Borderland education beyond frontiers: Policy, community, and educational change during times of crisis

Abstract

In this paper, we put center stage the story of a community in the borderland of Palomas and Deming, two twin towns located across the border from each other. In regular times, almost a thousand children crossed the checkpoint every day from Palomas in Mexico to Deming in the United States to attend school. During the COVID-19 pandemic, accessibility to education has been almost completely denied for students living in Mexico. This paper unpacks the findings from a critical case study focused on the school leadership of the community and marks the beginning of a larger action-research initiative aimed at forging alliances with and among community stakeholders, researchers, and community leaders to bring transformative change. Findings suggest that these borderland cities do not view themselves as divided by a physical or ideological Frontera or Barrera. Rather, they see themselves as a unified community whose members live on both sides of the border. The Palomas-Deming borderland community shares one mission of creating the necessary conditions to provide educational equity for all students in the region with U.S. passports regardless of a student’s country of residence. Within these contexts, our paper adds to the sparse scholarship on borderland education and highlights community-based needs for and capabilities of transformative educational change that we perceive as the pathway to more equitable opportunities for learning.