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.

In this book, we examine tenets of the American Dream as a merit narrative enacted in schools to better understand how beliefs about talent, hard work, and perseverance support the status quo rather than critical analysis of barriers to educational success for students of color and students from a poverty context. Using narrative methodologies, the authors explore 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, we 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.

Chapter One: The Stories that Shaped Us

Chapter Two: The Stories Educators Tell

Chapter Three: The Stories Students Tell

Chapter Four: Reframing the Stories we Tell

Chapter Five: The Stories We Aspire to Tell