(2006). Race, Culture, and the Education of African Americans. Educational Theory, v56 n1 p107-119 Feb. In this essay, Marvin Lynn explores a range of perspectives on African American education, with particular focus on three works: \Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement,\ by social anthropologist John Ogbu; \African-Centered Pedagogy: Developing Schools of Achievement for African American Children,\ by teacher education expert Peter Murrell; and \African American Literacies,\ by Elaine Richardson, professor of English and applied linguistics. Lynn draws on Charles Valentine's sociological framework for understanding culture in order to interrogate how the concept of culture is used in these works. Lynn concludes that critical race theory in education–a rapidly emerging discourse on schooling and inequality–may be a useful tool for lucidly framing the conditions under which African Americans are educated as well as the possible solutions to the perennial problems faced by this historically marginalized group…. [Direct]
(2006). Textual Representation of Diversity in COAMFTE Accredited Doctoral Programs. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, v32 n1 p3-15 Jan. The use of the Internet is growing at a staggering pace. One significant use of the Internet is for potential students and the parents of potential students to explore educational possibilities. Along these lines potential marriage and family therapy students may have many questions that include a program's commitment to cultural diversity. This study utilized qualitative content analysis methodology in combination with critical race theory to examine how Commission On Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) accredited doctoral programs represented cultural text on their World Wide Web pages. Findings indicate that many COAMFTE-accredited doctoral programs re-present programmatic information about diversity that appear to be incongruent with cultural sensitivity. These apparent incongruities are highlighted by the codification, inconsistent, and isolated use of cultural text. In addition, cultural text related to social justice was absent. Implications and… [Direct]
(2025). Legislating Whiteness: An Emotion Discourse Analysis of Divisive Concepts Legislation. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v33 n1 p179-197. This research examines a state-level response to national political movements to decentre whiteness in American social studies education. Aiming to better understand how emotions systemically sustain and build connections to whiteness, this emotion discourse analysis examined how fear and hope shaped the content of and support for legislation mandating a race-evasive approach to teaching in public schools. Fear of what learning about racism might provoke and disrupt was a driving force behind the policy. Despite emotion discourses resisting the policies and identifying the harm such censorship would cause for students and education more broadly, the policy became law laying the foundation for further policy moves to protect whiteness in education spaces. This research highlights the need for social studies curricula that expand students' capacity to identify and analyse the social and political significance of emotions…. [Direct]
(2010). Embracing Resistance at the Margins: First-Generation Latino Students' Testimonios on Dual/Concurrent Enrollment High School Programs. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Denver. Despite moderate gains in equal educational opportunities over the past 60 years, low-income students of color continue to lag behind their middle-class, White peers. This is particularly true for first-generation Latina/o students who: (a) have the highest K-12 drop-out rate than any other ethnic group in U.S. schools; (b) are underrepresented in high quality, rigorous secondary curricular tracks; and (c) continue to be overrepresented in two-year institutions and postsecondary vocational schools. Using a conceptual framework comprised of critical race theory (CRT), social theory, and community cultural wealth theory it was clear that the U.S. education system is still plagued by systemic and endemic racism. Contrary to the predominate neoliberal discourse that emerged in the education field after the "Brown v. Board of Education" ruling, it is clear that meritocracy is a myth and students continue to face disproportionate opportunities to learn. One of the current school… [Direct]
(2023). Black Desire: Black-Centric Youthtopias as Critical Race Educational Praxis. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v36 n6 p981-1002. Through the conception of Black desire, a Black-specific rendering of Eve Tuck's researching for desire, I argue that educational research lacking critiques of antiblackness can cultivate damage-centered narratives that misguidedly identify brokenness in Black youth, rather than brokenness in society. Drawing from a yearlong critical race ethnography, rooted in BlackCrit, I demonstrate how four Black high school students' critical engagements with literacy reveal the ways antiblackness operationalizes in their lives and how they compose counter structures to this oppressive regime. Through critical literacy artifacts and interview data, I analyze the utility of centering a critique of antiblackness in researching for Black desire as revealed through the voices of the Black youth. Through the findings, I contend that Black students asserting ownership over their reality demonstrates the ways Black desire, through a pointed critique of antiblackness, can function as a tool for critical… [Direct]
(2023). AsianCrit Lens on Chinese International Student Multi-Dimensional Transitions and Experiences in the US. Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning, v13 n3 p488-501. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine Chinese international students' narrative stories, experiences and racial dynamics while studying in the United States to argue that Chinese international students navigate multi-dimensional transitions and experiences in different stages. This study uses an AsianCrit lens to address the gap in existing research focusing on Chinese international students' narratives and experiences. Design/methodology/approach: Narrative inquiry with a social constructivist paradigm was used to provide an in-depth exploration of Chinese international students' navigation and negotiation in multi-dimensional experiences. Three phases of semi-structured interviews and journal entries were utilized to examine participants' experiences and struggles while studying in the United States. Descriptive coding, deductive coding and restorying were used to analyze and feather narrators' voices and stories for interpretation. Findings: The findings in this… [Direct]
(2023). Enacting Antiracist Pedagogy: An Analysis of Lebron James and Doc Rivers' Antiracist Discourse. Equity & Excellence in Education, v56 n3 p434-449. In the summer of 2020, powerful protests against police brutality took place throughout the United States in response to the unlawful deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the shooting of Jacob Blake. Though the types of protests ranged from local grassroot organizations walking the streets to athletes using their platforms to address the injustices, the protests had one goal in mind–to bring attention, awareness, and hopefully change to an unjust legal system that consistently and disproportionately affects unarmed Black people. The aim of this article is to focus on the responses of both LeBron James and Doc Rivers to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as informed by Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), we argue that the dynamic words of these two Black men not only operate as an act of protest and an act of resistance, but also they provide… [Direct]
