(2022). Between Racial Stranger and Racial Underling: Elastic Racialization of Asian Pacific Americans across White and Multiracial Academic Spaces. Journal of Political Science Education, v18 n2 p242-257. Using an autoethnographic approach, this article draws on my personal experience as an Asian Pacific American (APA) political theorist who has navigated between different institutional spaces to reflect on a phenomenon that I call "elastic racialization" of APAs in higher education and its implications on our pedagogic agenda and curriculum. While the existing notion of "differential racialization" critically captures the ways in which racial minority groups have been racialized in different ways in accordance with the changing interests of the dominant group, the concept is often used in a broad U.S. national context such that even though it underlines fluidity in the social construction of race, the racialized meanings of particular racial groups can become fixed understandings and paradigms. As a result, we stop short of exploring further how the differential racialization of people of color–for instance, APAs as the "model minority" and the… [Direct]
(2022). Neighborhood Democracy: Building Anchor Partnerships between Colleges and Their Communities. American Association of Colleges and Universities Higher education and America stand at a perilous moment brought about by economic and social inequality, racism, and the fracture of civic cohesion and structures. From its origins, the mission of American higher education was to promote democratic governance and a free, fair, and orderly society through the education of responsible citizens. Just as its mission has become more urgent, it is being undermined as colleges and universities find themselves trapped in a fiscal crisis that threatens their very institutional viability–a crisis in large part brought about by the very perpetuation of economic and racial inequity, and the consequent erosion of consensus about civic purpose and vision. This book argues that higher education can and must again take leadership in promoting the participatory processes and instilling the democratic values needed to build a vibrant and fair society. How to do that when, as Guarasci argues, a majority of colleges and universities are floundering… [Direct]
(2020). LATENT//Missing: On Missing Values, Narrative Power, and Data Politics in Discourse of COVID-19. Health Education & Behavior, v47 n5 p671-676 Oct. April is National Minority Health Month in the United States. The first week of April is National Public Health Week. This year, both occasions passed as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded and, in the process, rendered remarkably clear the magnitude of the United States' collective shortcomings in advancing population health equity–particularly as related to dominant narratives of health and data politics. Drawing from critical theory, I use essay to contextualize present COVID-19 discourse and poetry to situate this discourse within a broader historical arc of the United States' racist, classist, and homophobic proclivities in times of public health crises. I use the combination of essay/poem as creative praxis to analyze and reflect on our present moment in relation to public health pasts and to raise questions about public health research, education, and data futures–offering a critical commentary on the intersections of infectious diseases, structural inequality (e.g., racism),… [Direct]
(2017). "Do We Have to Call It That?" the Response of Neoliberal Multiculturalism to College Antiracism Efforts. Multicultural Perspectives, v19 n4 p215-222. The authors discuss the ways in which neoliberal multiculturalism influences the reception and implementation of antiracist initiatives on college campuses. They suggest the intersections of neoliberalism and racism produce a resistance to antiracist efforts and desire for softened multicultural approaches that maintain the status quo. Since the logics of White supremacy and capitalism dominate every space of our society, critical multiculturalism must address these oppressive systems in antiracism education…. [Direct]
(2023). Still I Rise: Agency of Black Collegian Women. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Auburn University. The research and discourse surrounding Black women in college has continued to expand in its scope in recent years. Scholars have written about Black college women in several ways describing the intersections of their multiple identities, racial battle fatigue, and the unique adversities they face (McKinzie & Richards, 2019, Shahid et al, 2018, Corbin et al, 2018). Scholarship and societal focus on Black women have made it clear that the experiences of these women are unique and invisible. The experiences of Black college women are even more so with a limited body of scholarship isolating experiences of racism, sexism, and marginalization (Patton & Croom, 2017). The support Black college women need to be successful in their collegiate career should be nuanced and specific to their experiences. To better support Black college women, higher education must first understand how these women navigate their success amid adversity, specifically at predominately white institutions…. [Direct]
