Intersections of Identity, Culture, and Curriculum on the Threshold of a Latinx Transforming EdD program at a Hispanic Serving Institution

Abstract

A constellation of emergent research is devoted to critiquing the institutional identities of Hispanic Serving institutions (HSIs) as primarily Hispanic-enrolling institutions and then exploring frameworks and practices aimed at transforming them into what García (2019) terms Latinx-serving institutions. The purpose of this essay is to explore the intersections of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining approaches and as potentially decolonizing curricular spaces of EdD program (re)design at HSIs. This essay draws from two qualitative studies exploring critical approaches to curriculum and pedagogy and program redesign in order to re-align questions about serving Latinx students toward practices of critical consciousness situated at the intersection of identity, culture, and curriculum. Findings include the ways in which those notions are different and similar, and the unique lens each offers the teachers and EdD program redesign. Implications discussed in this essay highlight the possibilities and problems of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining approaches for EdD program redesign and how they might look when applied in HSI EdD programs. Such findings are not only useful in lending insight into the specific complexities of HSI efforts to develop EdD programs that better serve Latinx students in transformative ways. These findings also indicate that the process through which this is undertaken benefits from critical consciousness aimed at individual and collective conscientization among students and faculty as well as curricular outcomes shaped by discourses of social justice.