(2021). Reactions to COVID-19: A Public Health Critical Race. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education, Paper presented at the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education 2020 Conference (Online, Oct 27-30, 2020). Since the spring of 2020, the pandemic has dominated public discourse. Using a public health critical race praxis research approach, our team interviewed a diverse group of individuals to elicit stories about their knowledge, attitudes, and responses to COVID-19. We used health belief model constructs and critical race theory tenets to evaluate race and ethnicity's influence and implications in reactions to the pandemic. Findings include the ordinariness of racism and colorblindness in assessing the susceptibility and severity of COVID19 and its risk factors. Including social determinants of health in the core curriculum of cross-disciplinary education programs emphasizes the impact of public health disparities and may reduce colorblindness and ordinariness. [For the complete volume, "American Association for Adult and Continuing Education Inaugural 2020 Conference Proceedings (Online, October 27-30, 2020)," see ED611534.]… [PDF]
(2014). The Mapping of a Framework: Critical Race Theory and TESOL. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v46 n1 p112-124 Mar. In this article, I attempt to elucidate some key intersections between critical race theory (CRT) in synthesis with English language learning as a way to examine linguistic and racial identity in English language teaching. I ask: How does critical race theory apply to English language learners when language rather than race is fore-grounded? What aspects of CRT would assist in theorizing the relationship between language and race for teachers of English to speakers of other languages? In looking to CRT to inform and expand critical approaches to English language teaching, I hope to more closely tie English language learning to issues of race as a way to better understand the intersectionality of these identity factors in the educational context of language teaching and learning. Such inquiry could work to broaden teachers' knowledge of the ways that linguistic and racial membership inform student learning, and raise awareness about the range of perspectives and cultural… [Direct]
(2022). Methodologically Disrupting Whiteness: A Critical Race Case for Visual-Elicited Focus Groups as Cultural Responsiveness. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, v45 n3 p297-308. In the twenty-first century, visual media are an undeniable component of everyday culture and sensemaking of race, yet when studying racism in education, researchers rarely centre the visual in their methods and analysis. This trend is alarming considering how racialised messages and violence (e.g. the murder of George Floyd) are routinely circulated at unprecedented rates across information technologies including YouTube, Twitter, and Tik Tok. This paper's purpose is therefore twofold: I use critical race theory to critique the underuse of visual methods for the study of race and racism as a methodological trend reaffirming Whiteness in education. I then draw upon Jori N. Hall's culturally responsive focus groups to highlight an exemplar study's use of visual-elicited focus groups as a culturally responsive tool to methodologically disrupt Whiteness' hold on social science enquiry. I conclude by discussing the affordances of this visual methodological innovation for the study of… [Direct]
(2015). Homeless Educational Policy: Exploring a Racialized Discourse Through a Critical Race Theory Lens. Urban Education, v50 n7 p839-869 Oct. A qualitative research study conducted in two public high schools in an urban area of the Midwest sought to explore the issue of race as it pertains to educational policy implementation for unaccompanied homeless youth of color. Critical Race Theory (CRT) served as the guiding frame and method, uncovering the underlying theme of race in school structures, adult perceptions, and McKinney-Vento policy. Findings indicate a need to further explore the role race plays in understanding, framing, and implementing McKinney-Vento policy in schools…. [Direct]
(2017). Mentorship of Black Student-Athletes at a Predominately White American University: Critical Race Theory Perspective on Student-Athlete Development. Sport, Education and Society, v22 n2 p175-193. Mentoring programs are evolving as common practice in athletic departments across national collegiate athletic association member institutions in the USA as means to address sociocultural issues faced by their student-athletes and to enhance their holistic development. There is a dearth of research exploring mentoring in the contexts of intercollegiate student-athlete development with consideration of the role of race and racism. Drawing upon the framework and analytical lens of critical race theory, this qualitative case study investigates a student-athlete mentoring program at an American institution of higher education to illuminate how black student-athletes (N = 15) make sense of the role of race and racism in their lived experiences. Data analysis revealed two emergent themes identified as (1) navigating privilege and property interests and (2) advocacy. The findings suggest the case of student-athletes was challenged and encouraged by their mentors as well as through… [Direct]
