(2023). Exploring the Color-Evasive Hustle 2.0 and Asian Americans within U.S. Higher Education Race-Conscious Admissions Oral Arguments. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v26 n7 p834-850. Ongoing sociolegal conflicts over affirmative action in race-conscious admissions in U.S. higher education have significant modern-day relevance. This article, informed mainly by Asian American women's scholarship, explores discourse in U.S. Supreme Court rulings and oral arguments and how litigation actors continue to recycle this discourse in more recent legal strategies that maintain and normalize inequitable access to selective, historically White institutions. The author revisited and extended critical race feminist Kimberl√© Crenshaw's metaphor, the "Colorblind Hustle," which describes the anti-affirmative action strategy of deploying Black spokespersons as advocates for eradicating policies that promote racial equity. The author proposes a new metaphor, the "Color-Evasive Hustle 2.0," to describe current anti-affirmative action strategies with Asian Americans as plaintiffs in a 2018 lawsuit against Harvard University. Finally, this article elevates… [Direct]
(2024). Contextualizing the Racial Gradient in COVID-19 Outcomes: Narratives From HBCU Students. Journal of American College Health, v72 n6 p1759-1767. COVID-19 spread across the nation with Black Americans experiencing twice of the prevalence of deaths than White Americans. Black American college students are facing a unique set of biopsychosocial costs including less retention and poorer mental health. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how Historically Black College or University (HBCU) students contextualize COVID-19. Interviews were conducted with 19 participants and lasted 40-60 minutes. They discussed topics including: their COVID-19 knowledge, precautionary measures, and barriers and promoters of school success were covered. Data were coded through semi-open coding and discussed among the research team. Responses were summarized by eight themes: emotional responses, colorblind rhetoric, lack of healthcare, essential work, distrust for the medical field, barriers to precautions like supply shortages and environmental factors, and poor baseline health. These findings may be used to develop interventions that… [Direct]
(2009). Race and Equity in the Mathematics Classroom: Teacher Learning via Artifacts. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. The field of education has recently recognized the importance of investigating how issues of race impact equity in mathematics education. Historically there has been great emphasis on researching how to support teachers in their practice. Specifically examining the intersection of all these components is a growing focus of a cadre of researchers. There remains, however, a great deal to learn and study. This study utilizes qualitative methods to observe and analyze how teachers engage with specific artifacts in order to address issues of race, equity, and the teaching of mathematics. The objective of this study is to offer insight on teacher growth in response to engagement with artifacts. The theoretical framework that grounds this study includes Lave and Wenger's (1991) framework and a Situative Perspective of teacher learning (Pressini, 2004) that details how communities of learners interact with artifacts as a tool for learning. In addition, Critical Race Theory… [Direct]
(2005). Character or Caricature: Representations of Blackness in Dominican Social Science Textbooks. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v8 n2 p191-211 Jul. This article sets out to examine the question: how do social science textbooks used in the Dominican public schools portray national identity and ethnicity to its students? This article examines how the popular contemporary Dominican perspective on "blackness" plays a fundamental role in the current Dominican social science public school curriculum. The article begins with an historical overview of race and ethnicity in the Dominican Republic and insight into how the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti has shaped both countries' concept of race, culture and ethnic identity in very different ways. The theoretical paradigm of the project is guided by constructivism and by and critical race theory. The methodological process of data collection and analysis is also outlined. Data sources include: interviews, participant observation, personal experience field notes and document collection. Various illustrations and activities from social science textbooks used… [Direct]
(2004). A Critical Race Analysis of Latina/o and African American Advanced Placement Enrollment in Public High Schools. High School Journal, v87 n3 p15-26 Feb-Mar. Using critical race theory as a framework, this article examines the access and availability of Advanced Placement (AP) courses and how they impact educational outcomes for Latina/o and African American students. To begin thinking critically about enrollment patterns of AP courses, we ask the following questions: How do school structures, practices, and discourses help maintain racial and ethnic discrimination in access to AP courses? How do Latina/o and African American students and parents respond to the educational structures, practices, and discourses that help maintain racial and ethnic discrimination in access to AP courses? Finally, how can school reforms help end racial and ethnic discrimination in access to AP courses? In order to answer these questions, we examined a school district in California that serves a large population of Latina/o and African American students. Three different patterns emerged around access and availability of AP courses: Latina/o students are… [Direct]
