(2021). A Call for a Critical-Historical Framework in Addressing the Mathematical Experiences of Black Teachers and Students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, v52 n4 p476-490 Jul. The purpose of this commentary is to acknowledge, illuminate, and counter the noticeable silences in the investigations of mathematics education researchers who conduct equity research with Black communities and other marginalized groups. For far too long, these communities have experienced a lengthy and complicated history of structural barriers; epistemological, symbolic, and intellectual violence; dehumanization; and antiblackness in mathematics education research. We advance the Critical-Historical (CritHistory) framework, which is rooted in critical race theory (CRT) and further explicates CRT's tenet of challenging ahistoricism. We discuss methodologies and implications, including example questions that could be posed, types and locations of archives that could be examined, and populations with whom oral histories could be conducted…. [Direct]
(2021). "I'll Find a Way or Make One": Atlanta University and the Emergence of Professional Social Work Education in the Deep South. Journal of Social Work Education, v57 n3 p419-431. Atlanta University, W.E.B. Du Bois, and professional social work education are forever linked in social thought, social reform, and progressive thinking that served African Americans. As a nascent profession in the first half of the 20th century, social work in the South navigated existing racialized customs and laws that required dual systems. The Atlanta School would become the first professional School of Social Work in the deep South and the first to address the needs of a black professional social work workforce in the region. Implication of this School's emergence and its role in contributing to innovations in strength perspective, critical race theory, spirituality, empowerment, and research in social work education will be discussed…. [Direct]
(2021). Equity Elementary: "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" Staff in Public Schools. Backgrounder. No. 3666. Heritage Foundation An analysis of student test-score data shows that employing a chief diversity officer (CDO) in K-12 school districts does not contribute to closing achievement gaps and is even likely to exacerbate those gaps. If CDOs are not accomplishing their stated goals, what is accomplished by creating these positions? CDOs may be best understood as political activists who articulate and enforce an ideological orthodoxy within school districts. They help to mobilize and strengthen the political influence of one side. The creation of CDOs tilts the political playing field against parent and teacher efforts to remove the radical ideology of critical race theory and other illiberal ideals from school curricula and practices…. [PDF]
(2023). Pandemic Iteration: Constructing Alternative Ways of Knowing & Being through Critical Posthuman Educational Technology in Museums. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University. This dissertation and research study is dedicated to the exploration of "critical posthuman educational technology." Research in this study determines, evaluates, and considers educational technology in U.S. art museums through a wide-reaching survey and case study evaluations of the implementation of digital content creation in museums during the COVID-19 era. Critical posthumanism provides a way to understand and restructure expectations of the educational goals of museums that are aligned with the experiences and expectations of digital learning as well as incorporate a multitude of ontological considerations through Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Critical Disability Studies. Beyond simply assessing what has happened in museums, this study seeks to find opportunities for greater change within the system of museum practice and education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is… [Direct]
(2023). Discrit Noticing: Theorizing at the Intersections of Race and Ability in Mathematics Education. School Science and Mathematics, v123 n8 p417-431. While there is increased attention to power, privilege, and access in mathematics education, conversations around race and disability are often left out of the conversation. Disability in mathematics continues to be studied with a lens that focuses on behavior, rather than attending to the situated and sociopolitical context in which teaching and learning takes place. This paper specifically calls on the importance of an intersectional analysis of ability and the need for explicit conversation on the interwoven nature of race and disability to uncover exclusionary practices of hyper-labeling, hyper-surveilling, and hyper-punishing for those outside notions of normalcy. Drawing on sociopolitical perspectives informed by Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) and DisCrit Classroom Ecology, I share a framework of DisCrit noticing to consider the interwoven nature of racism and ableism in mathematics classrooms, provide a context to develop preservice teacher DisCrit noticing during… [Direct]
