Ep 3 Ashley D. Domínguez - Breaking the Mold: Inclusive Pedagogy, Puerto Rican Resilience, and the Power of Art in Advocacy

Join us in this insightful episode of the Inquiry Oasis as we journey through the transformative research of Dr. Ashley D. Domínguez, a faculty member at the University of Arizona, College of Education. Dr. Domínguez unravels her summer research work in Puerto Rico, merging education with youth activism, and the potent influences of art, theater, and culture on community building and learning. Her work, from training students in research methods to fostering community rejuvenation, sheds light on the empowering potential of education. Dr. Domínguez  also brings to light the intricate dynamics of protagonists and antagonists in storytelling and the unique role of arts-based research tools in her work through the experiences she gained at the Pedagogy and the Theater of the Oppressed workshop she attended this summer. We also explore the University of Arizona designation as a Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) and the transformative opportunities this provides for researchers at UArizona. An essential listen for those interested in the intersection of education, art, culture, and social activism.

Topics Discussed:

• Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)
• The role of theater, art, and culture in enhancing learning experiences
• Dr. Dominguez’s trajectory in youth activism and education research
• Teaching research methods to University of Puerto Rico, Cayey undergraduates
• The transformative role of arts-based research tools
• Research Impacts of Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI)
• The concept of transformational resistance in youth activism
• The power of education as a tool for societal change and empowerment

Paper Recommendation:

Examining Transformational Resistance Through a Critical Race and Latcrit Theory Framework by Daniel Solorzano and Delgado Bernal, 2001

Books Discussed:

• Theater of the Oppressed 
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Transcript

Jeffrey Anthony: 0:02

Welcome to the Inquiry Oasis, a University of Arizona College of Education podcast. Here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, we bring you conversations with our esteemed faculty and staff whose research impacts lives from Southern Arizona to the far reaches of the globe. Recording From the College of Education's Digital Innovation and Learning Lab, we explore the transformative power of education in this border town where diverse cultures and ideas converge, weaving a tapestry of innovation with compassion and a sense of wonder. Join us as we journey through the sands of curiosity, unearthing insights that enrich and inspire. So sit back and relax as we invite you to dive into the Inquiry Oasis. thank you for tuning into the Inquiry Oasis. I'm your host, Jeffrey Anthony, and today we're thrilled to be joined by Dr. Ashley Dominguez. Dr. Dominguez is an assistant professor in teaching, learning and social cultural studies in the College of Education here at the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the College of Education faculty, She taught for seven years in K to 12 charter schools in Dallas. Dr. Dominguez earned her PhD in learning literacies and technologies at Arizona State University to advocate for youth voice and challenge traditional notions of power to include underrepresented and historically excluded young people in the co-construction of equitable education policies and practices. Her critical performance Ethnographic study examines how Latina youth utilize art and performance to embody transformational resistance and pursuit of social justice. Her artistic work as a community theater practitioner has led her to co-found and co-direct an arts-based youth participatory action research troupe that supports youth to conduct research, analyze data, and disseminate findings to audiences in K to 12 schools and the community. And this brings us to the topic of our discussion today. We will dive into her summer experiences where she journeyed to the University of Puerto Rico Cayey and then traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana to further her professional development by attending a workshop with the son of Augusto Boal, Julian Boal at the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. So without further ado, let's dive into this journey of exploration and discovery with Dr. Dominguez here in the inquiry Oasis. It's an honor to be speaking with you. Ashley, before we get into your summer research and workshop experience, I was hoping you could share with our audience a bit of your background and what motivated you to pursue this path You are on.

Ashley Dominguez: 2:26

Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. How are you?

Jeffrey Anthony: 2:28

Oh, I'm great. And we are very excited for you to be here today.

