Cultural Competence, Race, and Gender: Portraits of Teaching in High School College Access Programs

This article is an examination of the ways that two teachers in one US high school intervention program, Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID), make sense of their work as teachers. AVID is a middle school and high school intervention program that helps middle-achieving low income and under-represented minority students with college access. The paper is grounded in ethnographic data gathered over the course of three years and organized around theoretical concepts of Whiteness, race, and gender performativity. Composite portraits of teachers, generated from field notes, interviews, and focus groups illustrate the ways gender roles and Whiteness are enacted in AVID teaching, and reveal the structural dimensions of racial inequity in programs designed to increase college access for under-served and under-represented students.