(2023). "Everything Can't Be White": A Love Story of How Black Girls Resist White Supremacy through Self-Love, Imagination, Play, Solidarity and Joyful Literacy. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Rochester. Elementary-aged Black girls in predominantly white schools often exist within the constructions of racist and sexist conditions. These conditions inform their school experiences and subject them to a magnitude of social, physical, mental, and psychological violence. Despite the harm that predominately white schools produce onto the bodies of minoritized Black girls, these harms often go unreported, under-researched, and unaddressed. While research has examined the lived experiences of middle and high-school-aged Black girls in predominantly white schools, research concerning the lived experiences of elementary-aged Black girls in the same context remains desolate. Furthermore, even less is known about the ways in which Black girls employ literacy practices during ELA instructional time and how their literacy practices are often resistance strategies used to make sense, resist and call attention to their minoritized school experiences. Additionally, it is crucial to understand the… [Direct]
(2023). Ascertaining the Workplace Wealth of Black Womxn Student Affairs Practitioners at Jesuit Colleges and Universities. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Saint Louis University. To better understand higher education administration practices, I investigated the perspectives of Black womxn student affairs practitioners' aspirational, social, educational, historic, navigational, resistance, and cultural capital which comprised workplace wealth. The data collection utilized a qualitative research methodology. To encourage participants to freely express their experiences, a two-part focus group was convened. The 'Sista Circle' methodology and practice served as both an informational resource and a venue for communal empowerment. The analytical framework was guided by a conglomeration of philosophic and conceptual frameworks including Afrocentricity, Black Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory of Education, and the Community Cultural Wealth epistemologies. The gathering of stories and experiences from this study will acknowledge, honor, and enhance the collective voice of Black womxn working in Student Affairs roles at Jesuit Colleges and Universities. [The… [Direct]
(2023). "The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations": Perceptions of Teacher Expectations among Black Families in a Suburban School. Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v59 n3 p247-263. Building upon literature that has shown that Black students hold definitive beliefs about their teachers' expectations and knowing these notions have impact on Black student achievement, we explore the experiences within a school district where diversity and inclusion efforts have been ongoing. The participants of this study were high-achieving students and their parents, a nuance that provides depth to understanding Black families' perceptions of teacher expectations. Critical Race Theory (CRT) served as the theoretical framework and the tenets of permanence of racism, interest convergence, critique of liberalism, and whiteness as property, were employed as categorical themes to centralize the focus on how the families made meaning of their educational experiences through a CRT lens. Findings revealed that the participants were subject to unjust, low expectations that created and maintained a racial hierarchy and an anti-Black ideation on the part of teachers and school authorities…. [Direct]
(2023). Achievement as White Settler Property: How the Discourse of Achievement Gaps Reproduces Settler Colonial Constructions of Race. Education Policy Analysis Archives, v31 n13 Feb. Racialized narratives of academic ability, perpetuated by ahistorical interpretations of student performance data, have led to educational policies focusing on short-term solutions, instead of the ongoing legacies of racism and settler colonialism. The aim of this paper is to show how the racially defined achievement gap operates within the structure of settler colonialism. Informed by theories of settler colonialism (Tuck & Yang, 2012, Veracini, 2010) and critical race theory (Harris, 1993; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), I closely examine some Toronto District School Board documents that address the so-called achievement and opportunity gaps. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper shows how the notion of achievement is racialized to protect white settler property rights, and how the discourse of achievement gaps functions as a settler technology to concurrently include and exclude individuals from the settler project. Understanding the settler colonial constructions… [PDF]
(2018). Stereotypes, Control, Hyper-Surveillance, and Disposability of NCAA Division I Black Male Athletes. New Directions for Student Services, n163 p33-42 Fall. This chapter uses critical race theory as an interpretive framework to explain and operationalize the role of race and racism in the lived experiences and challenges of Division I Black male athletes, and specifically in relation to engagement and achievement at Predominantly White Institutions…. [Direct]