Ashley Dominguez: 2:31

Great. So, you know, it's interesting because they, a lot of people often say that the reason that your research becomes so important to you and a passion in your life has so much to do with who you were before you were a researcher. And, ever since I was a young person growing up on military bases, growing up in an interracial family, my father's Puerto Rican, my mom's white, and we were constantly moving to different bases. I had to start over. I had to make new friends, I had to meet new teachers. but one thing continued to be the same, and that was how I felt in the classroom, and it often felt like a unilateral, hierarchical power imbalance where I second guessed myself. I didn't feel as confident in the classroom. Imagine like in any traditional K through 12 classroom, you're imagining a room with a whiteboard and neatly rowed chairs. It's a little bit sterile feeling sometimes like a hospital. And I often felt like I couldn't always show up who I wanted to be in the classroom, and I felt that I was perhaps punished or treated unfairly and not encouraged. And so I would quiet myself and float to the background It wasn't until I became a K through 12 teacher myself when I was teaching in Dallas at two charter school districts. I realized that my feelings were really not all that different to a lot of the Latinx youth that I was working with, where they felt that they were being punished for speaking Spanish in the school day. They felt that the teachers were out to get them, that they didn't care about what they were interested in, what their, opinions were. No, it was, you come, you learn, you do as you're told, and then you leave. But in reality, that's just not the best way to learn, and research supports that. It's actually having youth that are involved in their learning and they care about what the topic is, that they have a choice in the type of activities and practices that they're being a part of. And that's helps students show up and be engaged in the school and care about their future and, be a part of educational decision making, in a way that was often unavailable to me as a young person. So when I finally arrived to go get my PhD at Arizona State University, I knew that I wanted to pursue studying how young people can have a choice, and that they can have power in their educations. I came across something called Youth Participatory Action Research, which I just fell in love with the first time that I was reading about, because it was everything that I had. Really dreamed of and tried to, to implement in my own classroom. Which essentially it's, a methodology and it's a pedagogy where young people can investigate a problem. The teacher or facilitator in this case helps provide research tools where they can research that problem and then present those research findings to their teachers, to their peers, to the community, and advocate for some type of change, and improvement in equity.

Jeffrey Anthony: 5:18

That's fascinating. YPAR I believe the person who came up with, that teaches here at the University of Arizona. Is that correct?

Ashley Dominguez: 5:23

Dr. Julio Cammarota definitely is a very well known respected figure. He's written several books and articles that everybody should go take a look at. I continue to cite him to this day, even though I'm fortunate enough to be a close friend with him now. But yes, he's definitely one of the pioneers, especially with Latinx youth.

Jeffrey Anthony: 5:41

Fantastic. at the Pedagogy and the Theater of the Oppressed Conference, you attended this summer, you had the opportunity to delve deeper into the transformative and liberatory theories of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal. Their concepts of us as historical subjects actively shaping our present and future is quite profound. Why has this philosophy influenced your motivations for your work in education research?

Ashley Dominguez: 6:01

Right. So similar, if we go back to this idea that Paulo Freire presents, the banking method of education. That's describing exactly the education that I received. The teachers are up at the very front of the room. All of the students are seated quietly. Perhaps they're working out of textbooks and workbooks. They're told to do something and they do it. This idea that the teacher has all of the knowledge and they are literally depositing like money into a bank account all of the knowledge that the student may need. And research continues to prove that is not always the best form of education. Instead, it's a dialogue. It is problem posing pedagogy. It is a bidirectional exchange that happens between the teacher and the students. As I was talking a little bit earlier about Youth Participatory Action Research, one of my interests and passions was finding ways to infuse art into that inquiry process. I had a background with community arts, theater, dance, specifically Latin dancing. I also taught, ballroom dance to fifth graders for a period of time called dancing classrooms. But, I found that putting art into the process, into education, into inquiry, surged student engagement in ways that I knew that I benefited from and I knew my students were benefiting from. It helped students activate their imagination. It helped them tackle problems, be exploratory, being willing to take risks and go outside of their comfort zone. It gave them a way to practice with language rather than feeling it was a high stakes test. Mm-hmm. Right. It's funny, I actually, um, my daughter Luna, she loves art and she loves crafting and I took her to do a painting class not too long ago I asked her, I was like, why do you love art so much? And she said, because I don't have to do what the adults tell me to do. I can break the rules. And that's what I found too with art in my classroom, is that it helped young people go outside of those comfort zones and The structures so be it, and again, color outside lines and break the rules. So I continue to go, and go to places like the Theater of the Oppressed Conference because I think it's just another layer of infusing creativity into the process. When I went to Indiana this summer, I actually, I was on Twitter and I saw that they were hosting this three day intensive forum theater workshop prior to the conference. And I was like, oh, this is my one chance, to like go see Julian Bo al the son of the famous obviously Augusto Boal who wrote Theater of the Oppressed,. I was like, this is an incredible opportunity. Funny note, I actually passed up on going to Paris to go attend this.

Jeffrey Anthony: 8:36

Wow.

