(2011). Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. Multicultural Education Series. Teachers College Press This practical handbook will introduce readers to social justice education, providing tools for developing "critical social justice literacy" and for taking action towards a more just society. Accessible to students from high school through graduate school, this book offers a collection of detailed and engaging explanations of key concepts in social justice education, including critical thinking, socialization, group identity, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, power, privilege, and White supremacy. Based on extensive experience in a range of settings in the United States and Canada, the authors address the most common stumbling blocks to understanding social justice. They provide recognizable examples, scenarios, and vignettes illustrating these concepts. This unique resource has many user-friendly features, including "definition boxes" for key terms, "stop boxes" to remind readers of previously explained ideas, "perspective check boxes"… [Direct]
(2013). Segregation or "Thinking Black"?: Community Activism and the Development Of Black-Focused Schools in Toronto and London, 1968-2008. Teachers College Record, v115 n11. Background/Context: On January 29, 2008 the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) approved a city-wide Africentric elementary school under their Alternative School policy, sparking a contentious debate. Calls for Black-focused schools also arose in 2008 in London in response to the disengagement of African Caribbean youth. The historical record indicates, however, that community campaigns for Black educational programs stretch back over 40 years in both cities. Focus of the Study: This paper analyzes the development of Black-focused education in Toronto and London from 1968 to 2008 through the responses of Black parents and community activists to the historic underachievement of African Caribbean students (particularly males) in the public schools of both cities. Black-focused education is situated within the larger social, political, and national contexts and the critical incidents that fueled the development of race equality policy. The article explores how the "politics of… [Direct]
(2013). Classroom Experiences through the Lens of Social Justice: The Postsecondary Experiences of Three Black Female Students. International Perspectives on Higher Education Research This chapter examines the educational perspective of three black, female graduate students within the context of a social justice framework. The US educational system has a long history of racial discrimination, which has created an environment that is in many ways hostile to those who are different. For many students of color, negotiating this culturally hostile environment can lead to feelings of invisibility and isolation. This chapter explores these dynamics and their impact upon an individual's educational, social, and personal development from the perspective of nondominants in a dominant culture. Through the exploration of our own experiences, we highlight the various coping mechanisms employed by three minority students to deal with the socially constructed hierarchies that exist in the classroom environment as a result of differences across racial and gender lines. It is our hope that this chapter will provide insight to educators who desire to develop a well-balanced… [Direct]
(2012). Racial Microaggressions in the Residence Halls: Experiences of Students of Color at a Predominantly White University. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, v5 n3 p159-173 Sep. Students of color often perceive the campus climate more negatively than do their White counterparts. Our study begins to uncover what students of color experience in residence halls. Using focus group data from a larger study exploring racial microaggressions at a predominantly White institution (PWI), we identified over 70 racial microaggressions experienced by African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American undergraduate and graduate students. Through the use of the racial microaggression taxonomy developed by Sue et al. (2007), four racial microaggression themes were identified: (a) racial jokes and verbal comments, (b) racial slurs written in shared spaces, (c) segregated spaces and unequal treatment, and (d) denial and minimization of racism. Findings contribute to the literature by detailing the types of racial microaggressions that students of color experienced when living in residence halls at PWIs. Implications for diversity in higher education and… [Direct]
(2012). \Multiplication Is for White People\: An Interview with Lisa Delpit. Rethinking Schools, v27 n1 p25-28 Fall. In the introduction to her new book, \\Multiplication Is for White People\: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children,\ Lisa Delpit describes her response when Diane Ravitch asked her why she hasn't spoken out against the devastation of public schools in her home state of Louisiana and the efforts to make New Orleans the national model. She explained to Ravitch that she has been concentrating her efforts where she feels she can make a difference: working with teachers and children in an African American school. She says her \sense of futility in the battle for rational education policy for African American children had gone on for so long . . . that I needed to give my \anger muscles\ a rest.\ This article presents an interview with Delpit wherein she discusses major issues from her book, with an emphasis on the relationship between racism and special needs…. [Direct]
