Abstract
This project utilizes critical race theory, Latino critical race theory, curriculum theory, and the community cultural wealth model as the basis for shaping a curriculum that guides twelfth grade high school seniors in building aspirational capital to create and maintain post-secondary goals for their futures. The curriculum built for this work aims to provide predominantly Latino/a/x students with an understanding that there are several forms of knowledge, including technical, practical, and emancipatory, and that knowledge comes from more than just the classroom, but in occupational experiences, community interactions, and other moments in life. The project serves as one possible solution to a lack of curriculum that supports Latino students in building and maintaining aspirational capital. Through the lenses of LatCrit and the Chicano Education Pipeline, this work highlights the underlying segregationist practice of institutionalized school systems emphasizing the significance of technical knowledge as more important than any other forms of knowledge—a barrier that explains why Latino students are often unable to gain access to college-going knowledge and culture. In this curriculum, high school teachers are encouraged to offer their students opportunities to understand more about themselves, their own intersectional identities, explore various aspects of identity and consider how lived experiences influence the things they do, the goals they make for themselves, and the forms of knowledge and capital (according to the community cultural wealth model) that they possess.