(2022). "Whiteness Here, Whiteness Everywhere": How Student Affairs Professionals Experience Whiteness at Predominantly White Institutions. Journal of College Student Development, v63 n6 p661-676 Nov-Dec. Through a narrative inquiry study, we sought to understand how 12 student affairs professionals (SAPs) experienced whiteness and perceived the influence of whiteness on campus responses to racialized incidents. We used components of critical whiteness studies (CWS) and critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical underpinning to disrupt the dominant narratives that center whiteness in practices, policies, and spaces at predominantly white institutions. We used a critical resistance analysis (CRA) process to demonstrate how SAPs' narratives served as counternarratives, antenarratives, and resistance to institutional actors who refuse to acknowledge and name racism. Our findings illuminate whiteness as a racial ideology shedding light on the way whiteness is normalized, advantaged by the dominant group, and perpetuated through color evasive and race-neutral responses to racialized incidents. Several implications related to this work are described as there is a need to openly name… [Direct]
(2022). Incorporating the Indigenous Evaluation Framework for Culturally Responsive Community Engagement. Psychology in the Schools, v59 n10 p1984-2004 Oct. Native American families, schools, and communities foster resilience among their youth who experience significant mental health disparities. To increase equity in mental health services for Native American students, it is essential that researchers employ culturally responsive community engagement when developing programs in schools. Guided by the Indigenous Evaluation Framework and Tribal Critical Race Theory, the aim of the current study was to examine our process of community engagement in the development of a culturally responsive school-based mental health program for students attending public school on the land of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. University-affiliated members of the research team who were engaged in the community-based participatory action research analyzed the process through individual reflexivity and collaborative discussions. Findings include themes of Centrality of Context and Relationships, Immersion into Community, Authentic Partnership,… [Direct]
(2022). Data Science Ethos Lifecycle: Interplay of Ethical Thinking and Data Science Practice. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, v30 n3 p228-240. This article presents the Data Science Ethos Lifecycle, a tool for engaging responsible workflow developed by an interdisciplinary team of social scientists and data scientists working with the Academic Data Science Alliance. The tool uses a data science lifecycle framework to engage data science students and practitioners with the ethical dimensions of their practice. The lifecycle supports practitioners to increase awareness of how their practice shapes and is shaped by the social world and to articulate their responsibility to public stakeholders. We discuss the theoretical foundations from the fields of Science, Technology and Society, feminist theory, and critical race theory that animate the Ethos Lifecycle and show how these orient the tool toward a normative commitment to justice and what we call the "world-making" view of data science. We introduce four conceptual lenses–positionality, power, sociotechnical systems, and narratives–that are at work in the Ethos… [Direct]
(2020). Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Trauma-Informed, Critical Race Perspective on School Discipline. Children & Schools, v42 n3 p171-178 Jul. Disciplinary policies in schools throughout the United States disproportionately affect students of color through exclusionary policies. A punitive approach can have detrimental effects on a population that also experiences higher rates of trauma. This article identifies school disciplinary practices that may retraumatize and criminalize youths and suggests replacing exclusionary discipline practices with trauma-informed ones that prioritize social-emotional support to students. Critical race theory (CRT) is an appropriate theoretical framework to guide the development of trauma-informed schools. Suggestions are provided for school social workers as key change agents in the issue of school discipline. The integration of CRT and trauma-informed practice is emphasized, as both are essential tools for dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline…. [Direct]
(2020). "Hey, Black Child. Do You Know Who You Are?" Using African Diaspora Literacy to Humanize Blackness in Early Childhood Education. Journal of Literacy Research, v52 n4 p406-431 Dec. This article examines the partnership between a teacher and teacher educator disrupting a colonized early childhood curriculum that fosters a dominance of whiteness by replacing it with the beauty and brilliance of Blackness. We explore the following research question: "What are the affordances of teaching from an Afrocentric stance in a first-grade classroom?" We employ Afrocentrism, which includes African cultural principles as the paradigm, and our theoretical lenses are Critical Race Theory and Black Critical Theory. Our Sankofa methodology revealed that African Diaspora literacies fostered (a) positive racial and gender identities, (b) community, and (c) positive linguistic identities in the work to help children to love themselves, their histories, and their peoples. We close with implications…. [Direct]
