(2022). "You Can't Fix What You Can't Talk About": Developing Social Studies Teachers' Racial-Pedagogical-Content Knowledge. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Georgia. Social studies classrooms are often lauded as ideal spaces where productive conversations centered around race/ism can, and should occur. Unfortunately, social studies classrooms have yet to live up to this reality as traditional social studies instruction–a type of standards-based instruction characterized by lectures, rote memorization, and linear master narratives–continues to persist, doing very little to address enduring racial injustices facing society. Social studies researchers over the years have suggested inquiry as an effective pedagogical approach for teaching about racial issues in the classroom; however, before social studies teachers can enact what the author refers to as "critical race inquiries," they would need to possess a sophisticated amount of what Chandler (2015) called racial-pedagogical-content knowledge (RPCK). Using a design-based research methodological approach, the author developed a professional development intervention informed by critical… [Direct]
(2022). Overcoming Whiteness: An Autoethnographic Account of a Black Female Administrator's Journey at a Community and Technical College. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. Black and racially minority women are underrepresented in administrative positions of authority in higher education, especially at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). These women are forced to work in environments of articulated boundaries that do not permit their voices or perspectives to be heard and they are overwhelmingly disregarded, in comparison to their white counterparts, as competent leaders mainly because of their intersectionality with race and gender. Consequently, Black and racially minoritized women struggle to be included, accepted, and respected as higher education professionals. Additionally, the experiences of Black and racially minoritized women are the result of an environment that encourages discrimination, isolation and exclusion. As a result, Black and racially minoritized women experience feelings of insecurity and invisibility and often self-segregate in order to survive in the environment. While each racially minoritized women encounters differing… [Direct]
(2022). White Blindness: An Investigation into Teacher Whiteness and Racial Ignorance. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of South Carolina. White supremacy and domination are the backbone foundation of the United States and have been long documented in its history. The prevalence of whiteness and white supremacy is not isolated to social situations or commerce but fundamentally ingrained in the education system. While "Brown v. the Board of Education" abolished the notion of separate but equal, the education of a diverse American student population remains predominantly at the hands of white, female educators. This action research study, using an investigative mixed-methods design, attempted to address educator whiteness at a small, rural high school in the Southeastern United States. Treatment participants were assigned reading from a commonly used social justice text that was then discussed in a series of discussion groups. Constructs such as white supremacy, racism, and culturally relevant pedagogy were addressed and discussed by the all-white female veteran teachers. The framework that guided the research… [Direct]
(2017). A Narrative Study on the Experiences of Hmong Female College Students. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Drexel University. Since their settlement in the United States, Hmong American women have established themselves in professional organizations across various disciplines as lawyers, teachers, university professors, medical doctors, and political leaders. However, the data on the education achievement of Hmong American women reveal that Hmong American women have one of the lowest educational attainments. According to the 2015 American Community Survey, 20.8% of Hmong American women ages 25 and over has a bachelor or higher degree, whereas 31.9% of White women, 22.4% of Black women and 16.1% of Hispanic women the ages 25 or over. This study will explore, through narrative inquiry, the educational experiences of Hmong American women in college or university; focusing on understanding how their gender and cultural roles influence their educational experiences. This study is guided by the following three question research questions: (1) What do the stories told by Hmong American women reveal about their… [Direct]
(2017). Using Counter-Stories to Challenge Stock Stories about Traveller Families. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v20 n5 p636-649. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is formed from a series of different methodological tools to expose and address racism and discrimination. Counter-stories are one of these tools. This article considers the potential of counter-stories as a methodological, theoretical and practical tool to analyse existing educational inequalities for Traveller communities. Although discrimination towards Traveller communities is well documented, there has been limited use of CRT to examine this position and challenge the social injustice they experience. In this article "stock stories", or commonly held assumptions and stereotypes about Traveller communities are highlighted and refuted with Travellers' own accounts. It is hoped this article will dispel stock stories, raise awareness of the real inequalities Travellers face and inform methodological debate…. [Direct]