(2011). English Teachers' Racial Literacy Knowledge and Practice. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v14 n3 p313-330. This article examines how secondary English teachers in two racially diverse schools–one in Massachusetts, USA, the other in Ontario, Canada–described their knowledge of and practices for teaching about race and racism. The extent and quality of teachers' racial literacy knowledge and practice were considered in light of the literature on racial literacy, racial literacy instruction, and anti-racist education. Three approaches to racial literacy instruction were identified: apprehensive and authorized; incidental and ill-informed; and sustained and strategic. The paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of teachers' knowledge and skills in order to suggest content and structures for professional development in support of racial literacy instruction. (Contains 1 note.)… [Direct]
(2023). A QuantCrit Investigation of Instructional and Testing Practices in U.S. Mathematics Classes. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder. The instructional and assessment environments that students experience can have an enormous impact on their mathematical success, their understandings of what mathematics is, and their views of themselves as learners and doers of mathematics. While there has been ample research conducted about how teachers use assessment results to inform their instructional practices, the few studies specifically addressing the relationship between the instructional approaches and the types of assessments that teachers use have yielded inconsistent results. The aim of this dissertation was to explore this relationship and how it may be impacted by the racial composition of a class. Systemic racism and white supremacy have an enormous, yet often invisible, impact on all aspects of life in the U.S., which certainly extends to the classroom. Consequently, this dissertation used the Critical Race Theory (CRT) and QuantCrit frameworks to examine whether and how classes with different racial compositions… [Direct]
(2018). "Why You Throwing Subs?": An Exploration of Community College Students' Immediate Responses to Microaggressions. Teachers College Record, v120 n9. Background/Context: Current research within four-year university settings reveals the daily encounters students of color and faculty have with microaggressions–brief, intentional or unintentional comments and behaviors communicating covert biases toward individuals based on their social group membership (Sue et al., 2007). The majority of all undergraduate students of color currently attend community colleges (American Association of Community Colleges, 2016), but the occurrence of microaggressions in the community college classroom has been overlooked. We situate our study of microaggressions within the racial microaggressions model framework (P√©rez Huber & Sol√≥rzano, 2015), which addresses how microaggressive events are mediated by institutional racism through systematic policies, practices, and processes that (re)produce inequitable stratification in higher education. Further, we analyze the immediate effects of and students' responses to classroom microaggressions…. [Direct]
(2011). Teaching for Social Justice Education: The Intersection between Identity, Critical Agency, and Social Justice Education. South African Journal of Education, v31 n3 p299-311. In line with national policy requirements, educators are increasingly addressing forms of social justice education by focusing on classroom pedagogies and educational practices to combat different forms of oppression such as racism and sexism. As all educators have a role to play in dismantling oppression and generating a vision for a more socially just future, teacher education has the responsibility to capacitate pre-service teachers to work in areas of social justice education. It is, however, difficult to conceptualise programmes for social justice education without considering the interconnection between various social identities and how such identities can feed into critical agency and education for social justice. Working with the assumption that white women teachers must be part of the solution to bring about social change in South African education, we used in-depth interviewing to explore pre-service teachers' emerging identities as teachers, and how these identities are… [PDF]
(2011). Experiencing Multiculturalism in Greek-Cypriot Primary Schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, v41 n3 p371-386. Within the context of a monocultural and monolingual education system, this paper seeks to explore and compare the experiences of Cypriot and non-Cypriot pupils in Greek-Cypriot primary schools with culturally diverse pupil populations. The concept of multiculturalism has been introduced only very recently in Cyprus and there has been little research on pupils' experience and understanding of multiculturalism. Using a narrative approach, this inquiry seeks to provide an understanding of the experience of studying in multicultural primary school classrooms. The pupils of two classrooms, aged between 10 and 12, describe their experience through terms such as new knowledge, religion, language, racism and stereotypes. (Contains 3 notes.)… [Direct]
