Teaching for Empowerment and Excellence: The Transformative Potential of Teacher Expectations in an Urban Latina/o Classroom

The researchers conducted a study to gather information about one Chicano teacher’s disposition and perception of high expectations for his Latina/o students and their opportunities to learn. Findings of this paper demonstrate the ways in which institutional memory such as an ethnic studies college education as well as this teacher’s politicization as a Chicano male informed his social justice commitment and effectiveness as a teacher. Findings point to key elements of his expectations of students that include academic rigor, an empowering curriculum, caring relationships, and social capital vis-à-vis community cultural wealth. Additional evidence revealed this Chicano teacher’s pedagogy as caring-oriented, and one that actively counteracts the dominant test-prep narrative that tends to alienate Latina/o students from a socially just education. What emerges from this paper is the teacher’s theory of transformative expectations of students—a theory that articulates learning conditions conducive to promoting empowerment and excellence.