(2022). #Resist: Utilizing Racial Justice Teach-Ins to Challenge Anti-Black Racism. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, v42 n2-3 p265-279. Across the United States, racist, hate-filled rhetoric, attitudes, and behaviors are daily occurrences. Events like officer-involved shootings of unarmed Black men, women, and non-binary individuals, along with the increase in white supremacist and nationalist groups, have cumulatively created a climate of fear and mistrust. This fear and mistrust are exacerbated when police officers operate with impunity in predominantly Black communities and constitutional rights to peaceful protest are being maligned as unpatriotic or denied through violence. In response to these and related events, a BSW program, situated within a predominantly white rural setting in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, developed and implemented a racial justice teach-in grounded in critical race and postcolonial theories. The goals of the teach-ins are to provide experiential educational activities, opportunities for in-depth discussion beyond the classroom, and exposure to anti-racist practice tools in… [Direct]
(2018). Whiteness as Property in Science Teacher Education. Teachers College Record, v120 n1. Background/Context: The disparity between the race and ethnicity of teachers and students is expected to increase as our nation and classrooms continue to become more racially, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse. It is extremely important to think about not only the educational needs of such a diverse student population within schools but also who will teach these students. However, when looking at subject-matter specificity for the retention of Teachers of Color, such as science teachers, the picture becomes extremely serious when we understand teachers' paths into and out of science and teaching. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyze the experiences of preservice Teachers of Color (PTOC) enrolled in an elementary science methods course as they gain access to science as White property. Our analysis provides evidence that PTOC can break the perpetual cycle of alienation, exclusion, and inequity in science when they are given opportunities to engage in… [Direct]
(2009). Through the Prism of Critical Race Theory: "Niceness" and Latina/o Leadership in the Politics of Education. Journal of Latinos and Education, v8 n4 p290-311. Utilizing a critical race theory (CRT) framework, I conduct a rhetorical and discursive analysis of data from a study of Utah Latino/a educational and political leaders. In analyzing how participants advocate closing the achievement gaps that affect Latina/o and Chicana/o students, I find that participants' political discourse is shaped by concepts such as "niceness," "respect," and "decorum," which ultimately limits their critique and silences the experiences of students in their communities. I argue that CRT scholarship and practice frameworks play a vital role in enacting socially just policies and preparing educational leaders to engage critically in the politics of education. (Contains 8 footnotes.)… [Direct]
(2012). The Complicated Conversation of Class and Race in Social and Curricular Analysis: An Examination of Pierre Bourdieu's Interpretative Framework in Relation to Race. Educational Philosophy and Theory, v44 suppl s1 p74-97 May. As a means to challenge and diminish the hold of mainstream curriculum's claim of being a colorblind, politically neutral text, we will address two particular features that partially, though significantly, constitute the hidden curriculum in the United States–race and class–historically studied as separate social issues. Race and class have been embedded within the institutional curriculum from the beginning in the US; though rarely acknowledged as intertwined issues. We illustrate how the theoretical and interpretive structure of French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu can productively subsume the insights of critical race theory into its framework in a way that provides a more robust understanding of how race and class continue to be socially reproduced in schools. To perform this task we examine, through Bourdieu's constructs of habitus, field, capital, symbolic violence and misrecognition, the ways in which race, in general, and whiteness, specifically, influences… [Direct]
(2012). Counterstories of College Persistence by Undocumented Mexicana Students: Navigating Race, Class, Gender, and Legal Status. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v25 n3 p293-315. This paper draws from four sets of four in-depth interviews and one subsequent focus group to examine how undocumented Mexicana students navigate identities and the meanings of race, gender, class, and legal status. We mobilize a critical race theory framework to center and explore the content of students' counterstories. While majoritarian stories perpetuate stereotypical narratives that portray communities of color as culturally deficient, counterstorytelling creates a space for exposing and resisting hegemonic narratives in the home, community, and college settings. We argue that, through counterstories, Mexicana students are able to develop a positive self-image that allows them to hang on to their academic aspirations, to persist in college, and to envision and pursue the possibility of success. We look at how undocumented Mexicana students' narratives also reproduce and/or reinscribe elements of oppressive discourses of race, class, and gender in the contemporary USA. We… [Direct]
(2012). Unspoken Rules of Engagement: Navigating Racial Microaggressions in the Academic Terrain. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v25 n5 p517-532. Racial microaggressions are brief, everyday interactions that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racially minoritised group. Compared to more overt forms of racism, racial microaggressions are subtle and insidious, often leaving the victim confused, distressed and frustrated and the perpetrator oblivious of the offense they have caused. Drawing on the counter-narrative aspect of critical race theory that stresses the importance of understanding the role of race in the world through the experiences of people of color, I demonstrate the subtle but powerful ways in which racial microaggressions can manifest within a fictional academic setting and the consequences for those involved. It is argued that while engagement with overt forms of racism, notably through the recording of racist incidents, remains crucial towards the fight for race equality, this has tended within both education and wider British society to obfuscate understanding of these more… [Direct]
(2012). Betwixt Safety and Shielding in the Academy: Confronting Institutional Gendered Racism–Again. Negro Educational Review, v62-63 n1-4 p89-113 2011-2012. This article represents a critical reflection of a Black African American female associate professor who, while teaching a diversity course, unknowingly enabled systems of power and privilege to undermine her faculty role in the course and in the academy. The author revisits a story of this experience and its vestiges using Critical Race Theory (CRT) and an autoethnographic approach. In doing so, she comes to terms with her complicity in supporting White supremacy and patriarchy and reclaims a voice previously suppressed yet still vulnerable in the matrix of institutional power. Two significant shifts are captured in this account–a narrative shift from the individual to one that includes the institutional and a political shift from a position of naivete to critical consciousness. These shifts, illustrated by the metaphor of safety, reflect the dissonance experienced by the author in seeking to negotiate a balance between the personal, professional, and socialized traditions of… [Direct]
