Flags, Food, and Festivals Won’t Save Us: Toward Culturally Relevant Struggle

In Chicago’s public schools (CPS), immigrant students from Mexico, Somalia, and Palestine embody both the promise and the contradiction of education in the United States. They arrive in classrooms carrying the weight of displacement, labor exploitation, racism, xenophobic hysteria, surveillance, and the constant threat of deportation (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2010; Bigelow, 2008; Abu El-Haj, 2015). Yet too often, “culturally relevant instruction” is reduced to symbolic gestures: flags on the wall, food festivals, or token mentions of heritage. Such gestures obscure the deeper political and material conditions shaping students’ lives. If curriculum is to be truly rigorous and relevant, it must affirm identity while equipping students with the tools to critique and transform the structures that oppress them (Freire, 2000/1970; Ladson-Billings, 2014).

To make this case requires a sharper understanding of culture. From a Marxist–Leninist perspective, culture is not simply customs or symbols; it is rooted in the shared language, territory, and economic life of a people, and is historically produced under specific material relations (Stalin, 1913/1954). Culture always develops in contradiction. In a multi-national country such as the United States, irreconcilable conflicts between bourgeois and proletarian classes are reflected in competing cultural expressions. Bourgeois culture, as the ideological expression of the monopoly capitalist class, is a reactionary appropriation that attempts to suppress the struggles of the working class and oppressed nationalities. It manifests in state-sponsored racism, xenophobia, and even fascistic attempts to erase or neutralize revolutionary traditions. By contrast, proletarian culture arises from struggle, negating the limitations of bourgeois culture while transforming and appropriating its achievements. It is the culture of solidarity, collective resistance, and the creation of new forms of knowledge and life.For immigrant students in CPS, culture is inseparable from labor, migration, language, and political struggle. A culturally relevant curriculum, therefore, cannot be confined to “celebrating diversity.” It must position students as cultural producers whose knowledge exposes systemic injustices, affirms their communities’ histories, and envisions collective solutions. Such a curriculum recognizes that education is never neutral. Under corporate reform and bipartisan attacks on immigrants, curricula can easily become instruments of assimilation, compliance, and corporate greenwashing (Apple, 2004; Saltman, 2010). The Blue Paradox exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago, sponsored by the SC Johnson company, exemplifies this dynamic: shifting blame for plastic pollution from the corporations that produce it onto individual consumers. In schools, similar narratives hold students, families, and communities responsible for structural inequities. For CPS immigrant youth, this scapegoating compounds existing disparities: Mexican-origin students face persistent opportunity gaps, Somali refugee students contend with racialized discipline and interrupted schooling, and Palestinian youth experience the silencing of their identity and histories (Illinois State Board of Education, 2024; de la Torre et al., 2024; Cainkar, 2009).

Responding to these conditions requires a curricular framework that is both theoretical and practical. Three interrelated perspectives: identity (Erikson, 1968), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), and sociocultural consciousness (Kress, Villegas, & Lucas, 2002; Freire, 2000/1970) can be reinterpreted dialectically to serve this project. Identity theory highlights the importance of affirming cultural, racial, and linguistic belonging within material contexts. Self-efficacy emphasizes mastery experiences and collective models of success, shaped by structures of power. Sociocultural consciousness insists that learning must confront systems of oppression, linking education to praxis. Read together through a Marxist–Leninist lens, these frameworks situate culture as collective struggle, efficacy as class-conscious agency, and learning as revolutionary practice.

The lesson sequence that follows puts these principles into action. Beginning with a critique of the MSI Blue Paradox exhibit, students investigate how responsibility for systemic problems is misallocated, conduct inquiry into their own communities, and produce counter-narratives that reframe responsibility as collective. In doing so, the curriculum responds to the disparities and learner needs of CPS immigrant students while fostering identity, efficacy, and sociocultural consciousness as tools of cultural empowerment. The result is a modern conception of culturally relevant curriculum: one that prepares students not simply to adapt to existing systems, but to understand, challenge, and ultimately transform them.

