Not theirs, but ours: South Texas superintendents take a stance on immigrant students

ABSTRACT This article explores how five school superintendents in south Texas construct their professional identity and positionality around immigration and immigrant students during interviews with academics researching social justice advocacy of superintendents. Situated in south Texas on the frontline of migration flows and faced with a conservative state political climate, these savvy political actors carve out a professional identity that makes sense in the south Texas context. This ethnographic study uses sociocultural linguistics and critical discourse analysis to find that that superintendents position themselves by actively resisting political labels with discursive moves and stance-taking while advocating for students. This study also contributes to our understanding of the research interview as a contested site for the co-constructed formation of personal and professional identities.