The American Dream for Students of Color

The American Dream for Students of Color examines how the American Dream informs beliefs about talent, hard work, and perseverance rather than dismantling barriers to educational success for marginal students. Using narrative methodologies, connections between the authors narratives and those of school youth and educators are explored.

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In The American Dream for Students of Color, the tenets of the American Dream as a merit narrative enacted in schools are examined to better understand how beliefs about talent, hard work, and perseverance support the status quo rather than critical analyze barriers to educational success for students of color and students from a poverty context. Using narrative methodologies, this book explores the connections and consistencies within and between their personal narratives and the narratives of school youth and educators that work with them. Based on analysis of these shared stories, the authors argue for the importance of moving from individualized success stories that reify hard work and perseverance to collective, communal stories that serve to break down myths of meritocracy, critically examine inequities, and move educational advocates forward in authentic, audacious, hopeful ways.