(2022). Between Racial Stranger and Racial Underling: Elastic Racialization of Asian Pacific Americans across White and Multiracial Academic Spaces. Journal of Political Science Education, v18 n2 p242-257. Using an autoethnographic approach, this article draws on my personal experience as an Asian Pacific American (APA) political theorist who has navigated between different institutional spaces to reflect on a phenomenon that I call "elastic racialization" of APAs in higher education and its implications on our pedagogic agenda and curriculum. While the existing notion of "differential racialization" critically captures the ways in which racial minority groups have been racialized in different ways in accordance with the changing interests of the dominant group, the concept is often used in a broad U.S. national context such that even though it underlines fluidity in the social construction of race, the racialized meanings of particular racial groups can become fixed understandings and paradigms. As a result, we stop short of exploring further how the differential racialization of people of color–for instance, APAs as the "model minority" and the… [Direct]
(2022). Racial Micropolitical Literacy: Examining the Sociopolitical Realities of Teachers of Color Co-Constructing Student Transformational Resistance. Curriculum Inquiry, v52 n5 p518-543. In connection with the historical legacy and imaginations of youth of Color advocating for more just and equitable futures, I consider the complex political terrain through which teachers of Color cultivate students' agency for social change within the narrow confines of schooling institutions. In this article, I conceptualize "racial micropolitical literacy" to analyze how teachers identify context-specific reproductions of whiteness and interlocking systems of oppression while learning to politically confront, navigate, and transform race and power through daily, embodied, and interactional practices. Through video recordings, ethnographic field notes, and interview data, I apply this framework to document the day-to-day practices of an Asian American teacher co-constructing student transformational resistance within a southeast Los Angeles, California public middle school. My analysis reveals that the teacher: (1) used critical artifacts to reconstruct carceral… [Direct]
(2023). Tempering Applied Critical Leadership: The Im/possibilities of Leading for Racial Justice in School Districts. Educational Administration Quarterly, v59 n1 p179-217 Feb. How do leaders make the impossible choice between harm enacted on racially oppressed students and families, and harm enacted on them as advocates for racial justice in systems steeped in whiteness? How do they negotiate multiple harms in Black and Brown bodies? Purpose: Situated in between the literature on tempered radicalism and Applied Critical Leadership (ACL), this study explores the experiences of six Black and Brown mid-level and senior-level district leaders in Greater Toronto Area, in Ontario, Canada. Research Methods/Approach: We draw on counter-narrative methodologies including in-depth oral history interviews and ongoing communication with participants to explore the impossibilities and possibilities of leading for racial justice. Findings: Impossibilities include "complicities and complexities," "accountabilities and alliances," and "different metrics, different expectations." Possibilities include "present and future hopes,"… [Direct]
(2023). Supported, Silenced, Subdued, or Speaking Up? K12 Educators' Experiences with the Conflict Campaign, 2021-2022. Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, v9 n2 p4-58. Across the country, effort is underway to restrict discussion, learning, and student support related to race and gender/sexual identity in educational settings, targeting schools with state legislation and politicians' orders; national conservative media and organizations; Board directives; and local actors wielding media-fueled talking points. To date, few analysts have yet explored in detail educators' lived experiences of these multi-level restriction efforts and local responses to them. In this article, we analyze 16 educators' experiences of 2021-22 restriction effort and local responses, with an eye to potential effects on student support and learning. Educators interviewed emphasized their recent experiences with "talking" about race and LGBTQ lives, with many emphasizing threatened punishment by critics for discussing these topics. Context mattered tremendously: While some educators enjoyed support and freedom in race and diversity-related discussion and learning,… [PDF]
(2023). The Discipline Gap in Context: The Role of School Racial and Ethnic Diversity and within School Positionality on Out-of-School Suspensions. Grantee Submission Disparities in exclusionary discipline practices are well-documented; however, variation in Black students' disciplinary experiences across different racial and ethnic school compositions remains understudied. Utilizing a state-wide dataset (N = 769,050 students in J = 1296 schools), we examined student- and school-level factors that contribute to suspensions for Black students across schools with varying racial and ethnic diversity. Consistent with prior research, we found that Black students were disproportionately suspended more often, for more days, and more likely for soft offenses. We also found that students in majority Black schools (i.e., those where more than 50% of the students were Black) had the highest unadjusted rates of suspension. However, when controlling for multiple other student- and school-level characteristics, including overall suspension rates, we found that Black students attending majority White schools had a higher adjusted risk of suspension than in… [PDF] [Direct] [Direct] [Direct]
