Narratives of transformation : education and social change in rural south Texas

This study shows how lives of teachers, students, and community members have changed as a result of a pedagogical approach based on story, relationship building, and community development. The study looks at 13 years of work of a high school teacher, his colleagues, their students, and members of the larger community, as they work to transform themselves, their schools, and their community.
The framework for analysis employed in this study is a hybrid that integrates the use of grounded theory as espoused by Glaser and Strauss (1967), common sense theory as suggested by Gramsci (1988), principles consistent with critical theory (Freire, 1973; Giroux, 1997), and culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995). In addition, this study utilizes research methods grounded on an assets based approach (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1996), rather than the debilitating deficit-thinking models contested by Valencia (1997) and Guajardo (Guajardo, M., 2002). The study is a culmination of 13 years of field work, including stories collected through an oral history project and narratives created by students and other community members.
Micro narratives fill the larger narrative that illustrate and explain how theory and action have merged to create social change in rural South Texas.