Brotherhood, Social Justice, and Persistent Deficit Ideologies: Latino Students’ Experiences in an All-male Catholic High School

Abstract

Declining Catholic school enrollment rates coupled with increasing numbers of La- tino Catholics (in the US) have prompted Catholic leaders to interrogate how they can best engage and meet the needs of the Latino community (Alliance for Catholic Education, 2009; Ospino, 2014). Much of this work focuses on how Catholic schools can attract Latino students and their families, but does not situate the Latino Catholic school student experience within the historical, economic and sociopolitical context. This paper interrogates the history and experiences of Latino students at Divinity High School, an all male Catholic high school that has historically served a working class Latino community. The project draws its data from a one-year ethnographic study that examined Divinity High School’s1 school culture. Findings demonstrate how the school’s values of brotherhood and social justice facilitated Latino student engagement, while teacher deficit thinking contrasted with the mis- sion and culture of the school. This research calls awareness to the need for critical analysis of Catholic schools focused ont eh education of working class Latinos.