(2012). "Abolish the White Race" or "Transfer Economic Power to the People"?: Some Educational Implications. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, v10 n2 p202-232 Oct. "Race Traitor", a movement founded by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, has been given a boost in recent months in three different arenas: the Occupy movement; an antiracist advertising campaign; and in an academic journal. With respect to the last, which is the main focus of this paper, Critical Race Theorists John Preston and Charlotte Chadderton, in "Race, Ethnicity and Education," argue that the "Race Traitor" movement is "a political form with resonance for contemporary Marxists" and Anarchists. Their intention, they state, is to try to counter the arguments of what they refer to "a left Marxist critique" that considers "Race Traitor" misguided and politically untenable. In this paper, I suggest that while "Race Traitor" has strengths in its depiction of the horrors of racism in the US in the 1990s and before, and in a few practical suggestions for combating racism at an individual level, as a campaigning… [PDF]
(2015). One Black, One White: Power, White Privilege, & Creating Safe Spaces. Multicultural Education, v22 n3-4 p15-19 Spr-Sum. This article explores the experiences of two professors as they teach about White privilege in predominately White institutions of higher education. The authors discuss how racial potentiality shapes the classroom climates of each of the professors and then present strategies that utilize safe spaces to navigate students away from the resistance they feel for this topic. The two professors discuss examples that demonstrate how White privilege creates resistance in the courses they teach when they confront students with it as a real phenomenon (Johnson, 2001). At first, the professors worked in isolation, where their frustrations built up until they had an opportunity to share their experiences and realize that they teach similar content (e.g., manifestations of racism, discrimination, heterosexism, White privilege, and social construction of race and identity development theory), use many of the same texts, and that most of their students are from similar backgrounds. This article… [PDF]
(2013). Stories of Multiracial Experiences in Literature for Children, Ages 9-14. Children's Literature in Education, v44 n4 p359-376 Dec. This study analyzed 90 realistic novels written and published in the United States between the years 2000 and 2010 and featuring mixed race characters. The researchers examined specific textual features of these works of contemporary and historical fiction and employed Critical Race Theory to contextualize the books within paradigms about multiracial identity. Findings indicated three broad trends in representations of mixed race identity with an almost equal number of novels falling among three descriptive categories. Books in the Mixed Race In/Visibility category depicted stereotypical experiences and provided little or no opportunity for critique of racism. Mixed Race Blending books featured characters whose mixed race identity was descriptive but not functional in their lives. Mixed Race Awareness books represented a range of possible life experiences for biracial characters who responded to social discomfort about their racial identity in complex and credible ways. This study… [Direct]
(2013). Among the Missing: The Experience of Vietnamese American Nursing Students. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Union Institute and University. Non-traditional nursing students, including Vietnamese Americans often face challenges that differ from those of their white counterparts. These challenges have significant impact on academic success and contribute to underrepresentation of minorities in nursing. This study explored the lived experience of 12 Vietnamese American undergraduate nursing students and recent graduates through the use of phenomenologically based interviews. Study participants identified challenges similar to those identified in the literature by other ethnic minority nursing students. Participants experienced a variety of challenges including pressure to succeed in school while providing support for immediate and distant family members, financial hardship, language difficulty, cultural insensitivity, difficulty with socializing with other students, and racism in both academic and clinical settings. Despite significant stress experienced during participants' education, they perceived nursing as a rewarding… [Direct]
(2010). Addressing the Challenge of Disenfranchisement of Youth: Poverty and Racism in the Schools. Reclaiming Children and Youth, v19 n1 p22-26. Understanding the role that poverty and racism play in the educational and socioeconomic barriers that confront racially and ethnically diverse youth is critical to affecting positive change with youth. Teaching principles, solutions, and basic concepts to make education a viable, life-giving experience for young people of color are discussed…. [Direct]
