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In the 30 years since Giroux (1983) named schools as a site of resistance, little has happened to sustain and embed that practice in schools. The contexts, structures, and policies in schools do not foster opportunities for resistance, and schools of education do not prepare teachers to support students’ critical actions in schools, ensuring the reproduction of inequity and injustice. While this is true for all historically marginalized groups, the specific legacy of discrimination (i.e., threats of deportation) faced by Latinx students and communities in the western United States often serves to silence their voices and efforts at resistance (Darder, Noguera, Fuentes, & Sanchez, 2012). In this chapter, we examine data from a student voice research project, including weekly observations (n = 102) for the school year across three public school classrooms, teacher reflections, and student work. This work is framed by the theory of sociopolitical development, implicating both teachers and students in the process of resistance and liberation. The data we explore captures (1) early conversations between students and teachers about issues of racial and economic injustice, (2) the initial resistance of students to having those conversations, (3) increasing trust between teachers and students supporting engagement with the issues, (4) students’ active resistance toward the issues that impacted them, (5) teachers and students working together to challenge unjust policies – at the school, district, and state level.

This chapter examines the tension between interdependence and dominance. First, we briefly review prominent social psychological theories regarding the development and maintenance of status systems. Next we briefly describe how these structures help distribute social power in modern society. We then examine how prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination stem from status systems and interdependence, using the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Xu, Cuddy & Glick, 1999; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Next, we consider the unique circumstances of gender relations and how they give way to complementary justifications of gender inequality, using Ambivalent Sexism Theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 1999, 2001a, 2001b). Last, we review evidence to support our argument that women do not necessarily acquiesce joyfully to the present hierarchical arrangement, but rather guide their choices by their pragmatic alternatives, as dictated by benevolent and hostile ideologies.

Early research on sexism presumed the traditional model of prejudice as an antipathy. This research focused on negative stereotypes of women as less competent than men and hostility toward gender equality. More recently, sexism has been revealed to have a “benevolent” component; although it reflects positive beliefs about women, it also supports gender inequality by implying that women are weaker than men. In addition, although disconfirming stereotypes should provide women with a means of thwarting sex discrimination, recent research shows that even ambitious and successful women are punished for violating prescriptive stereotypes that assign them to subordinate roles.