(2024). Examination of the Influence of Social Emotional Learning Techniques on Coping, Academic Self-Efficacy, Belongingness, Microaggressions, and Affect of Black Students. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Texas Woman's University. Objective: To better understand the current perspectives of Black college and university students in the U.S., it is important to consider the system of injustice they navigate throughout their lifespan characterized by oppression and discrimination. This dissertation examined the impact of racism and discrimination on coping ability, sense of belonging, academic self-efficacy, experiences with microaggressions, and affect among Black undergraduate and graduate students. Method: Participants completed a pre- and post-survey consisting of the: Brief Coping with Problems Experienced Inventory (Brief COPE; Carver, 1997), College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES; Owen & Froman, 1988), Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS; Nadal, 2011), General Belongingness Scale (Malone, 2012), and Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Roberts et. al., 1999). The participants engaged in four virtual support group sessions. Participants completed the short form Positive and Negative… [Direct]
(2022). MyStory, YourStory, OurStory: Literacy Development in the Black Church Past, Present, & Future. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, v71 n1 p40-79 Nov. The Black Church is the oldest anti-racist institution in America. Having educated generations of Black families, birthed schools, universities, hospitals, financial institutions, various music genres, and nurtured numerous advocates and martyrs for freedom, including access to literacy, it is directly responsible for many of the most significant gains in racial equity in American history. Yet, the Black Church has largely been ignored in conversations concerning the best way to educate Black students in America's schools. A question for the 21st century is: "What can educators, particularly literacy researchers, learn from the Black Church?" The Black Church is an extremely underutilized resource from which educators could learn best practices in literacy education to potentially reduce educational inequities with persistence. What are some of these best practices? How and why are they implemented in the learning environment of the Black Church? When simultaneously… [Direct]
(2020). 'Getting in, Getting on, Getting out': Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Staff in UK Higher Education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v23 n6 p841-857. Research into the impact of neoliberalism has shown that institutional and individual pressure on staff working in Higher Education (HE), has changed over the last 30 years. Our first research study showed that the changes resulted in mostly negative experiences for White staff. In a second study we have investigated the impact of neoliberalism on Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff to investigate whether experiences matched those of their White colleagues. Drawing on narrative methodology, we undertook fourteen interviews, eight with BAME staff and six with White staff all with responsibility for equity in their institutions. We also drew on current and numerical data detailing employment patterns. While many of the negative impacts of neoliberalism were common to all staff, BAME staff offered a collective narrative focussing primarily on injustice, bullying and racism. Most striking was the pain resulting from simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility of BAME staff,… [Direct]
(2021). The Making of Global Black Anti-Citizen/Citizenship: Situating BlackCrit in Global Citizenship Research and Theory. Theory and Research in Social Education, v49 n2 p153-175. Our current moment is abundant in examples of global antiblackness whereby racial violence visibly signals the quotidian elimination of Blackness, or the making of Black people into an object or abstract discourse to be terminated. That antiblackness is global is nothing new. In fact, antiblackness has been and continues to be central to the making of Western empire and modernity as we know it. However, until this point, the social studies education discipline has yet to fundamentally advance a critical analytic that captures the specificity of global antiblackness and the invention of Black as non-human and anti-citizen. In this article, we aim to problematize vernacularized conceptualizations of citizenship in social studies education that sidestep the socio-historical significance of anti-Black world systems in the creation of human/non-human and, consequently, citizen/anti-citizen. More specifically, we argue that BlackCrit interlopes antiblackness in the intellectual… [Direct]
(2021). Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces. Teachers College Press Today's students use their digital expertise and the power of their voice to respond to issues of inequity in society. It is essential that teacher educators develop their own racial literacies and those of their preservice and classroom teachers to support student digital activism. From talking about race and racism to resisting the harmful narratives that circulate online but impact face-to-face interactions in the classroom, teacher educators must navigate sociotechnical spaces with a critical lens and develop strategies to help their preservice teachers do the same. This book is designed to increase educators' capacity and agency to respond to inequities that plague our educational system. The authors provide a framework to help readers rethink how curriculum and pedagogy impact classroom instruction. In "Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education," Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz provide theoretical and practical entry points into a conversation about race in the… [Direct]