(2010). Strange Fruit Indeed: Interrogating Contemporary Textbook Representations of Racial Violence toward African Americans. Teachers College Record, v112 n1 p31-67. Background/Context: Recent racial incidents on college and high school campuses throughout the United States have catalyzed a growing conversation around issues of race and racism. These conversations exist alongside ongoing concerns about the lack of attention given to race and racism in the official school curriculum. Given that the field of education is generally located as a space to interrogate why these difficult issues of race in schools and society still persist, this study illustrates how contemporary official school knowledge addresses historical and contemporary issues of race and racism. To do this, we examine how historic acts of racial violence directed toward African Americans are rendered in K-12 school textbooks. Using the theoretical lenses of critical race theory and cultural memory, we explicate how historic acts of racial violence toward African Americans receives minimal and/or distorted attention in most K-12 texts. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of… [Direct]
(2012). Lowenfeld at Hampton (1939-1946): Empowerment, Resistance, Activism, and Pedagogy. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, v54 n1 p6-20 Fall. Viktor Lowenfeld (1903-1960) has been abundantly documented as having influenced art teaching in the United States. Scarce attention, however, has been given to the significant and remarkable advancements he made to resist structures of institutionalized racism and promote inter-racial cooperation. Lowenfeld was a mentor to several notable African American artists, who participated in his art program at the Hampton Institute, a historically Black college in Virginia (now Hampton University). While recognized in African American art history texts, it has been largely understated in histories of art education even though extant archival materials authenticate this aspect of his career. This article, based on archival research, revises Lowenfeld's story to include his connection to his African American students whose agency shaped the art world and helped create social change. It also raises questions concerning the collection, documentation, and preservation of the historical record in… [Direct]
(2016). Interpellating Dispossession: Distributions of Vulnerability and the Politics of Grieving in the Precarious Mattering of Lives. Philosophical Studies in Education, v47 p56-67. The protest and movement #BlackLivesMatter that began in 2012 has fueled a national will of resistance to State violence and has nourished a sense of humanity that demands the valuing of all Black people. As part of the U.S.'s long history of systemic racism and its histories of local resistance, #BlackLivesMatter (BLM hereafter) has renewed "national attention to the disregard for the lives of young Black men by the established structures of power . . . [and] calls for a deeper humanity." In this nationally visible moment of moral outrage about the disposable treatment of Black people, BLM pushes the grieving of marginalized people of color into the public eye and the nation's historical narrative. BLM's ideological and political intervention is a call to change the existential and sociopolitical conditions for Black lives. The authors argue that, as a movement in history and a public project at this moment in time, BLM reframes for society who matters as a human life. In… [PDF]
(2012). Making Multicultural Education Personal. Multicultural Perspectives, v14 n4 p229-233. In this article the author examines changes in students' self-awareness of multicultural topics during a multicultural education course. The course is a three-credit elective course offered in the university's school of education but taken by students across disciplines at a large, public research university in a mid-Atlantic state. Course instructors encourage students to reflect on what multicultural education topics mean to them and how they interact with students different from themselves. This qualitative study followed six students' experiences using interviews, student topic papers, and student reflection papers. Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS: Bennett, 1986, 1993) was used as a framework for evaluating changes in self-awareness concerning ableism, racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism. All participants showed an increase in multicultural self-awareness. Students assessed the instructional strategies they felt supported their growth in… [Direct]
(2012). Resilience Post Tenure: The Experience of an African American Woman in a PWI. Florida Journal of Educational Administration & Policy, v5 n2 p68-84 Spr. The purpose of this study was: 1) to explore the pre-tenure experiences of an African American female faculty member in a counselor education program; and 2) to compare the themes that ascended from a precursor study to the current one. By using critical ethnography and case study format, this research gave voice to the participant by prompting responses to questions of why and how. Evidence from this study reaffirms that female faculty of color are adversely impacted by racism and sexism in the Academy. Findings from this study support the notion that mentoring and across cultural affiliation with tenure-track faculty members from diverse backgrounds contributes to their professional achievement. Moreover, this study asserts that the milieu of research-intensive universities may foster psychic numbing, which has an intergenerational effect. (Contains 1 table.)… [PDF]