(2016). From Underdog to Overcomer: Counter-Stories of Academic Resilience from Black, First Generation College Students from Low-Income Backgrounds, Studying at a Predominantly White Institution. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University. The purpose of the current study was to explore the academic resilience of Black, first generation, low-income college students at a particular Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through an exploration of lived experiences of Black, first generation, low-income college students, the current study sought to understand, from student perspectives, the institutional, communal, and personal factors contributing to academic resilience in ways leading to continued persistence. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the macro theoretical lens and critical race methodology, the study elicited counter-stories that focused on academic resilience in the face of daily and historical challenges. The study employed purposeful sampling to select 10 participants who identified as Black, first generation, and low-income. Each participant engaged in a single semi-structured interview and follow up participant focus group; both of which lasted no more than two hours. Based on thematic analysis, I… [Direct]
(2012). Taking off the Color-Blind Glasses: Recognizing and Supporting Latina/o Students in a Predominantly White School. Educational Administration Quarterly, v48 n2 p259-303 Apr. This article reports findings of a collaborative research project examining and seeking to improve the schooling experiences of a small but growing population of Latina/o students in a small-town secondary school over a 4-year period. The school was studied through ethnographic methods and surveys in 2005 and 2008. Initial findings were shared with the principal who proceeded to make substantial changes in school curriculum and climate, targeting an improved academic climate for Latinas/os. The story of the choices he made, the changes he and his staff implemented, and the consequent results regarding school climate for Latina/o students is the central narrative of this article. The theoretical framework of critical race theory and critical studies in Whiteness contextualizes this examination of change and enables analysis of why some changes were made rather than others as well as subsequent results for Latina/o students. (Contains 5 notes, 2 figures and 3 tables.)… [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]
(2013). Sociocultural Influences on Undergraduate Students' Conversations on Race at a Predominantly White Institution. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Iowa. The purpose of this study was to analyze the sociocultural influences on dialogues about race of undergraduate students from various racial backgrounds at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). This qualitative study included 16 undergraduate students from various racial backgrounds at a small, private university in the Midwest who participated in semi-structured focus group interviews. A data analysis addressed how the interplay of narratives and counter-narratives within dialogues on race revealed common themes within the framework of Critical Race Theory. Findings from the interview data suggest that race does not occur solely in the moment of a particular conversation or incidence. Rather, there are three sociocultural influences on undergraduates' conversations on race: The collective history related to race in the United States, students' personal experiences related to race, particularly discrimination, and the way they describe themselves as racial beings. Findings also… [Direct]
(2007). Cracking Silent Codes: Critical Race Theory and Education Organizing. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, v28 n4 p531-548 Dec. Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which "colorblind" laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically, communities of color must challenge the dominant narratives of mainstream institutions with alternative visions of pedagogy and school reform, and community organizing plays an important role in helping communities of color to articulate these alternative counter-narratives. Yet, many in education organizing disagree with CRT's critique of colorblindness. Drawing on five case study organizations working towards school reform in the South Bronx neighborhoods of New York City, this article traces the difficulty of implementing anti-racist practices in education organizing groups. It also analyzes specific practices that may help such groups to… [Direct]
(2013). Critical Race Ethnography of Higher Education: Racial Risk and Counter-Storytelling. Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, v6 n3 p64-78 Win. The Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) joins a long history of critique, challenge and transformation of higher education. EUI courses are an important site for the creation of non-traditional narratives in which students challenge "business-as-usual" in higher education. For under-represented students, this includes inquiry and analysis of the racial status quo at the University. In this article, I provide a student's perspective on EUI through my own experiences with EUI research as both an undergraduate and later graduate student investigating race and racism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of I). Using ethnographic methods and drawing on critical race theory, I provide two examples of EUI research that critiqued the University's management of race. The first example is a collaborative ethnography of the Brown versus Board of Education Commemoration at U of I–a project that I joined as an undergraduate (Abelmann et al. 2007); and the… [Direct]
(2014). Race, Memory, and Master Narratives: A Critical Essay on U.S. Curriculum History. Curriculum Inquiry, v44 n3 p358-389 Jun. The field of curriculum studies has a history of looking at its own past, summarizing and synthesizing the trends and patterns across its foundations. Whether through synoptic texts, historical analyses, or edited collections, the field's foundational retrospection typically traces a lineage of curriculum studies that runs through various official committees, university scholars, textbook designers, and school leaders at the turn of the 20th century and into the first few decades. In this critical essay, the authors draw from the theories of cultural memory and critical race theory, to contextualize how the histories of race and curriculum are portrayed. The authors find that, despite curriculum studies' more recent attention to issues of power and identity associated with race, culture, gender, and sexuality, the voices and curricular histories of communities of color in the United States are largely left out of the selective tradition associated with the narrative of the… [Direct]
(2017). Latina Community College Leadership in California: Pathways to Executive Management. ProQuest LLC, D.P.A. Dissertation, University of La Verne. Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the learned experiences, challenges, and leadership pathways of Latinas currently in California community college management positions. Latinas have been underrepresented in community college leadership positions. Currently, women constitute a majority of those attending college, and the California community college system serves a diverse student population. From the voices of these participants, a series of exemplars and lessons learned are shared to provide Latinas interested in executive leadership and decision makers with guidance on how to achieve that goal and increase Latina representation. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework of this study is based on the research foundations of social equity, critical race theory, representative bureaucracy, human capital, social capital and mentoring. Methodology: In-depth interviews were held with 8 participants. The participants were Latinas in midlevel to… [Direct]