that refocusing institutional motives in developing bilingual, bicultural educational practices is necessary to serve effectively in Latinx communities to (1) structurally assume language as both a right and a resource; (2) support educators in actualizing sound pedagogical practices; and (3) utilize communities’ collective funds of knowledge and resources to best serve culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.