(2015). With Their Voice: Constructing Meaning with Digital Testimony. Social Education, v79 n2 p106-109 Mar-Apr. The use of testimony in teaching about the Holocaust has long been a practice, relying on resources such as memoirs, diaries, and audio recordings. Having first-person accounts provides a window into the experience of those who lived the historical events that now fill the pages of text. As we mark the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, it becomes increasingly difficult to find survivors and witnesses to share their stories with students. The question of how these personal accounts will endure once the last survivor is no longer here is a pertinent issue in the field of Holocaust education. Though not equivalent to in-person accounts, video testimony can provide an important experience. This article describes the Visual History Archive of the USC Shoah Foundation, which houses over 53,000 testimonies of survivors and additional witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides. These full life histories have been collected from individuals in 61 countries and 39… [Direct]
(2013). Why Teachers Must Join the Fight for Public Education. Now. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, v10 n1 Sum. The author, a teacher-activist with Teacher Action Group-Philadelphia (TAG), presents her views on the need for teachers to get involved in the battle for public education. She expresses her concerns about the political games being played to advance a neoliberal agenda that seeks to dispossess students of their right to a quality education and safety, communities of their public institutions and neighborhood stability, and workers of their hard-earned wages and workplace protections. She sees the consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act's accountability-without-resources policies on her 11th and 12 grade students in terms of deprofessionalizing teaching and standardizing learning, and the sophistication of the mechanisms and infrastructure of the school-to-prison pipeline. The author states that the priority of leaders are not the priorities of teachers, thus they must take a stand and work collectively in ways that are very new to all of them. She outlines the decisions made by… [PDF]
(2017). Finding a Voice in Predominantly White Institutions: A Longitudinal Study of Black Women Faculty Members' Journeys toward Tenure. Teachers College Record, v119 n6. Background/Context: Amidst scholarship that underscores the importance of Black women faculty in higher education, Black women are often not being retained in faculty positions at research universities. There is a gap in the research relative to how Black women experience the tenure process at predominantly White institutions, and this may have important implications for both recruitment and retention of Black women faculty. Purpose: This analysis attempts to fill a gap in the literature on the recruitment and retention of faculty of color by asking: What are the experiences of Black women faculty on the tenure track at PWIs who are the only woman of color faculty member in their academic program? Drawing on data from qualitative longitudinal research with Black women faculty who were on the tenure track at PWIs, the primary purpose of this analysis was to understand four Black women's longitudinal reflections on their journey toward tenure at PWIs where they are "othered"… [Direct]
(2013). Are Social Work Educators Bullies? Student Perceptions of Political Discourse in the Social Work Classroom. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, v33 n1 p59-74. Social work's professional commitment to working toward social justice for vulnerable groups is well known. However, as a profession, social work has been criticized for proposing professional perspectives that may be interpreted by some as political indoctrination. The purpose of the current study was to examine social work students' perceptions of political debate in the classroom. An additional goal was to examine whether students believed that colleagues who hold certain sociopolitical beliefs should be prohibited from receiving a social work degree. Four hundred and ninety-seven undergraduate and graduate social work students from 10 programs were surveyed. Results show that a majority of respondents were comfortable with the discussion of sociopolitical content in the classroom. Nevertheless, students who self-identified as politically conservative were more likely to report that they perceived the classroom environment as less open and hence less conducive to debate…. [Direct]
(2012). Resistance Meets Spirituality in Academia: \I Prayed on It!\. Negro Educational Review, v62-63 n1-4 p41-66 2011-2012. We describe the lived experiences of a Black Woman educational leader who has studied and worked in the academy and in the field of K-12 education. This partial life history, excavated through the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT), illuminates the social construction of race and the pervasiveness and permanence of racism. We determined through a series of interviews that the participant's resilient resistance is guided by critical spirituality so that circumstances and people who challenge her also confront this source of power. Her lived experience, from student to faculty member, conveys the challenges and opportunities she faces and adds to the scholarship to better understand anti-oppressive education. As a result of our study we derived implications for practice which include suggested institutional efforts to build support structures for Black women and shift academic culture. Also, there are recommendations which include conducting socially and culturally responsible and… [Direct]