Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation

Conclusion: The Education of Chicano Children

Conclusion The Education of Chicano Children Continuity and Change Most historical accounts of the Chicano educational experience tend to blend the various aspects of this history into a single, unilinear, and unbroken process. In this study, I have taken the opposite approach by separating the segments composing this history and by analyzing them as particular entities, which together formed a single educational process. I have also looked at the changes occurring over time, the causes of these changes, and their consequences for the Mexican community. I have consistently related the educational process to the political and economic institutions at large by viewing education as a political institution with an economic function to fulfill. Thus, segregation grew out of an undemocratic political decision-making process, which reproduced a socioeconomic bifurcation in society. However, the mere segregation of children by itself could never lead to these consequences; it needed certain techniques to accomplish its politico-economic goal. Americanization , testing, tracking into vocational education, and slow-learner and 204 Chicano Education & Segregation mentally retarded classes, provided the internal machinery that made segregation an effective tool. Fashioned by the emerging social scientists and reformers in the early period of the century, various theoretical constructions legitimized the use of these educational techniques. These ideas generally coincided with the manner in which wealth, power, capital, and labor was divided in society. The social function of one key institution appearing in this century, mass compulsory education, to a large extent, originated in social science thought. The general application of the functionalist theory of the organic society established the overall guidelines for the educational establishment. The universal use of IQ testing, for example, and its educational consequences, had their roots in the social science concept of intelligence, which corresponded with organic theory. Americanization was extensively applied, and it was based on assimilation theory, which also was linked closely with organic theory. Consequently , in order to understand the nature of the segregated schooling period, the “hidden” aspect, social science theory, must be appreciated for its significance upon educational practice in the Mexican community. In addition, I analyzed the noneducation of a significant element of the Mexican community, migrant children. In this instance, a common practice unfolded that deliberately denied migrant children a constitutional right to equal educational opportunity, even if such involved a segregated school. Consequently, the segregated period in Chicano educational history contained at least two widely divergent experiences from compulsory noneducation to compulsory education (with variations between them). This division generally corresponded to the two main economic experiences, the rural agricultural and urban industrial employment settings. Aimed at eliminating a nonmodern culture and substituting it with the culture of the American middle class, Americanization also appeared as a significant activity in the Mexican school. In general, Americanization placed value judgments upon virtually all things Mexican. Thus, The Education of Chicano Children 205 language, religion, dress, recreational activities, family traditions, and home life-style, constituted social as well as political problems that needed to be either eliminated or reconstructed upon a new foundation. However, such a task could not be completed only in the school room, and only among youths. Consequently, the main target of Americanization included both girls and women—the future and current mother and homemaker. They faced isolation in special Americanization programs geared toward producing an agent for the Americanization of future generations. While the overall objective of the segregated school concerned the Americanization of the Mexican community, the more successful practice involved that of reproducing the class character of the Mexican community through the use of testing and tracking. Based upon prevalent social science and educational theory, schools slotted students upon a hierarchical scale, from superior intelligence to inferior intelligence. Their educational program reflected this hierarchy, and thus superior students received an academic preparation, while the inferior students received a preparation for manual vocations. In such an educational program, schools commonly slotted Mexicans en masse into the slow and inferior classes and based this practice upon the uncritical application of IQ tests for predictive purposes. To no surprise, therefore, the Mexican school became commonly known as the industrial school of the district. Within this setting, boys and girls received separate types of training. The former generally received traditional male training for unskilled or semiskilled occupations, while the latter received preparation for becoming a homemaker, mother, wife, or an employee in an occupation related to her domestic role, such as seamstress, laundry worker...