Immigrant pedagogies: Testimonios of upward mobility of transnational students and their mothers in Northern Chile

In the last twenty years, Chile has become the main destination for Latin American and Caribbean immigrants (ILO, 2020). Seven percent of the Chilean population is comprised of immigrants, and immigrant students represent an additional 14.92% of public-school students (CEM, 2021). Chilean educational policies of diversity have framed individual and group differences in ways that tend to marginalize immigrant students and their families by perpetuating a cultural deficit perspective (Galaz et al., 2023; Matus, 2019). The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the lived experiences of immigrant mothers and their students in northern Chile under the notion of “immigrant pedagogies”—daily life lessons to successfully navigate scenarios of marginalization. The central research questions are: 1) How do immigrant students and their families forge durable educational pathways in northern Chile? 2) What pedagogies emerge from domestic and economic arrangements of immigrant mothers to achieve upward mobility? and 3) How can educational scholars draw on experiential knowledge theories to address the lived experiences of South-South immigrant students and their families within the discourse on cultural diversity in education? The dissertation follows a qualitative-and- ethnographic research approach centered on testimonios of mothers and students. The access to participants was facilitated by cultural brokers and the relationship with participants was developed during three rounds of fieldwork in Chile’s northern region. The testimonio as the main method is used as a counternarrative strategy to interweave mothers’ and students’ accounts of their life trajectories. The goal is to invoke and foreground multiple voices and pathways that build upon the collective narratives produced by marginalized immigrant subjects navigating the material conditions of Antofagasta. The testimonio is complemented by critical discourse analysis of the National Policy on Foreign Students and the voices of educational evaluators. The voices of the women/mothers and their children in this study tell a story of agency and self-managed transformation that is complemented by students’ voices. The testimonio includes a narrative about the reason to migrate, the experience of migrating, social anchors in Antofagasta, and collective efforts to concrete strategies for achieving upward mobility. Domestic arrangements, values shared, and lessons intergenerationally provided frame the funds of knowledge for the immigrant pedagogies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Perez, Manuel Andres

Contributors dc:contributor

• McCarthy, Cameron R
• Hopson, Rodney K
• Davila, Liv T
• Goodnight, Melissa
• Novoa, Magdalena

• Chile
• Immigrant Pedagogies
• South-south Migration
• Funds Of Knowledge
• Colombian Immigrant
• Testimonios

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Manuel Perez-Troncoso

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124706

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F124706