Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research

In this article, Dolores Delgado Bernal outlines a Chicana feminist epistemological framework that is new to the field of educational research. This framework, which draws from the existing work of Chicana feminists, questions the notions of objectivity and a universal foundation of knowledge. A Chicana feminist epistemology is also grounded in the life experiences of Chicanas and involves Chicana research participants in analyzing how their lives are being interpreted, documented, and reported, while acknowledging that many Chicanas lead lives with significantly different opportunity structures than men or White women. As part of this framework, Delgado Bernal also introduces the concept of cultural intuition to name a complex process that acknowledges the unique viewpoints that many Chicana scholars bring to the research process. In the latter half of the article, she illustrates the importance of this framework in educational research by describing an oral history project on Chicana student resistance and activism as seen from this framework. Her conceptual discussion and research example together demonstrate that employing a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research is one means of resisting traditional paradigms that often distort or omit the experiences and knowledge of Chicanas. (pp. 555-582) Schools . . . presuppose and legitimate particular forms of history, community, and authority. . . . The question is what and whose history, community, knowledge, and voice prevails? Unless this question is addressed, the issues of what to teach, how to teach, how to engage our students, and how to function as intellectuals becomes removed from the wider principles that inform such issues and practices. (Giroux, 1992, p. 91) Epistemological concerns in schools are inseparable from cultural hegemonic domination in educational research. The way educational research is conducted contributes significantly to what happens (or does not 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 2 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm happen) in schools. In education, what is taught, how it is taught, who is taught, and whose fault it is when what is taught is not learned are often manifestations of what is considered the legitimate body of knowledge. For Chicanas, this is not merely an epistemological issue, but one of power, ethics, politics, and survival.1 Employing a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research thus becomes a means to resist epistemological racism (Scheurich & Young, 1997) and to recover untold histories. In this article, I describe a Chicana epistemological perspective by providing an example of my research, which places Chicanas as central subjects and provides a forum in which Chicanas speak and analyze their stories of school resistance and grassroots leadership. I draw from the strong traditions of Black, Native American, and Chicana feminists in an attempt to articulate a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research that reflects my history and that of the women I write about, a unique history that arises from the social, political, and cultural conditions of Chicanas. Most feminists of color recognize that gender, race, class, and sexual orientation—not gender alone—determine the allocation of power and the nature of any individual’s identity, status, and circumstance (Collins, 1986; hooks, 1989; Hurtado, 1989; Pesquera & Segura, 1993). Therefore, “endarkened” feminist epistemologies are crucial, as they speak to the failures of traditional patriarchal and liberal educational scholarship and examine the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality.2 Endarkened epistemologies in general, and Chicana feminism in particular, inform my perspective. I first review briefly the failure of traditional mainstream educational scholarship and liberal feminist scholarship to provide a useful paradigm to examine the realities of working-class Chicana students. Second, I outline characteristics of a Chicana feminist epistemology by drawing from the work of Chicana scholars in various disciplines. Next, I use the work of Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin (1990) to describe four sources of what I call “cultural intuition”—that is, the unique viewpoints Chicana scholars bring to the research process. In doing so, I provide examples of my own cultural intuition as it relates to my research. In the last sections of this article, I clarify what I mean by a Chicana feminist epistemology and cultural intuition by describing an oral history study that examined a specific example of Chicana students’ oppositional behavior as an act of school resistance and grassroots leadership (Delgado Bernal, 1997).3 I demonstrate how, although not specifically articulated at the time of my study, my research was guided by my own cultural intuition and a Chicana feminist epistemology. The Failure of Liberal Educational Scholarship Gender, ethnic, and class oppression contribute to the unique position of working-class Chicana students, yet liberal educational scholarship has failed to provide a useful paradigm to examine this intersection. For example, theories