UCLA

This dissertation investigates the apprenticeship of students in the Migrant Student Leadership Institute (MSLI) into the practice of critical social thinking. From 1993 to 2006, the MSLI was a summer residential college outreach program for high school aged youth from migrant farmworker families in California. In California and across the United States, the children of migrant farmworkers face significant social, economic, and educational barriers to accessing post-secondary pathways (Nu�ez & Gildersleeve, 2016; Nu�ez & Jaramillo, 2009). Every year, the MSLI brought over 100 students to engage in a month-long program oriented toward developing their academic and college-going literacies, while also engaging them in a critical social analysis of the historical and political dimensions of their lives. This dissertation contributes to a body of work documenting the learning and literacy practices of students and teachers in the MSLI (Espinoza, 2008, 2009, 2020; Guti�rrez, 2008, 2019; Nu�ez & Gildersleeve, 2016; Pacheco & Nao, 2009; Vossoughi, 2011, 2014). This study utilized classroom audio-video recordings, student writing portfolios, and interview data to provide new perspectives on the routine teaching practices, classroom talk, and social interaction in the MSLI. In particular, it investigated how students were apprenticed into the social practice of critical social thinking through the everyday engagement of social theoretical texts and academic writing. To this end, I asked: (a) How were students in the MSLI apprenticed into the practice of critical social thinking in the context of reading social theoretical texts? (b) If and how did students apply critical social thinking in the writing of academic essays? Through the analysis of student and teacher interactions in the context of reading circles, this study found that the routine practices of close-text analysis created opportunities for students to build conceptual understanding and engage in critical social thinking. The analysis of student writing portfolios and interviews found that students utilized social theoretical concepts to write texts aimed at contesting dominant narratives and reframing their lived experiences. These findings contest current literacy approaches that seek to restrict access to robust academic literacies to historically underserved students. Additionally, this dissertation study argues against common perceptions that radical or critical educational approaches and practices are distinct from or “soft” on academic skills.