Immigrant Student Groups in CPS: Academic Outcomes and Learner Needs
Group	Academic Outcome Disparities	Learner Needs (Educational + Socio-Political)
Mexican Immigrant Students	- Hispanic/Latinx students (the majority of whom are Mexican-origin in CPS) show a 36 percentage point gap in academic proficiency in mathematics, 13% compared to 49% for White students (Illinois State Board of Education, 2024).  - Still face significant college completion gaps: only about 31 of 100 CPS ninth graders (across groups) earn a college credential by age 25 (Mahaffie et al., 2024).   - Longer term English Learners (ELs), a category disproportionately including Mexican-origin youth, show lower test scores, attendance, and GPA compared to non-EL peers (de la Torre et al., 2024).	- Instruction in all subjects in Spanish with inclusion of Latin American histories and immigrant narratives. Curriculum including Mexican/Chicano labor struggles and immigrant rights activism.  - Trauma-informed supports addressing deportation threats and family separation.   - "If you are illegal, I am illegal” support from teachers and staff, and open demands that the rights of immigrants are the rights of all.
Somali Immigrant Students	- Somali data are not disaggregated by CPS, but national research shows African refugee-background ELs often perform below both non-EL peers and other EL subgroups in math and reading (OECD, 2015).   - Refugee youth often face interrupted formal education (IFE), leading to literacy gaps (Dryden-Peterson, 2016).   - As Black students, Somali youth also share in CPS’s broader racial disparities: According to Illinois Report Card data, only 9.7% of Black students in Chicago Public Schools demonstrate academic proficiency in reading for career and technical readiness, compared to 16.7% of students overall (Illinois State Board of Education, 2024).	- Classrooms where political identity is celebrated. "If you are illegal, I am illegal” support from teachers and staff, and open support for the right of Palestinians to pursue their struggle for self-determination on their own terms.   - Instruction in all subjects in Somali/Arabic with curricular inclusion of East African histories and refugee narratives.   - Safe spaces for religious identity (e.g., prayer accommodation, halal meals).   - SEL supports responsive to trauma from war and displacement.
Palestinian Immigrant Students	- CPS does not disaggregate Arab or Palestinian data; national research shows Arab American ELs are under-identified, often resulting in unmet needs (Abi-Hashem, 2008).   - Qualitative studies document experiences of marginalization and silencing of Palestinian identity in schools (Abu El-Haj, 2015).   - In Chicago, Arab students are often folded into “White” categories, obscuring disparities (Cainkar, 2009).	- Classrooms where political identity is celebrated. Open support from teachers and staff for the right of Palestinians to pursue the struggle for self-determination and independence and against occupation and war on their own terms.  Open condemnation of the U.S. government as the source of Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and demands for the end of all forms of support for Israel.  - Instruction in all subjects in Somali/Arabic with curricular inclusion of curricula that legitimize Palestinian history and anti-colonial struggles.   - Strong policies and staff training against anti-Palestinian xenophobia.   - SEL supports attuned to intergenerational trauma of war, displacement and political violence.
Notes / Estimates  Mexican-origin data are approximated through CPS’s Hispanic/Latinx reporting, as CPS does not disaggregate national origin.  Somali data are inferred from CPS Black student outcomes + national research on African refugee youth.  Palestinian data are inferred from Arab American research, as CPS does not disaggregate Arab-origin students.

These disparities and needs demonstrate that effective curriculum cannot be reduced to symbolic inclusion. Teaching and learning must be anchored in theory that explains how students’ identities are shaped, how their sense of efficacy is constrained or affirmed, and how structures of power determine educational opportunity. The frameworks of identity (Erikson, 1968), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), and sociocultural consciousness (Freire, 2000/1970; Kress et al., 2002) provide such an anchor. Taken together through a dialectical lens, they allow a conception of culture not as heritage alone but as a lived, material, and political reality, and the design of curriculum that responds accordingly.

Comparative Analysis of Relevant Learning Frameworks
Framework	Core Premise	Similarities with Other Frameworks	Applications to Culturally Relevant Curriculum
Identity Theory	Identity develops historically through the interaction of self, community, and material conditions. For students, cultural, racial, and linguistic identities are inseparable from class position and recognition in social struggle (Erikson, 1968). Academic engagement depends on affirmation of these lived identities.	- Intersects with sociocultural consciousness: identity cannot be understood apart from structures of power and class relations.   - Aligns with self-efficacy: confidence and persistence are rooted in collective affirmation of identity and struggle.	- Curriculum must affirm the lived cultural identities of working-class and immigrant students (e.g., Mexican, Somali, Palestinian histories) as legitimate knowledge (Abu El-Haj, 2015; Bigelow, 2008).   - Incorporate narratives of labor, migration, and resistance so students see themselves as active producers of culture (Cainkar, 2009).
Self-Efficacy Theory	Belief in one’s capacity emerges not in isolation but in relation to the social conditions of learning. Mastery is shaped by material barriers (racism, poverty, xenophobia) and collective supports. True efficacy develops when students experience themselves as capable agents within their cultural and class contexts (Bandura, 1997).	- Deeply connected to identity: self-belief grows when one’s culture and labor are affirmed.   - Reinforced by sociocultural consciousness: systemic oppression constrains efficacy, but collective struggle reframes failure as structural, not personal.	- Create authentic mastery opportunities rooted in community knowledge (e.g., research using neighborhood data; Gonzales, 2011).   - Provide social modeling by centering intellectuals, organizers, and cultural producers from students’ own communities (Ladson-Billings, 2014).   - Scaffold success to counteract deficit-based narratives of working-class and immigrant failure.
Sociocultural Consciousness	Learning occurs within systems of power, privilege, and class exploitation. Culture is not simply heritage but the terrain of ideological struggle. Curriculum must expose how oppression is reproduced and cultivate collective capacity for transformation (Kress, Villegas, & Lucas, 2002; Freire, 2000/1970).	- Extends identity theory: moves from “who I am” to “why society constructs me this way.”   - Strengthens self-efficacy: shows that barriers to success are systemic, not individual, and builds solidarity.	- Teach students to analyze how capitalism, racism, and imperialism shape their daily lives (Abi-Hashem, 2008; Dryden-Peterson, 2016).   - Use curriculum as praxis: link knowledge to collective action for justice (Apple, 2004; Saltman, 2010).   - Reframe learning as collective struggle, not individual competition, cultivating a new cultural identity rooted in the working class.

Situating immigrant student outcomes within these theoretical frameworks moves closer to a modern conception of culturally relevant curriculum: one that affirms class identity, builds efficacy, and cultivates social consciousness as tools for collective struggle. The challenge, then, is translating this conception into classroom practice. The following lesson sequence demonstrates how these principles can guide instruction, beginning with a critical analysis of the MSI Blue Paradox exhibit and culminating in student-led cultural production that reframes responsibility as collective rather than individual. In this way, curriculum becomes both rigorous and emancipatory. It prepares students not only to navigate the world as it is, but to transform it.