Subtractive Schooling

Provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and US-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. The author argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education, and secondly through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language.

Angela Valenzuela is Associate Professor in Curriculum and Instruction and Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.