Term of Award

Summer 2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Committee Chair

Alma Stevenson

Committee Member 1

Sabrina Ross

Committee Member 2

Antonio Gutierrez de Blume

Committee Member 3

William Schubert

Non-Voting Committee Member

Dolores Rangel

Abstract

This study explores the intersection of socio-cultural perspectives, cultural identity, and cultural motherhood involvement through the lived experiences of ten first-generation Latina immigrant mothers. The purpose is to analyze immigrant Latina mothers’ experiences, communications, and activities that support their children’s educational success. It fills the gaps in Latinx curriculum orientations by positioning cultural, emotional, and value-laden forms of learning at home as spaces of opportunity, places of possibility, and sites where ancestral wisdom meets everyday resistance. The study is grounded in testimonio as a Chicana/Latina feminist methodology and epistemology. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Spanish to present ten Testimonios. The guiding questions are: (1) What pedagogies of the home (biculturalism, bilingualism, commitment to communities, and spiritualities) do Latina mothers treasure in helping their children succeed in school, (2) What community cultural wealth values (aspirational, familial, navigational, linguistic, resistant, and social capital) do Latina mothers apply to manage the difficulties they experience?, and (3) What are some obstacles or positive supports mothers face in being engaged in school-based activities? The data were collaboratively analyzed using thematic coding and theorization. The arts-based research component emphasizes the narrative embroidery method, a visual-narrative qualitative approach that blends oral testimonios with textile-based storytelling to document lived experiences and cultural backgrounds. The findings revealed six major ideas: (1) embroidering identity through community cultural wealth for racial self-empowerment and cultural pride, (2) weaving cultural motherhood involvement from the very beginning, (3) torn social fabric by racist bullying and microaggressions, (4) stitches through the gaps of institutional rejection, (5) needle-stitching spaces to be heard, and (6) change in schools to woven the fabric of opportunities. The positive support and encouragement that Latina mothers appreciate in school-related activities are exhibited, along with some obstacles they face. In the field of curriculum studies, this project appends the foundations of cultural motherhood involvement, extends the dimensions of transformative community cultural wealth, and introduces the methodological innovation of narrative embroidery. By centering educational, social, and epistemic justice, this curriculum inquiry illuminates spaces of love, hope, and possibility.

OCLC Number

1531275518

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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