Rural communities across the United States are experiencing a rapid
increase in the number of immigrant students. While the number of
culturally and linguistically diverse students continues to grow within
midwestern states, the demographics of teachers remain white, female,
and monolingual. Often teachers have little to no training working with
students and their families whose backgrounds differ from their own.
Thus, there is a great urgency for teachers to develop culturally
competent teaching practices that address the needs of all students. The
purpose of this year-long, school-based narrative inquiry was to examine
the beliefs, attitudes, and practices of rural educators as they
described their work with Latinx immigrant, elementary students,
negotiated the "space" between a professional and personal identity and
demonstrated an ethic of care. This inquiry is arranged into "livings,
tellings, retellings, and relivings" (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 70)
and serves to shed light on the entwined lived experiences of myself, my
participants, and the community in which we reside. Grounded in Noddings
(1984; 2012) work on authentic caring and Valenzuela's (1999) concept of
culture and caring relations for Latinx students, Swanson's middle range
theory of care (1991, 1993) which served as the conceptual framework
that illuminated how my participants discussed working with and caring
for their Latinx immigrant students.
In Struggling to Find Our Way: Rural Educators' Experiences Working
with And Caring for Latinx Immigrant Students, Stephanie Oudghiri's
one-year school-based narrative inquiry is a carefully crafted balance
of creativity and rigor with the right notes to engage the reader,
challenge them to think, wonder at what they can do, and imagine
possibilities for a more socially just education system. In this book,
Oudghiri examines the beliefs, attitudes, and practices of two white
teachers and one Hispanic paraprofessional working with and caring for
immigrant students in a rural Indiana community.
Due to the sensitive nature of this inquiry, which focuses on teachers'
relationships with vulnerable populations (immigrant and undocumented),
Oudghiri's book serves as a model for active engagement by creating a
strong sense of place, a strong sense of who these teachers and students
are, and a strong sense of being in the midst of community and school
life. What is unique and compelling about Oudghiri's writing, is her
focus on stories of the teachers working in her school site, and the
children in their classrooms. She provides strong evidence using a
compassionate lens and the art of storytelling to illuminate lives in
the school.