that attempt to understand how schools replicate the social relationships and attitudes needed to sustain the existing relations in a capitalist society have traditionally focused on White, workingclass male students and ignored the role of female students (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). The goal of school resistance literature has been to better understand the role of agency in the process of social reproduction; however, most early studies are also grounded in a traditional, patriarchal epistemology that focuses on White working-class males and does not fully explain the resistance of female students (MacLeod, 1987; Willis, 1977). Theories of cognitive development (Piaget, 1952, 1954) still espoused in many teacher education and educational psychology programs are normed on the behaviors of White middle-class male students, and ignore or are misapplied to students of any other identities. Historically, traditional mainstream educational scholarship has not addressed the influence of gender, race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality on education policy and practice. 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 3 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm Most liberal feminist scholarship has also failed to provide a useful paradigm to examine the gender, ethnic, and class oppression that contribute to the unique positions of working-class Chicana students. Liberal feminist scholarship gives primacy to the domination of patriarchy without seriously addressing how institutional and cultural differences based on sexism, racism, and classism create a different range of choices and options for Chicanas (Zambrana, 1994). Another problematic position of liberal feminist scholarship is the notion that an analysis should begin with the commonalties of women’s experience. By only looking at commonalties based on gender and omitting issues of race/ethnicity or class, one may overlook how institutional and cultural structures constrain and enable different groups of women differently. For example, very little is known about the educational mobility of women of color in general, and Chicanas in particular. Until recently, the educational paths of Chicanas were rarely explored. Today there are studies that have investigated the barriers to education experienced by Chicanas (Gándara, 1982; Segura, 1993; Vásquez, 1982), the marginality of Chicanas in higher education (Cuádraz, 1996), and in the college choice and resistance of Chicanas (Talavera-Bustillos, 1998). These studies go beyond the commonalties of women’s experience and examine how family backgrounds, school practices, male privilege, and class and ethnic discrimination shape Chicanas’ educational experiences and choices. More specifically, Denise Segura (1993) found that teachers’ and counselors’ actions channeled Chicanas into non-academic programs offering a lower quality of instruction, which restricted their range of life chances and options. Segura and other Chicana scholars address the shortcomings of liberal educational scholarship by embracing a Chicana feminist epistemology that examines Chicanas’ experiences in relation to an entire structure of domination. Although it is impossible in this article to describe all the nuances of a Chicana epistemology or its evolution, in the next section I outline some of the defining characteristics of a Chicana feminist epistemology. The relationship between methodology and a researcher’s epistemological orientation is not always explicit, but is inevitably closely connected. Sandra Harding (1987) makes a distinction between epistemology, methodology, and method that is helpful in defining a Chicana feminist epistemology. “Method” generally only refers to techniques and strategies for collecting data. Although early feminist arguments defended qualitative approaches to studying and understanding women’s lives over quantitative approaches, feminists today have reconsidered the false dichotomy of qualitative and quantitative methods (Maynard, 1994). Though quantitative methods are limited, both methods have been used in Chicana feminist research (e.g., Delgado-Gaitan, 1993; Flores-Ortiz, 1991; Pardo, 1990; Pesquera & Segura, 1990; Soldatenko, 1991), and as numerous educational researchers and feminists have pointed out, both methods have been used to objectify, exploit, and dominate people of color (Fine, 1994; Kelly, Burton, & Regan, 1994; Lather, 1991). A decision of whether to use qualitative or quantitative methods primarily depends on the topic and the research questions asked. Therefore, what becomes crucial in a Chicana feminist epistemology goes beyond quantitative versus qualitative methods, and lies instead in the methodology employed and in whose experiences and realities are accepted as the foundation of knowledge. Methodology provides both theory and analysis of the research process, how research questions are framed, and the criteria used to evaluate research findings (Harding, 1987). Therefore, a Chicana methodology encompasses both the position from which distinctively Chicana research questions might be asked and the political and ethical issues involved in the research process. Liberal feminists have argued