(2020). Disrupting an Imposed Racial Identity or Performing the Model Minority? The Pursuit of Postsecondary Education by Young African Immigrant Men in Southern Ontario, Canada. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v23 n5 p693-711. This article examines how young African immigrant men in Southern Ontario cope with the dominant racial identity at school in an effort to improve their academic performance and access postsecondary education (PSE). Critical race theory in education is employed to explain how the young men distance themselves from stereotypes about Black masculinity by regulating their own behaviour and differentiating themselves from their Caribbean immigrant peers. Sixty-seven young men who had immigrated to Southern Ontario from several African countries over the last 10 years were interviewed individually and in focus groups for the study. The findings suggest that the research participants adopted a model minority status within an educational system that clearly embodies racist and systemically oppressive frameworks…. [Direct]
(2020). "Lies My Teacher [Educator] Still Tells": Using Critical Race Counternarratives to Disrupt Whiteness in Teacher Education. Teacher Educator, v55 n3 p300-322. The purpose of this study was to disrupt whiteness through the use of critical race counternarratives during a critical literacy workshop with middle-school preservice teachers. Over two years, 57 preservice teachers participated in and reflected on their experiences reading master narratives and viewing counternarrative texts in a critical literacy workshop. Students responded in a variety of ways that ranged from displacing responsibility for their ignorance about the counternarrative texts onto educational structures, to troubling their roles in reproducing oppressive school environments and considering action steps for future teaching. Our research has important implications for preservice teachers, teacher educators, and those interested in implementing preservice teacher educator curriculum using a critical race theory lens…. [Direct]
(2020). From Deliberation to Counter-Narration: Toward a Critical Pedagogy for Democratic Citizenship. Theory and Research in Social Education, v48 n3 p431-454. Best practices in civic education emphasize deliberative pedagogies as one of the most powerful ways to educate enlightened democratic citizens. Yet deliberative pedagogies are rooted in a white normative ideal of discursive democracy that, in the service of "civility" and "reasoned discourse," fails to account for the social and political inequalities–the logic of white supremacy–that structures our political context. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and Charles Mills's notion of the racial contract, I propose a pedagogy of counternarration that privileges voices from the margins, imagines the world as it could be, and talks back to dominant narratives in order to cultivate justice-oriented citizens in the democratic classroom…. [Direct]
(2020). When Whiteness Clouds Mindfulness: Using Critical Theories to Examine Mindfulness Trainings for Educators in Urban Schools. Equity & Excellence in Education, v53 n4 p583-597. This article describes results from a critical co-ethnography focused on a mindfulness training for educators in an urban school district in the southeastern region of the U.S. Working across racial difference, and utilizing critical race theory and critical whiteness studies as lenses, the co-ethnographers identified individualism that subverted systemic levels of oppression, race neutral ideologies, and ways the curricula and facilitation of this mindfulness training may have missed opportunities for racial equity work. Additionally, ideologies of whiteness were present in the training despite being situated in a larger teacher residency program with a mission centered on the realization of equity and racial justice in schools. Implications for mindfulness programs and urban teacher residency models are explored…. [Direct]
(2020). Right to the Classroom: Seeking Spatial Justice in Kindergarten. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v52 n1 p151-172 Mar. This article uses Lefebvre's concept of right to the city to frame the practices of a Kindergarten teacher and her ability to create a more racially equitable classroom space. It explains how the teacher and researcher collaboratively engaged in racial spaces analysis and critical race theory to develop greater racial spatial awareness. The teacher was able to use this awareness to resist neoliberalism and the racialization space in her classroom. The article explains how framing classroom practice according to right to the city can help teachers and researchers work together towards spatial justice in schools, where the educational rights of students of color are not limited by reductive notions of property based in whiteness…. [Direct]