Ashley Dominguez: 8:36

Attend this conference. My husband had already went to Paris for a family vacation. I was like, you know what, I'll meet you there in a few days. So I decided to go handle and do this workshop prior to that trip. But, essentially it was a three day workshop with all types of people from all over the world, who are teachers, they're educators, they're activists, community practitioners who are learning and want to acquire more tools to work with young people and work with adults on how to use art as a tool for inquiry, but also as a tool for social justice. And because that was obviously a close passion of mine. I've done several forum theater trainings and workshops in the past, but to be able to go learn directly from Julian was such a, an enormous opportunity that I was not willing to pass up. So he did a great job of weaving through some of the theory and writings of his father. But also linking it into popular film and TV culture, and then also into contemporaneous, problems in society. Be it systemic racism, sexism, ageism, classism and so forth. It was a really powerful.

Jeffrey Anthony: 9:40

That's exciting. this ties right back to your original story that you told us about being in school and feeling like you couldn't be who you were. Mm-hmm. Because from my understanding of the Theater of the Oppressed, it looks at the way, the structures of , how we are taught , but also how cultural is formed and what they use, I believe in the book, they use the idea of tragedy, the comic tragedy. Mm-hmm. Uh, of Aristotelian theater and how that actually, teaches you to behave in certain ways. But this whole idea from Augusto Boal is that we need to break out of that. And that using theater and art and music and TV and film is a way to empower students to learn. And then also, be themselves in society to fulfill their possibilities.

Ashley Dominguez: 10:17

Right. No, and it's, it's so interesting that you say that too, because one of Julian's critiques of his father's work was that oftentimes the antagonist in a story was treated as a hundred percent evil. Mm-hmm. Right. And the protagonist was a hundred percent innocent. Mm-hmm. That there was not a lot of nuance to these characters. And so what we were working on in those three days was really trying to muddle this idea that everybody who commits an act of racism, sexism is completely evil. It's rather how can we, put more morality into these characters and understand the position that they're in and why sometimes these situations are difficult. And also give a little bit more depth, and as you said here with the historical subject, how they're a product of historical trauma mm-hmm, and systemic injustice. And it was actually quite challenging. Because in the past, the way that we had done it was a little bit more of the binary, figures. Yeah, but the way that he presented it, it made you think, wow, like we all, in some cases, are a product of our circumstance.

Jeffrey Anthony: 11:21

Yes.

Ashley Dominguez: 11:22

So instead of treating the antagonist as like, oh, they're evil. How could they do this? Like, I would never do this! Which sometimes we do as an audience or, spectator or SPECT actor as they say, for those who end up jumping up on stage and enacting solutions to forum theater, but rather, ooh, like I can little see their side of why this is such a challenge and why their calls for societal change and progress.

Jeffrey Anthony: 11:46

Yes. You also spent part of your summer in Puerto Rico?

Ashley Dominguez: 11:48

I did.

Jeffrey Anthony: 11:49

That's so exciting. So along with three other College of Education faculty and you collaborated on a research project, can you share about the work in Puerto Rico and why the broader community might find your work there particularly valuable and important.

Ashley Dominguez: 12:01

Right. So obviously for me, this was just an incredible opportunity. My Abuela and Papa, they still live in Puerto Rico to this day in, Rio Piedras which is right outside of San Juan. I grew up going to the island as a little girl back and forth and playing with the lizards and drinking lemonade and trying to keep up with all of the, uh, all of the different recipes in Spanish that my Abuela was, throwing at me. And I just loved it. I loved being there. And so when I got the opportunity to be a part of a grant here, an HSI grant, with doctors Julio Cammarota, Regina Deil-Amen and then also Dr. Gina Perez at Oberland College. I cannot be more excited because it was exactly aligned with my research interest. Obviously being able to work with such stellar, senior colleagues is one thing, but then also to be able to go back to the island and to teach research methods and tools to undergraduate students at the University of Puerto Rico Cayey, was just a phenomenal experience and something that I'll, hold dear to my heart forever and I hope we can continue to apply for more funds and be able to go back and continue the work that we're doing there, which I believe is, you can also find on the website creativeresistance.org, which has been recently set up and it captures a lot of the work that we're doing. Essentially we go down and it's a part of an initiative with the U.P. system where on top of the colonial status of the island that has been, a longstanding dilemma and debate. and then with Hurricane Maria, and then you have the pandemic, there was a lot of crisises that were continuing

to happen also in education: 13:32

the closing of schools. This, challenge between private schools and the public school systems, and then losing a lot of Puerto Rican students to the United States. So the way this initiative was set up is that they wanted to bring Puerto Rican scholars across the diaspora here in the United States, to come down and provide research experiences to undergraduate students. Opposed to having their, those Puerto Rican students leaving the island and looking for those educational experiences elsewhere. So we were able to go down, provide a undergraduate research experience focused on contemporaneous, educational issues that are happening on the island. We had, about three different teams of research projects. One was on College Stop Out, or also known as College Dropout, that describes this phenomenon of students who start school and then they leave and then they start back up. Another research topic was college access and affordability, and then the third was faculty student relationship. Essentially all three of these teams while they're on different topics, they're still under the umbrella of what are the educational problems that U.P. students are experiencing on the island. And all of those topics were chosen by the U.P. students themselves.