(2023). "I'm Concerned about Actually Doing It": The Struggles of Pre-Service Teachers Becoming Change Agents. Middle School Journal, v54 n4 p37-50. This paper reports the struggles of 24 pre-service teachers (PTs) while intentionally integrating anti-racist pedagogy in which they were trained in a secondary teacher education program. PTs participating in this study are from various disciplines (i.e. Science, Math, English and Social Studies). Our findings reveal a multitude of struggles that PTs face when designing and implementing social justice-oriented curricula at the middle school level. Specifically, PTs reflected on and wrestled with three major concerns: (1) PTs' own identities of being White and/or new teachers when they engaged with diverse student groups; (2) parents' misperception about Critical Race Theory; (3) a lack of support from leadership regarding social justice issues. Our research suggests that in order to be change agents, PTs need more support from teacher education programs on their teaching practice for the social justice issues in addition to theoretical training. We argue that university faculty,… [Direct]
(2023). Understanding the 'Degree Awarding Gap' in Geography, Planning, Geology and Environmental Sciences in UK Higher Education through Peer Research. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, v47 n2 p227-247. This paper draws on critical race theory to analyse testimonies from students that help explain why minoritised ethnic communities studying geography, planning, geology and environmental sciences in the UK, have a lesser chance of being awarded a 'good' degree (i.e. an upper second- or first-class), in comparison to White British people. There are very low levels of ethnic diversity across these subject areas. We conducted peer research, including student-led semi-structured interviews at one British university over a five-month period (involving 38 participants in total). Our analysis explores the processes of minoritisation owing to cultures of Whiteness. These relate to teaching and learning spaces, off-campus encounters, university societies, student representation/committees, social interactions, part-time employment and caring responsibilities. We conclude with a call for action to reframe and disassemble the 'degree awarding gap' through student and staff co-design of policies… [Direct]
(2018). A Critical Co-Constructed Autoethnography of a Gendered Cross-Cultural Mentoring between Two Early Career Latin@ Scholars Working in the Deep South. Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v54 n2 p165-182. Multicultural mentoring has been suggested to support Latin@ faculty success in their careers, yet current literature on effective mentorships of Latin@ faculty is limited. This critical co-constructed autoethnography draws on critical race theory (CRT) and latin@ critical race theory (LatCrit) frameworks to highlight the lived experiences and key elements of an effective gendered cross-cultural mentoring relationship in a Latin@ pretenure faculty dyad working in a predominantly White institution of higher education located in the Deep South of the United States. Drawing upon a methodological rhythm of sorts, a Black scholar acts as a muse providing "testimonios" and interpretations of a relationship existing among Latin@ scholars in predominantly White intellectual spaces. Findings from this critical co-constructed autoethnography note that a safe colored space supports effective mentoring, "familismo," "personalismo," enabling effective cross-cultural… [Direct]
(2022). Cause with Effect: Critical Whiteness Studies and the Material Consequences of Whiteness on Communities of Color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v35 n7 p711-718. Cabrera described the development of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), in particular within higher education scholarship, as a complementary response to Critical Race Theory (CRT). Specifically, if CRT work in higher education offers a deep analysis of the harm of systemic racial marginalization on BIPOC communities (effect), then CWS explores the inner working of Whiteness that led to this racial harm (cause). However, there is contemporary concern that CWS is evolving into more of a space for White people to explore Whiteness without directly linking it to anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, anti-Brownness, and anti-Asianness, essentially an inversion of the original problem (cause without effect). Therefore, I am proposing a CWS moving ahead that explicitly merges both lines of inquiry so that CWS offers the underlying structures and mechanisms of racial marginalization (cause) coupled with the material consequences of this on BIPOC communities (effect)…. [Direct]
(2023). Examining Implicit Biases of Pre-Service Educators within a Professional Development Context. Contemporary School Psychology, v27 n4 p646-661. The opportunity gap, or conditions and barriers that impede the academic performance and school experience of minoritized students, may be exacerbated by educators' implicit biases. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand preservice educators' awareness of individual, structural, and systemic racism with regard to implicit bias. Our sample included 154 preservice educators, enrolled in an anti-bullying/harassment/discrimination training, which is required for any New York State (NYS) educator certification. Educators responded to questions about group generalizations, factors contributing to these biases, and how biases may affect their behavior toward students. Our content analysis revealed several themes, most notably that frequent biases existed toward Asian/Asian Americans, Black/African Americans, males, and people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Although participant responses reflect an open-minded approach to discussing bias, many responses… [Direct]