that what distinguishes feminist research from other forms of research is “the questions we have asked, the way we locate ourselves within our questions, and the purpose of our work” (Kelly, 1988, p. 6). However, these feminists (as well as mainstream scholars and Chicano male scholars) have too often failed to ask questions that analyze the interrelationships between classism, racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, especially from Chicanas’ perspectives. Liberal feminist research has insisted “on its political nature and 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 4 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm potential to bring about change in women’s lives” (Maynard, 1994, p. 16), yet this research has not addressed the lives of Chicanas. Instead, it has been Chicana scholars who have challenged the historical and ideological representation of Chicanas, relocated them to a central position in the research, and asked distinctively Chicana feminist research questions, all important characteristics of a Chicana feminist epistemology (e.g., Alarcón et al., 1993; de la Torre & Pesquera, 1993; Flores-Ortiz, 1993; Mora & Del Castillo, 1980; Pérez, 1993; Romero, 1989; Zavella, 1993). By shifting the analysis onto Chicanas and their race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality, scholars are able to address the shortcomings of traditional patriarchal and liberal feminist scholarship (Castañeda, 1993; Castillo, 1995; Pardo, 1998; Pérez, 1993; Ruiz, 1998; Trujillo, 1993), thereby giving voice to Chicana experiences and bringing change to their lives. For example, Yvette Flores-Ortiz (1998) points to the need for and begins the process of creating a Chicana psychology. She points out that “the theory and practice of psychology have subjugated Chicanas by measuring their development, personality, and mental health against a male white upper-class model” (p. 102). Even feminist psychology that challenges patriarchal assumptions subsumes Chicanas under the variable of gender, and leaves them appearing deficient or dysfunctional when compared to White middle-class women. Flores-Ortiz’s theoretical framework for a Chicana psychology relocates Chicanas to a central position and is informed by her twenty years as a clinical psychologist and her experience of immigration to the United States. Lara Medina’s (1998) research documents the voices of how twenty-two Chicanas learned to substitute “patriarchal religion with their own cultural knowledge, sensibilities, and sense of justice” (p. 190). Her research challenges the spiritual and ideological representation of Chicanas in religion by asking how Chicanas recreate traditional cultural practices and look to non-Western philosophies as part of an ongoing process of spirituality. These and other Chicana scholars embrace and further develop a Chicana feminist epistemology by researching the lives and experiences of Chicanas, and framing their research questions in ways that give voice to these women. Inés Hernández-Avila (1995) speaks candidly about the importance of this kind of scholarship, and though a Chicana feminist epistemology may be unsettling for those operating within traditional research epistemologies, she affirms its importance in the academy: When I and other Native American women are central as subjects—as sovereign subjects—we often unsettle, disrupt, and sometimes threaten other people’s, particularly many white people’s, white scholars’, white women feminists’ sense of self as subjects. That may not have been my or our primary motivations, but it is necessarily inherent in Native women’s claiming our right to speak for ourselves. (p. 494) Epistemology involves the nature, status, and production of knowledge (Harding, 1987). Therefore, a Chicana epistemology must be concerned with the knowledge about Chicanas—about who generates an understanding of their experiences, and how this knowledge is legitimized or not legitimized. It questions objectivity, a universal foundation of knowledge, and the Western dichotomies of mind versus body, subject versus object, objective truth versus subjective emotion, and male versus female. In this sense, a Chicana epistemology maintains connections to indigenous roots by embracing dualities that are necessary and complementary qualities, and by challenging dichotomies that offer opposition without reconciliation. This notion of duality is connected to Leslie Marmon Silko’s (1996) observation of a traditional Native American way of life: “In this universe there is no absolute good or absolute bad; there are only balances and harmonies that ebb and flow” (p. 64). A Chicana feminist standpoint also acknowledges that most Chicanas lead lives with significantly different opportunity structures than men (including Chicano males) and White women. Patricia Hill Collins (1986) points out that Black feminists (similar to Chicana feminists) rarely describe the behavior of women of color 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 5 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm without paying attention to the opportunity structures shaping their lives. Thus, adopting a Chicana feminist epistemology will expose human relationships and experiences