The dialectics of Chicana /o student resistance in one secondary social studies border classroom

What follows in the proceeding six chapters is an ethnographic study on Chicana/o student resistance conducted over the course of one semester in a secondary Borderlands social studies class. I found resistance to be ubiquitous, manifesting itself most frequently in the form of students making a joke out of the formal curriculum. The teacher, "Mead," was a white, middle-aged woman who self-identified her own teaching style as authoritarian. Students reported that they joked around to make school fun arguing that "dropping out" occurs because teachers are boring. What is more, during focus group discussions students made the case that not only was Mead's curriculum culturally insensitive, but not relevant to the topic of the course, Principles of Democracy.;Student resistance persisted when the well-liked "progressive" student-teacher, "Mrs. Gonzalez," was in charge. Gonzalez reported that her number one challenge was classroom management. This should not be surprising given previous research that suggests that student resistance is not just a response to the teacher, but reflects the students particular situatedness in the world. That is, given the fact that these students, for the most part, have lived a life of racism and poverty, it is not surprising that many of them seem to see little value in school, regardless of the teacher's cultural background or teaching style.;However, in the end, it is the students who are most negatively affected by their resistance because it is them, not the teacher, who winds up getting pushed out of school without the skills to either subvert the system for social justice, or survive within the world that exists beyond a minimum wage. At the same time, in a world wrought with economic crisis, perpetual war, environmental devastation and dehumanization in general, student resistance, as an example of the human spirit of creative rebelliousness thriving in the most oppressive of contexts, can offer educators a glimmering of hope for Brazilian educator Paulo Freire's consistent assertion that although we are conditioned we are not determined.