Term of Award

Fall 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

College of Education

Committee Chair

Ming Fang He

Committee Member 1

John Weaver

Committee Member 2

Alma Stevenson

Committee Member 3

Ganiva Reyes

Abstract

This dissertation is crafted as a collection of speculative essays that explore the history of high-stakes standardized testing and its role as a panopticon and social control that is detrimental to the educación of students of Mexican descent. The Latinx population is the fastest-growing population of newcomers to the US. Nevertheless, historically, they have been the object of racist and nativist US legislation and policies relating to immigration, naturalization, civil and linguistic rights, and equitable access to education. My dissertation builds upon three major theoretical traditions such as LatCrit, border pedagogy, and Latinx Curriculum Theorizing using speculative essays as a form of inquiry. Eleven meanings have emerged from my dissertation inquiry. Majoritarian narratives, that Mexicans are a threat to the US mainstream societies, continue to demonize the fastest growing Latinx demographics. High-stakes standardized testing is detrimental to the educación and funds of knowledge of students of Mexican descent. Standardized testing rooted in eugenics has been historically used to justify segregation, intensify exclusion, and has discriminatory effects for students of Mexican descent. High-stakes standardized testing cannot simply be modified with patchwork; rather, its rotten eugenic foundation needs to be completely dismantled. High-stakes standardized testing not only has dehumanizing effects on students of Mexican descent, but also subverts and deskills educators who teach them. Standardized testing is used to maintain the socioeconomic order where members of Mexican communities remain as second class citizens regardless of legal status. Students of Mexican descent constantly traverse in-between borders--a liminal space--where they must choose between their educación based upon their cultural and linguistic heritages and their mainstream schooling that coerce them to assimilate to high-stakes standardized testing-oriented curricula. High-stakes standardized testing subtracts the cultures and funds of knowledge of students of Mexican descent, traps most of these students in lower academic tracks, and excludes them from accessing higher education opportunities. The acceleration and coercive implementation of high-stakes standardized testing through the first two decades of the 21st century have resulted in schools as an educational panopticon that has placed minoritized individuals and communities, especially those of Mexican decent, and their teachers under surveillance. Transgressing traditional theoretical traditions and methodological boundaries enables me, as a biology researcher with positivist training, to critically analyze the Mexican American experience and creatively imagine possibilities beyond high-stakes standardized testing. Since Mexican cultures are intertwined with educación that Mexican parents seek to impart on their children, educators, students, parents, and policy makers need to work together to find ways to resist the high-stakes testing oriented school curricula that sabotage the Mexican existence in the US schools and develop culturally empowering curricula where students of Mexican decent and all can have equal opportunities to thrive in educación and sus vidas.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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