that are probably not visible from a traditional patriarchal position or a liberal feminist standpoint. Within this framework, Chicanas become agents of knowledge who participate in intellectual discourse that links experience, research, community, and social change. Adela de la Torre and Beatríz Pesquera (1993) comment on this tradition, which places Chicanas as speaking subjects: Rooted in the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s, our scholarship, like other currents of dissent, is a Chicana critique of cultural, political, and economic conditions in the United States. It is influenced by the tradition of advocacy scholarship, which challenges the claims of objectivity and links research to community concerns and social change. It is driven by a passion to place the Chicana, as speaking subject, at the center of intellectual discourse. (p. 1) While acknowledging the diversity and complexity of Chicanas’ relationships and experiences, we must also recognize that, as an indigenous/mestiza-based cultural group, our experiences are different from those of African Americans and Native Americans in the United States. A Chicana feminist epistemology is informed by and shares characteristics of endarkened feminist epistemologies (e.g., examinations of the influence of race, class, gender, and sexuality on opportunity structures), but is different from the “Black Feminist Thought” of Collins (1991) or the inter-tribal discourses of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (1996) and Marmon Silko (1996). A unique characteristic of a Chicana feminist epistemology is that it also validates and addresses experiences that are intertwined with issues of immigration, migration, generational status, bilingualism, limited English proficiency, and the contradictions of Catholicism. In addition, through the process of naming dynamic identities and diverse cultural/historical experiences, these issues have been studied and written about by numerous Chicana feminists in a much different way than most Chicano male scholars (e.g., Alarcón, 1990; Anzaldúa, 1987; Castillo, 1995; Medina, 1998; Sandoval, 1998; Trujillo, 1998). For example, concepts such as mestiza, borderlands, and Xicanisma are unique to a Chicana epistemology. A mestiza is literally a woman of mixed ancestry, especially of Native American, European, and African backgrounds. However, the term mestiza has come to mean a new Chicana consciousness that straddles cultures, races, languages, nations, sexualities, and spiritualities—that is, living with ambivalence while balancing opposing powers. Gloria Anzaldúa (1987) states that “the new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to juggle cultures” (p. 79). Within a Chicana feminist epistemology, borderlands refers to the geographical, emotional, and/or psychological space occupied by mestizas. Anzaldúa believes that those individuals who are marginalized by society and are forced to live on the borderlands of dominant culture develop a sixth sense for survival. Therefore, Chicanas and other marginalized peoples have a strength that comes from their borderland experiences. Xicanisma, a term introduced by Ana Castillo (1995), describes Chicana feminisms that are developed from and carried out to “our work place, social gatherings, kitchens, bedrooms, and society in general” (p. 11). Rather than use an epistemological framework that is based solely on the diverse social histories of other women of color (e.g., Black feminist thought) or the social history of the dominant race (e.g., liberal feminist thought), a Chicana feminist epistemology offers a standpoint that borrows from endarkened feminist epistemologies and is grounded in the unique life experiences of Chicanas. For example, in educational research it is important to remember that Chicana students experience school from multiple dimensions, including their skin color, gender, class, and English-language proficiency. Castillo (1995) 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 6 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm reflects on the trauma a Chicana may experience in regard to bilingualism: She was educated in English and learned it is the only acceptable language in society, but Spanish was the language of her childhood, family, and community. She may not be able to rid herself of an accent; society has denigrated her first language. By the same token, women may also become anxious and self conscious in later years if they have no or little facility in Spanish. (p. 39) Bilingualism is often seen as un-American and is considered a deficit and an obstacle to learning. Prohibiting Spanish-language use among Mexican schoolchildren is a social philosophy and a political tool that has been and continues to be used to justify school segregation and to maintain a colonized relationship between Mexicans and the dominant society (Delgado Bernal, in press). In my own research, I learned how Vickie Castro, a Los Angeles Unified School District board member, was physically separated from peers as a young girl because of the devaluation of Spanish: I do recall my first day of school. And I did not speak English. . . . I just recall being frightened and I recall not knowing what to do and I