(2017). Racism and Linguicism: Engaging Language Minority Pre-Service Teachers in Counter-Storytelling. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v20 n5 p666-680. This study examines how language minority pre-service teachers engaged in the discussion of racism and linguicism through counter-storytelling informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT). Counter-stories can act as a medium through which minority students can unpack the power relations embedded in academic learning. This study also explores ways in which having a language minority teacher educator with a similar background facilitated the discussion of race and native speaker status. Drawing on co-teaching experience with a white teacher educator, I suggest that the teaching of race and language be not only about racialized and linguistic identity of instructors, but pedagogical approaches and strategies through counter-stories that actively foster critical reflection on power imbalance inherent in schools…. [Direct]
(2017). Affirming Race, Diversity, and Equity through Black and Latinx Students' Lived Experiences. American Educational Research Journal, v54 n5 p868-903 Oct. Immediately after President Obama's successful campaign, many hypothesized that the United States had entered a post-racial era. This study uses critical race theory to examine how high-achieving Black and Latinx college students make meaning of and navigate affirmative action policy discourses in an era of colorblind racial politics. Semi-structured interviews with 46 alumni of two race-conscious college access programs illustrate how participants employ a race-conscious framework that affirms the reality of race-conscious policies. Their discourse addressing race, intersectionality, and equity disrupts colorblind ideology. Connecting our analysis to the current social landscape, we argue intersectionality offers a framework for engaging politics of accountability. In the conclusion, we conceptually distinguish between post-racial era conditions and post-race (or post-racist) aspirations…. [Direct]
(2017). Equity- and Tolerance-Oriented Teachers: Approaches to Teaching Race in the Social Studies Classroom. Theory and Research in Social Education, v45 n4 p489-516. In this interpretative case study, the researchers examined the beliefs and practices of 10 self-identifying race-conscious social studies teachers. Using critical race theory as the lens, the researchers found that most of the teachers made race explicit in their classrooms by including race in units not typically considered race-related and focusing on the relationship between race and inequity. Additionally, while all of the teachers made race a central theme in their classrooms, there was a division between teachers who emphasized working against individual prejudice (tolerance-oriented) and against racial inequity (equity-oriented). This study adds to the growing research on teaching race in social studies and offers new evidence on how teachers present race and racism differently across school contexts…. [Direct]
(2017). A Stairway of Peripheral Sticks: An Exploratory Narrative Inquiry of Female Asian/American School Leadership Strategies. AERA Online Paper Repository, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Antonio, TX, Apr 27-May 1, 2017). This exploratory narrative inquiry examines the experiences of Asian/American female school and district leaders as they mediate racism and sexism. Grounded in Asia Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) and feminism, this study theorizes how Asian/American women are ascribed as hard-working and subservient "lapdogs," while simultaneously resisting and reproducing this institutional positioning. This resistance informs their individual racialized and gendered identities which shapes their leadership praxis. Asian female leaders lack collegial racial affinity groups, leading to relative isolation that is addressed through hard work, institutional loyalty and working with Asian/American networks outside of school leadership. Implications point to the need to expand our understanding of leadership frameworks that include the experiences of Asian/American women of color…. [Direct]
(2020). Centering the Student in Developmental Education: Student Perceptions of Individual Growth. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Saint Peter's University. Situated in an extensive review of the literature on emerging adult readers and writers and new college students representing historically underserved communities, Student Development Theory, literacy education scholarship, and Critical Race Theory, this study analyzes the perspectives of students who completed a college access and developmental English program which attempted to prepare students for college level work in one semester. The research revealed that successful students viewed their experiences through four essential lenses of growth that were key to their success: students developed a new, more expansive view of what college can do for them; students began to experience and value the importance of an academic community; students perceived their academic development; and students believed they were changing in meaningful ways– as students and as people– which suggested a transformative educational experience. The study concluded that the pedagogy articulated through the… [Direct]