(2023). Teaching Critical Race Media Literacy through Black Historical Narratives. Journal of Media Literacy Education, v15 n3 p1-13. On the 400th anniversary of American enslavement the New York Times (NYT) 1619 project launched an interactive digital experience including a popular podcast centering the contributions and narratives of Black Americans. This study sought to understand how HBCU students responded to learning Black music history through what we term a "pop culture podcast." This study explored the ways in which this particular podcast could support the development of Critical Race Media Literacy (CRML) based on a media discourse at a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). This study employed survey research and focus group discussions with HBCU students in two courses. The study found that by having students recognize and challenge the dominant narratives, pop culture podcasts focused on Black narratives can be utilized to help students develop Critical Race Media Literacy. While students indicated a stronger preference for learning through podcasts, there was no difference in the… [PDF]
(2021). Mentors' Perceptions of Their African American Undergraduate Prot√©g√©s' Needs and Challenges. Journal of Negro Education, v90 n2 p195-210 Spr. In this exploratory qualitative study, we examined African American mentors' perspectives of what they identify as the needs of their African American undergraduate prot√©g√©s and the challenges that may impede their prot√©g√©s' success. Interviews were conducted with 10 African American mentors who hold STEM PhDs. Data were analyzed using an iterative emergent, thematic coding method and a narrative analysis method as a methodological framework. Findings indicated that some prot√©g√©s may lack a sense of entitlement or contextualized confidence and may need personalized information and a plan to assist them in navigating academic environments. There are several opportunities for helping undergraduates overcome these challenges, such as mentoring practices focusing on ways to increase prot√©g√©s' sense of empowerment and providing personalized information about navigating academia…. [PDF]
(2018). Black or Right: Anti/Racist Rhetorical Ecologies at an Historically White Institution. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University. This dissertation intervenes in antiracist scholarship's recent trend of acknowledging/openly critiquing whiteness as primary means to dismantle white supremacy in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy (Ratcliffe, Inoue). I use intersectional Black Feminist thought (Lorde, Cohen), buttressed by Black Studies (DuBois, Godwin-Woodson, Weheliye) and Afrocentric philosophy (Asante, Mazama), to interrupt that trend by examining marginalized antiracist agency, through analysis of meanings of blackness in the US vis-a-vis institutional power. In centering blackness, I apply "a critical method" that "presents a positive rather than a reactionary posture" (Asante) in mobilizing generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, as opposed to reparative attempts that often paradoxically center whiteness. At the crux of this project is an attempt to establish a lens for reading "rhetorical ecologies of race"–race relations interrelated through space,… [Direct]
(2009). The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group This collection brings together many of the world's leading sociologists of education to explore and address key issues and concerns within the discipline. The thirty-seven newly commissioned chapters draw upon theory and research to provide new accounts of contemporary educational processes, global trends, and changing and enduring forms of social conflict and social inequality. The research, conducted by leading international scholars in the field, indicates that two complexly interrelated agendas are discernible in the heat and noise of educational change over the past twenty-five years. The first rests on a clear articulation by the state of its requirements of education. The second promotes at least the appearance of greater autonomy on the part of educational institutions in the delivery of those requirements. "The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education" examines the ways in which the sociology of education has responded to these two political… [Direct]
(2024). Testimonios as a Methodological Third Space: Disrupting Epistemological Racism in Applied Linguistics. Journal of Latinos and Education, v23 n2 p829-842. This paper explores the use of testimonio methodology, born from Chicana/Latina feminist thought and epistemologies as a way of exploring the languaging and knowledge production practices of minoritized communities as a platform to share their/our wisdom/voices in applied linguistics. As such, testimonio is a methodology that allows racialized scholars and accomplices to foreground their/our languaging and knowledges and thus disrupt deficit framings. This paper explores the benefits of using testimonios in applied linguistics as one way of disrupting epistemological racism. Drawing on examples from three different youth who took part in a multiyear culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics oriented program we show the power of using various types of testimonios to examine/understand the languaging and literacies practices of racialized youth. Implications indicate that the co-creation of knowledge/understanding is what makes testimonios a powerful and insightful… [Direct]