(2021). "Traer√°s Tus Documentos (You Will Bring Your Documents)": Navigating the Intersections of Disability and Citizenship Status in Special Education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v24 n5 p687-702. DisCrit has illuminated the interconnectivity of racism and ableism, though the experiences of undocumented youth and families enrolled in special education are largely unknown. In this paper, we explore the experiences of students at the intersection of disability and migratory status, examining the interplay of fear, schooling, and language use as students pursue college. We use DisCrit to help us understand historical patterns surrounding citizenship and how race, ableism, and documentation status continue to intersect and shape the acknowledgment of which bodies — with which papers — are rendered deserving. Examining interviews with students, researcher memos and fieldnotes, and researcher reflections, we consider the cases of Fernanda, an undocumented high schooler, and Daniel, a 9th grader from a mixed-citizenship status family. We highlight how students at the intersection of migratory status and disability are met with care by teachers and schools, yet remain unsupported in… [Direct] [Direct]
(2020). Understanding Race and Racism among Immigrant Children: Insights into Anti-Bias Education for All Students. Early Childhood Education Journal, v48 n5 p537-548 Sep. This study examines relationship dynamics between young immigrant children in an afterschool program, and the ways in which these children become involved in racial discrimination and exclusion whereby one group perceives itself as majority. In order to explore and understand these children's narratives and behaviors in an in-depth and comprehensive way, this study utilizes a qualitative case study approach. Employing a sociocultural theoretical lens as an analytic tool, this study provides insight into how young immigrant children whose first languages are other than English are aware of linguistic and cultural differences among their peers in the afterschool context, and how they develop their social attitudes toward these differences, include or exclude children, and negotiate power in their relationships. The findings extend the discourse of racism beyond the Black-White framework, increase awareness and understanding of how racial discrimination plays out between young immigrant… [Direct]
(2022). Preparing Teachers to Engage in Civic Participation through Computing. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University. Scholars like Ruha Benjamin have cautioned how hegemonic technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen racism against Black and Brown folks due to racial biases in "neutral/normative" Artificial Intelligence and over-surveillance of Black folks. K-12 education can also contribute to this hegemony. Culturally Responsive Computing (CRC) is an approach that works with students to challenge these hegemonic narratives and construct better anti-racist dynamics in the society while using various technologies. Unfortunately there exist several problems in fully realizing this. The K-12 Computer Science (CS) space, like much of CS, is dominated primarily by White folks which increases many hegemonic and racist issues. There are implications both in the CS field and in the world, through racially-biased technologies like facial recognition software that do not accurately identify dark-skinned folks. White K-12 teachers in CS have shown to be often race-evasive, which further… [Direct]
(2020). Nature Matters: Diffracting a Keystone Concept of Environmental Education Research — Just for Kicks. Environmental Education Research, v26 n9-10 p1509-1526. As a keystone species the concept 'nature' plays a vital role in shaping our world. In this article, we think with the material turn about the "concept" nature due to its significant performativity in its role within environmental education and research. How nature is conceived is played out on a massive scale as matter itself is morphed through conceptual processes. Therefore, we focus on the matter(ing) of conceptual abstraction, the physical effects — and affects — of thinking a thing into existence. We initiate a pluralistic thought experiment that purposefully diffracts nature into eight performances, to see what it "does." The concept nature performs ecologically and enacts trophic cascades. This exploration highlights feats of racism, classism, androcentrism, colonialism, homogenization, and mass extinction. What we are proposing is an environmental literacy that attends to what a concept is capable of, what a concept can do, and perhaps even what a… [Direct]
(2020). The Affective Grounding of Post-Truth: Pedagogical Risks and Transformative Possibilities in Countering Post-Truth Claims. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v28 n1 p77-92. The aim of this paper is to map a line of theorizing affect and its entanglement with post-truth, and use this theorization to think about what it could mean for the role of educators–that is, what can be done in education to respond critically to the affective infrastructures of post-truth politics? This question arises at a historical juncture of widespread views that post-truth politics create an urgency for reframing post-truth experiences as "productive" pedagogical engagements. The paper draws on affect theory to show how the affective grounding of post-truth claims works to govern our subjectivities and "how" emotions matter in constructing certain truths that reproduce social and political evils such as racism, sexism and xenophobia. The analysis shows how this nuanced understanding of affect, governmentality and post-truth can be helpful in educational settings to respond critically to post-truth politics, while paying attention to risks emerging from… [Direct]