(2020). Collegiate and Post-Undergraduate Experiences among African American STEM Alumni at the University of South Carolina. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of South Carolina. This study was designed to explore the undergraduate and post-undergraduate experiences of African American STEM alumni from the University of South Carolina from a strengths-perspective. The method utilized for this qualitative study was phenomenological analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 African American alumni who graduated between 2010 and 2020 and majored in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). Critical Race Theory and community cultural wealth served as theoretical frameworks for this research. The findings indicate that African American students: 1) want to smoothly transition from high school to college curriculum being equally exposed to collegiate materials at the high school level, similar to their White peers, 2) want culturally relevant meaningful and supportive experiences in higher education, 3) want to build rapport with faculty and teaching instructors to improve learning outcomes and develop mentorship opportunities, 4) want to… [Direct]
(2020). An Examination of Black Women's Experiences in Undergraduate Engineering on a Primarily White Campus: Considering Institutional Strategies for Change. Journal of Engineering Education, v109 n1 p52-71 Jan. Background: Black women are underrepresented in engineering and face barriers as a result of their race and gender. While existing research often focuses on strategies Black women can adopt to become successful engineers, this study asks how engineering institutions might change to better accommodate Black women. Purpose: The specific purpose of this study is to explore the following questions: (a) How does the educational environment in engineering marginalize Black women in ways that are beyond their control? (b) How can institutions transform their policies and practices to improve Black women's experiences and participation in engineering? Design/Method: I conducted interviews with 12 Black women studying engineering at one university. Informed by critical race theory and sociological theories of race, a constructivist grounded theoretical approach was used to identify and refine common themes across interviews. Results: The findings explore the ways Black women describe their… [Direct]
(2020). A Transformation of Racist Discourse? Colour-Blind Racism and Biological Racism in Dutch Secondary Schooling (1968-2017). Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v56 n1-2 p51-69. Scholars have observed a re-emergence of biological racism in the Netherlands. I question whether this form of racism is also making a comeback in Dutch secondary schooling, by drawing on critical race theory and Bonilla-Silva's frames of colour-blind racism. Data for this study were gathered through an analysis of 200 history textbooks (1968-2017), 28 interviews of (former) Dutch (mostly "white") teachers and 35 interviews of former (mostly "Black") students. The study finds that textbooks employ colour-blind racist frames (and in some cases racially essentialist and anti-racist discourses) regarding black history. Likewise, white (former) teachers consistently use colour-blind discourses and to lesser extent utilise racially essentialist and anti-racist discourses to make sense of race. This study demonstrates that Dutch teachers use very similar frames to what (researchers have found) people utilise in the US. Also, Black former students are much more likely to… [Direct]
(2020). The Right to Define: Analyzing Whiteness as a Form of Property in Washington State Bilingual Education Law. Language Policy, v19 n1 p31-60 Feb. Recent studies of language policy and bilingual education have focused on federal level legislation (Wiley and Garc√≠a in Mod Lang J 100:48-63, 2016. 10.1111/modl.12303), and immediate consequences of state level policy. Although Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been employed to analyze the structural impact of local policy on minoritized communities (Davila and Aviles de Bradley in Educ Found 24:39-58, 2010), few studies have explicitly connected CRT and language policy, or applied CRT to state level law. In this study, I apply CRT, specifically the theory of whiteness as property (Harris in Harv Law Rev 106:1-63, 1993), and the theory of raciolinguistic ideologies to three Washington State laws related to bilingual education: the Transitional Bilingual Instruction Act, the Seal of Biliteracy law, and the Dual Language Grant Program Bill. I utilize a Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the laws, related legislative reports, and materials such as guidelines created by Washington… [Direct]
(2024). Re-Writing & Re-Righting a BIPOC Teach for America Corps Member Narrative: Elevating the Testimonios of BIPOC Educators and Recalibrating a Teacher Leadership Program with Community Care. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. This study explores the experiences of second-year Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Teach For America (TFA) Corps Members in a South Texas city. Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), semi-structured interviews and community circles/focus groups, the research seeks to understand how BIPOC educators made meaning of their experiences in the TFA program. The study is situated within a broader narrative of educational equity and social justice, recognizing the importance of collective action and community empowerment. Specifically, the study investigates how second-year BIPOC Corps Members described their overall experience in the TFA program, the role of their racial identity in shaping their teaching experience, and the types of support they received–and needed–to fulfill their aspirations as teachers. By centering the voices and experiences of BIPOC educators, this study aims to inform and transform teacher preparation programs towards a more humanizing and culturally… [Direct]