“That's ratchet”: A Chicana Feminist Rasquache Pedagogy as Entryway to Understanding the Material Realities of Contemporary Latinx Elementary-Aged Youth

In line with this special issue's examination of theories of teaching and learning that are neither determined by nor isolated from restrictive spaces of learning, this essay introduces a Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy. A Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy is rooted in the everyday experiences and material realities of Latinx elementary-aged youth, and thus serves as a contribution to educational research and praxis for all students, but particularly students of color. A Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy emerges from the theories in the flesh of Latinx students, and as such, functions from their embodied knowledges and sensibilities rather than operating in collusion with the practices, approaches and ideologies of historically colonizing schooling institutions. The incorporation of a Chicana feminist rasquache praxis into K-12 schooling institutions provides humanizing approaches for education as well as for engaging with elementary-aged youth of color as it identifies and validates the radical sensibilities of youth intimately tied to their lived experiences, rather than reprimanding them for their embodied knowledges and creative forms of self-expression.