Jeffrey Anthony: 14:54

One thing about education research is that it helps us better understand situations around learning. Can you share any discoveries or outcomes in your work that took you by surprise?

Ashley Dominguez: 15:04

Yes, so It's incredible to see the creative imagination and the way that they were able to bring arts-based research tools into their process. For example, one student, Carla, was very interested in photography and so she wanted to create portraits of each of her participants and use that as a way to show not only that, these problems that we hear about, they're not so far removed. You know, sometimes we hear about things on the news and we're like, oh yeah, that happened to so-and-so, or that happened to someone else. Mm-hmm. But sometimes we don't think that they can happen to us. Mm-hmm. And so Carla really did a wonderful job and, and she's continuing to work on this, on trying to find ways to paint pictures, literally through photography to show who these people are, what their stories are, through portraiture, and to show specifically College access and how, difficult it is for students to have maybe access to internet, transportation, traveling back and forth to the island, affordable housing, and all of these factors that impact the success and the persistence of these undergraduate college students.

Jeffrey Anthony: 16:04

When you were mentioning the art and a way of, of creating empathy in people that maybe cannot happen in other ways. it's interesting to, hear how the students are using art to show the importance of lived experiences that other people may not have and how these connections can then foster a better community.

Ashley Dominguez: 16:18

Right. And we, studied that as well, and we looked at different murals and poetry, and of the culture in Puerto Rico to see how there was a long trace of artivism, this nexus of art and activism that Puerto Ricans use in their life. And then they use in the marches and they're very politically savvy, involved and how they're able to pull on those own interests as a form of resistance.

Jeffrey Anthony: 16:42

We spoke earlier about how your research is relevant to the broader community. I want to bring it back to the space we're sitting in right now. How has your research been impacted from your association with the University of Arizona and the College of Education?

Ashley Dominguez: 16:53

Yeah so obviously the University of Arizona being a Hispanic Serving Institution is paramount. The ability to offer funding for these types of projects that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise , is really important. So we were able to collaborate together, write up the grant and get it approved to go back, now, this was the second time, of the project. HSI's', Hispanic serving institutions HSI grants , They provide opportunities to other Hispanics across the world that perhaps would not get those opportunities. And fortunately we were able to use our resources and feed that into communities, specifically Puerto Rican students and for them to have more opportunities and a brighter future that can shape who they are and how they wanna give back to the Latin community.

Jeffrey Anthony: 17:36

As we near the end of our conversation, we like to ask our guests to recommend a book or a paper that has been meaningful to them. Could you share one with our audience and explain how it has impacted you?

Ashley Dominguez: 17:46

There is a piece by Solorzano and Delgado Bernal, written in 2001 titled "Examining Transformational Resistance." And this piece was very impactful to me because they survey various different types of youth resistance behavior, and they found four overall types of youth resistance, behavior, conformist, self-defeating, and reactionary. However, one was titled Transformational Resistance. And this is where young people they're both motivated for social justice, but they also have a critique for oppression. And that is a theoretical concept that I prioritize in my work and I think more people could also consider in their work if they're interested in young people and their resistance how they're capable in their communities to think about these two tenets as influential to advocating for transformation in school, in the community.

Jeffrey Anthony: 18:32

Well, Ashley, it's been a true pleasure to have you with us today. Your insights into the transformative power of education, your dedication to social justice and your commitment to amplifying youth voices are truly inspiring. Thank you for sharing your experiences, your research, and your passion with us. We look forward to seeing the continued impact of your work. And thank you listeners for joining us today in the Inquiry Oasis. We hope our conversation with Dr. Dominguez has inspired you as much as It has us. Remember, we're back on the first and third Wednesday every month with fresh insights and conversations, so be sure to tune in. Until next time, keep your curiosity alive, and remember, knowledge is our oasis.