Parallel Session Proceedings »
2.7.8 Adolescent Latina Identity in Dual Language Gifted and Talented Classrooms
In this inquiry, I employ Judith Butler’s (1990) performativity theory as well as her conceptualization of subversive acts and loss and mourning to interrogate giftedness and Latina identity within the field of gifted and talented education. This investigation highlights the means through which adolescent Latina identity is discursively constructed through sociocultural and political norms within middle grades gifted and talented classrooms and exposes how these learners disrupt ready-made constructions of giftedness and Latina identity through subversive acts. Using post qualitative inquiry (PQI), I interrogate the complexities of discursively constructed conceptions of giftedness and Latina identity in the United States and dismantle the traditional modes of data analysis and the dissemination of findings used in educational research by presenting my inquiry, student focus group interview data, and classroom observation data through non-traditional means—narratives, scriptwriting, poetry, visual-art, journaling, and poetry. In this inquiry, I highlight how constructing a collective identity for these students is problematic as the complexity of individual subjectivity makes it impossible to envision the Latina population as a homogenous group. Likewise, although the norms for giftedness that are embedded in the United States school system possess a shaping impact on student subjectivity, giftedness ought to be viewed as a discursive construction. Furthermore, as the adolescent Latina participants who have been identified as gifted and talented reveal in this inquiry, giftedness and Latina identity stretch beyond our normative perceptions within the United States. I posit that through cultural translation (Butler, 2004), educators and curriculum theorists can begin to rethink static notions of giftedness and Latina identity by creating a new lexicon to dismantle the dominant discourses and hegemony of gifted and talented education.