(2018). Exploring the Socialization and Transnational Social Fields of International Doctoral Scholarship Students: Experiences of African Agricultural Scientists. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University. This research study explores the doctoral socialization and transnational experiences of sub-Saharan African doctoral students whose education is sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This study is designed to explore the convergence of the international student experience, doctoral student socialization, and the influences of the USAID scholarship program. Using a qualitative inquiry research design, the study aims to give a voice to the scholarship students, providing a greater descriptive understanding of their experiences participating in the scholarship program, and their academic lives in the United States. The lived experiences of USAID scholarship students while they are obtaining their degrees in the United States is generally unknown and unexplored in the literature. Therefore, this study investigates how the students progressed through their academic programs and met their professional development goals while adhering to the rules and… [Direct]
(2012). Social Justice: The Missing Link in School Administrators' Perspectives on Teacher Induction. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, n129 Feb. Critical scholars view schooling as one piece of a larger struggle for democracy and social justice. We investigated 41 school administrators' perceptions about the role and importance of equity, diversity and social justice in new teacher induction in the province of Ontario. Interviews reveal that principals were interested in shaping teacher induction programming in their schools and school districts, but that they regularly prioritized technical issues like classroom management and pedagogy over systemic issues like equity and social justice. When asked directly about equity, principals spoke about learning styles, special needs and differentiated instruction, but they regularly ignored new teachers' abilities to counter systemic oppression–racism, sexism, and classism. Our findings suggest that without an explicit focus on equity and social justice in provincial policy documents, teacher induction programming runs the risk of reproducing a transmission model of new teacher… [PDF]
(1981). The Persistence of Institutional Racism in Higher Education: Its Roots and Remedies. An overview of the historical roots of racism is presented, and the role of higher education within the institutional structure of American society is analyzed. Two case studies are reviewed in detail, along with the relevant political issues and change strategies to help remedy racism in America. A key dimension of racism involves education, which has been viewed as a means for social progress in the United States. Higher education institutions have in the past systematically excluded women, blacks, Chicanos, and other unfavored groups from entry as students and in the professional labor market. American universities are distinguished from most of those of Western Europe by bureaucratic, lay control over university policies, the dependence of universities on business and government funds, and a lack of a strong professional and ethical tradition among academics. Originally, American university curricula were expected to reflect aristocratic values and culture and have consequently…
(2015). Educational Administration and Queer Educators: Building Relationships of Inclusion and Diversity. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, n173 p1-8 Nov. The editors of this special collection of the "Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy" open this introductory essay with the words of Margaret Mead in order to underscore an important message contained in all of the essays of this collection: education administrators and policy makers are paramount to creating learning environments that are respectful of sexual and gender diversity for all staff and students. This holds true for a variety of educational settings ranging from publicly-funded Catholic and non-Catholic kindergarten to Grade 12 schools (K-12) to higher learning settings such as colleges, universities, transnational teaching abroad programs, and adult and community education spaces. This collection represents a plethora of emergent perspectives on queer educators. The collection begins in Canada with Tonya Callaghan's empirical study, which illustrates the current struggles facing queer educators in Catholic schools in Alberta and Ontario. Jan… [PDF]
(2011). Speaking of Whiteness: Compromise as a Purposeful Pedagogical Strategy toward White Students' Learning about Race. Teaching in Higher Education, v16 n4 p377-387. This article discusses pedagogical issues that arise in higher education when instructors of color teach classes with predominantly white students. We use student interview data collected during one graduate social foundations of education course to argue that in order to be effective, pedagogical decisions in a foundations course centered on race necessitate certain compromises in terms of power. To open up spaces of dialogic possibility for the discussion and understanding of white privilege, the authors suggest that instructors engage in a pedagogy of purposeful compromise. Such a pedagogy accepts that most white students will not, in the space of one course, recognize their own agency in the perpetuation of privilege and racism, but they might recognize white privilege as a larger structural process that inhibits the opportunities of people of color. (Contains 2 notes.)… [Direct]