Proyecto Latin@ is a joint venture between the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto that attempts to understand and, in understanding, re-envision the educational experiences of Latina/o youth in Toronto’s public schools.
Responding to statistics indicating higher dropout rates among Latina/o populations within the TDSB, the initial phase of Proyecto Latin@ explored how Latina/o students understand and explain their experience of the public education system through a series of individual interviews. These interviews considered the educational experiences of the individual students, their perspectives on the educational experiences of their family members and peers, and their ideas about strategies for improving the student engagement and academic achievement of the city’s Latina/o youths.
The second phase of the project involved creating and implementing a secondary school credit-granting course based on a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) model. The YPAR project was designed based on four insights drawn from the first phase of Proyecto Latin@ which addressed the social and academic challenges of Latina/o students in Toronto. Through a collaborative and consensus-based community approach, the YPAR initiative involves a team of teachers, researchers, and Latina/o students of Toronto’s Central Technical School to explore the issues that the students themselves deem relevant to their schooling experiences, and to work towards meaningful personal and educational activism.
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