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Show THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH HONORS COLLEGE AN EXAMINATION OF PERSONAL, COLLECTIVE AND COMMUNITY POLITICAL CAPITAL LATINA MOTHERS CREATING RELATIONSHIPS OF POWER, COMMUNITY AND CHANGE Ashley Edgette (Joel Arvizo, Luke Garrott) Department of Political Science University of Utah "If schools are perceived to have power and the community is perceived as powerless, then the schools and communities will remain oppositional to one another." -Concha Delgado Gaitan (1999) In this study, I examine how women from the Glendale neighborhood of Salt Lake City have cultivated their political capital. M y three measures of political capital are collective power, navigation of the school political system, and community influence. The format for this study will be a weekly community meeting in a West Side Salt Lake City, where Latina mothers from the Glendale community are creating a space of collective leadership- where each member acts as a leader and as a political agent-to engage, influence, and change their children's schools and the larger community. I a m interested in h o w these w o m e n use their political capital as parents, community advocates, and holders of deep knowledge (Gonzalez, 2005) to realize the future they want to see for themselves, their children, and their community. The purpose of this research is to disrupt the national and local racialized discourse misrepresenting Latina mothers as disinterested and disinvested from their children's education (Villenas & Deyhle, 1999). I hope to find out h o w mothers from the Glendale community are bringing their funds of knowledge into school discussions, advocating for improved educational opportunities for their children, and changing the hegemonic white discourse dominating their school setting (Delgado Gaitan, 1999). M y study methods include community dialogues, collective notes, and in-depth interviews. Through these methods, I examine how political capital is enacted at the community level, the collective level, and the personal level. |