recall being told to just sit over there in the corner. And there was one other little girl and we were just scared out of our minds. (Castro, 1994, pp. 2, 3) Historically, many Chicana and Chicano students have been segregated and stigmatized, with their perceived language deficiency used as justification. Students today continue to be segregated based on their limited English proficiency. In June 1998, California voters passed Proposition 227, the English Language Education for Immigrant Children initiative. The initiative does away with all bilingual education and English-language development programs that do not meet its rigid 180-day English-only approach.4 It promotes stigmatization by allowing local schools “to place in the same classroom English learners of different ages but whose degree of English proficiency is similar.” To ground one’s research within the experiences of Chicanas means that we deconstruct the historical devaluation of Spanish, the contradictions of Catholicism, the patriarchal ideology that devalues women, and the scapegoating of immigrants. Indeed, the everyday lives of Chicanas demonstrate that they are often at the center of these struggles against cultural domination, class exploitation, sexism, and racism. A Chicana feminist epistemology is therefore grounded in the rich historical legacy of Chicanas’ resistance and translates into a pursuit of social justice in both research and scholarship. A Chicana feminist epistemology that is based on the lives of Chicanas and is dedicated to achieving justice and equality combats what James Joseph Scheurich and Michelle Young (1997) call epistemological racism. As they define it, epistemological racism arises out of the social history and culture of the dominant race and is present in the current range of traditional research epistemologies—positivism to postmodernism and poststructuralism. Traditional research epistemologies reflect and reinforce the social history of the dominant race, which has negative results for people of color in general and students and scholars of color in particular. A Chicana feminist epistemology arises out of a unique social and cultural history, and demonstrates that our experiences as Mexican women are legitimate, appropriate, and effective in designing, conducting, and analyzing educational research. A Chicana cultural standpoint that is located in the interconnected identities of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality and within the historical and contemporary context of oppressions and resistance can also be the foundation for a theoretical sensitivity (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) that many Chicana scholars bring to their research. 10/9/08 4:53 PM Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research Page 7 of 26 http://www.edreview.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/harvard98/1998/wi98/w98berna.htm Four Sources of Cultural Intuition The disciplines of Black and other ethnic studies and women’s studies have opened the way for multiple theoretical and epistemological readings in the fields of educational research. A major contribution of these fields is that feminist and scholars of color (and those of us who identify as both) have argued that members of marginalized groups have unique viewpoints on our own experiences as a whole. (Dillard, 1997, p. 5) I argue that Chicana researchers have unique viewpoints that can provide us with a perspective I call “cultural intuition.” A Chicana researcher’s cultural intuition is similar in concept to Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) “theoretical sensitivity”—a personal quality of the researcher based on the attribute of having the ability to give meaning to data. Their construct of theoretical sensitivity indicates an understanding of the subtle meanings of data, and that “one can come to the research situation with varying degrees of sensitivity depending on one’s previous reading and experience with or relevant to the data” (p. 41). They argue that theoretical sensitivity actually comes from four major sources: one’s personal experience, the existing literature, one’s professional experience, and the analytical research process itself. Having outlined in the last section important characteristics of a Chicana feminist epistemology, I propose that these four sources contribute to Chicana researchers’ cultural intuition and are the foundation of a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. However, my concept of cultural intuition is different from theoretical sensitivity because it extends one’s personal experience to include collective experience and community memory, and points to the importance of participants’ engaging in the analysis of data. In the next sections, I briefly describe the four sources and how each contributes to my cultural intuition as a Chicana researcher. The sources do not include all possibilities, yet they provide a framework that facilitates an understanding of cultural intuition and therefore a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. My hope is that this framework helps demonstrate what forces shape a Chicana feminist epistemology without limiting the nuances that must be addressed in future work.