Social Justice Education at a Latiné High School: Community Coalition and Expectations of College Worthiness

Contemporary education policy requires state and local schools to align their curricula and establish school expectations based on college-readiness standards. However, these practices have generated more concerns than solutions. Test scores and grade point averages, which individually measure students’ college readiness, are often conflated with educators’ stereotypical beliefs about students’ prospects for postsecondary success. These stratifying dynamics of college readiness are particularly affecting communities that are historically excluded from higher education. To respond to these systems of exclusion, this qualitative study explores a community-based, collaborative model of college worthiness through coalition building in a predominantly working-class Latiné high school. Through a comprehensive analysis of interviews, observations, and artifacts, the study describes school leaders’ strategic utilization of multi-organizational coalitions to prepare students for college. The findings extend the literature by illuminating anti-deficit, communal approaches to advancing the Latiné educational pipeline. These coalitional practices include a focus on students’ wellness, developing trust and caring interpersonal relationships, and enacting positive expectations to foster college-going agency and self-determination. The implications of these findings are significant for school leaders who work to establish college access points as an integral component of social justice education.