(2023). The Gradual and Immediate Violence of an Engineered Conflict: School Closings, Public Housing, Law Enforcement, and the Future of Black Life in Chicago. Teachers College Record, v125 n5 p79-92 May. Background/Context: This article considers violence, both structurally and interpersonally, in Chicago, a city that moves to isolate and contain many of its Black working-class/low-income/no-income residents. Violence (particularly death by gun violence) should never be understood as a singular social problem that requires unilateral decisions on how to address the issue. Instead, it is critical to understand that homicides and other forms of violence are often the outcomes of conflict exacerbated by planned scarcity and abandonment (engineered conflict). In short, we should consider these conflicts as largely engineered by the state, declaring some Chicago residents to be of value along the lines of race, class, gender, age, (dis)ability, and sexual orientation, while others are deemed disposable. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Instead of the deficit narrative of crazed, pathological criminals roaming the streets, another conversation pushes us to understand… [Direct]
(2023). Agency: A Key Driver of Students with Minoritized Identities into Student Activities Leadership. Journal of Campus Activities Practice and Scholarship, v5 n2 p105-117. With marginality and power, forms of resistance, and student development literature serving as a framework, this article explores how student leaders' minoritized identities impact their student involvement journeys. Utilizing the methods of Constructivist Grounded Theory, this paper answers the following research question: "In what ways do student leaders with minoritized identities exercise power in their involvement choices and involvement experiences." Findings indicate that student leaders with minoritized identities exercised power in what they chose for involvement and that they chose opportunities that provided agency to execute their agendas…. [PDF]
(2022). "Sounds about White!": Countering the Erasure of Asian American Scholars in Critical Whiteness Studies. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v35 n7 p730-736. As the field of critical whiteness studies (CWS) grows, some white scholars argue that only whites should undertake the study of whiteness. Other white scholars acknowledge the contributions of scholars of Color to the academy, yet rarely draw on the scholarship of authors of Color to push the field to grow. This commentary critiques these phenomena by tracing the scholarly lineage of CWS and highlighting Asian American scholars' theorizing of whiteness. It concludes with a bilingual poem to illustrate how Asian American scholars can counter both the exclusion of their voices in CWS and the ongoing violence against the Asian Diasporas as escalated by the COVID-19 pandemic…. [Direct]
(2022). Confronting Woke Groupthink in Art Education. Academic Questions, v35 n2 p52-61. Michelle Marder Kamhi argues that the the U.S. is a "systemically racist" nation has taken hold in art education. Concern regarding its toxic effects led her to write "Poisoning the Well of Art Education" for "Academic Questions," and to begin a discussion thread about it on the Open Forum of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), of which she is a longtime member. The NAEA response was overwhelmingly negative by teachers who subscribe to the prevailing or "groupthink" view. Virtually no consideration was given to the substance of her contrarian view or to the relevant facts she cited. She also started a discussion thread on transgenderism, citing an article by Abigail Shrier which also received a negative response. In the end, the NAEA webmaster informed her that her membership in the NAEA Collaborate Community, with access to the Open Forum, had been terminated because her posts had violated the group's Rules and Etiquette. [For… [PDF]
(2024). Work Hard for Whom? A Critical Autoethnography on the Policies and Practices of a KIPP Charter School. Critical Questions in Education, v15 n1 p19-37. In this critical autoethnography, I reflect on my experience teaching in a KIPP charter school in an urban, racially diverse city in the southwestern U.S. Over the past few decades KIPP has gained both prestige and resentment as a major character in the charter school movement. Their focus on supporting students from underrepresented racial backgrounds in achieving academic success has gained them ample support in many communities. How-ever, in this article I draw attention to the KIPP policies and practices that work directly against the organization's aims and instead support a process of acculturation. I engage with storytelling to bring the reader into my classroom experiences so that we might col-lectively trouble these disconnections and (re)consider how policies may impact students of Color in similar institutions…. [PDF]
(2024). "There's Something Wrong in Society": Teaching for Racial Civic Literacy Using Young Adult Fiction. Theory and Research in Social Education, v52 n1 p66-96. This multiple case study traced how secondary preservice social studies teachers grappled with understanding race/racism in their reading of the novel, All American Boys. Participants, all self-identified as white, consisted of two cohorts of students who attended a large midwestern university and were enrolled in an advanced social studies methods course. Drawing on notions of racial civic literacy, we analyzed participants' responses to the novel, especially as it related to the police officer character who committed racial violence on an unarmed Black youth. We asked whether the officer's actions were racist. Findings showed that participants reacted to the officer's actions in three ways: calling-out race/ism, justifying his actions, and distancing from making judgments. Participants who called out Officer Galluzzo's actions as racism saw this character as symbolic of larger systemic issues in society, whereas those who sought to justify Galluzzo's actions demonstrated faith in… [Direct]
(2024). What's so Marxist about Marxist Educational Theory?. Policy Futures in Education, v22 n8 p1570-1587. The antagonism between "class" and "race" have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits world-historic and ongoing transformations inaugurated particularly since the beginning of the 20th century by erasing, discounting or, denouncing them. I argue the primary factors inhibiting educational researchers: Anticommunism. The global revolutionary era led largely by revolutionary communists contains the most fruitful explanations of those conditions and connections (and the historical legacies accounting for mass movements in the U.S. today, like the historic 2020 uprising against the War on Black America). This rich and dynamic legacy is what can get educational scholarship beyond the cages of academia. After outlining the… [Direct]
(2024). How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America. Race and Education. Harvard Education Press In "How Schools Make Race," Laura C. Ch√°vez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Ch√°vez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Ch√°vez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious… [Direct]