(2024). Multimodality and Critical Race Theory as Tools of Canonical Subversion. English in Education, v58 n3 p222-239. Research has called for nuanced scholarly investigations that synergise, complicate, and advance social theories of literacy. Accordingly, this study melds critical literacy, critical race theory, and multiliteracies to distil students' involvement with the canonical "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," investigating: What are participants' design experiences reading canonical literature through a critical race theory lens, and what does multimodal design reveal about students' critical literacies? Design reflects both understanding and meaning making using multiple sign systems. Applying case study methodologies, researchers investigated the experiences of 24 eleventh-grade students in an American literature course. Layers of inductive and deductive analysis reveal two findings specific to students' experiences with multiliteracies: successes with literal transmediation and barriers to imaginative transmediation. Findings were then deductively treated with tenets of… [Direct]
(2022). Curriculum, Conflict, and Critical Race Theory. Phi Delta Kappan, v103 n5 p47-53 Feb. Recent discussions about critical race theory (CRT) have exposed, once again, the heated disagreements that prevail in the United States regarding the nature of its racial past and present. This debate is highly significant in itself, but the dispute is also noteworthy for revealing how quickly a contentious issue can become a lightning rod for considerations of what students should learn. This article addresses CRT and the role it can play in helping to explore past and current racial politics; the value of placing the current controversy within the context of a long history of curriculum conflict; and the need for critical reflection, active collaboration, and courage among educators…. [Direct]
(2024). Troubling Hegemonic Racialized Ideologies in Education with Critical Race Theory. Thresholds in Education, v47 n1 p5-22. As an epistemological, axiological, and methodological paradigm, Critical Race Theory (CRT; Crenshaw et al., 2000; Harris, 1993) is a scholarly tool to identify and disrupt inequities, possible via CRT's core tenets towards troubling systemic racism. We argue that political movements in North Carolina (NC) exhibit attempts to delegitimize critical race scholarship and curricula that accurately portray history and contemporary student populations' racialized experiences, a manifestation of the conservative agenda to whitewash the state's history that is predicated on racism and white supremacy. In alignment with radical theorizations and research that examine ideologies at the root of ill-informed hysteria, we present a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the effects of political power in foreclosing educational possibilities toward building equitable societies through our analysis of data from NC's Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students for North… [PDF]
(2023). Conjuring the Devil: Historicizing Attacks on Critical Race Theory. Thresholds in Education, v46 n1 p33-47. In this paper, we explore white supremacy's "projection" of the "devil" by focusing on its construction and deployment of what Stanley Cohen (1972/2002) terms "folk devils" or those who are seen as deviant. We argue Critical Race Theory (CRT) and conjoining equity centered discourses and practices are situated as a folk devil. Understanding the significance of history to CRT analysis, this paper historicizes current attacks on CRT by looking to the evidentiary record of previous conservative efforts to ban "subversive knowledge" and to categorize it as a folk devil. We suggest these attacks are part of a larger political project of white epistemological capture, which is a tactic used to foreclose emancipatory thought and solidify violent white ways of knowing and being. Drawing on narratives from conservative politicians and thought leaders, this paper utilizes critical race theory's constructs of racial realism and whiteness as property to… [PDF]
(2023). What Do So-Called Critical Race Theory Bans Say?. Educational Researcher, v52 n4 p248-250 May. In the wake of racial justice protests in the United States, many states adopted policies to constrain the discussion of racism, particularly contemporary and systemic racism, in K-12 classrooms. Discursively framed as "critical race theory bans," these policies enumerate lists of "prohibited concepts" to be eliminated from classroom instruction and curriculum materials. This brief document analysis provides an overview of first-wave prohibited concepts policies among the states to adopt such policies during the 2020-2022 legislative sessions. The analysis summarizes the prohibited concepts, teaching practices that remain allowed, and the nature of the prohibitions…. [Direct]
(2024). Policy Opinions Regarding the Teaching of Critical Race Theory in Schools. Policy Futures in Education, v22 n7 p1516-1532. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has recently been positioned as a serious problem requiring urgent policy response among partisan media outlets. Making a case for pressing policy demands, several policy makers have proposed federal, state, and local level legislation and other measures to restrict how race, racism, or American history in general can be taught in K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and state agencies. Anti-CRT rhetoric in media and policy proposals have also propagated the notion of CRT as being divisive as well as ubiquitous in public education. Given this, it is critical to examine whether policy opinions regarding reactionary legislation is based on a real understanding of CRT. We conduct a conceptual and theoretical inquiry into anti-CRT rhetoric relying on the sociological concepts of moral panics and folk devils. Then, we examine familiarity, knowledge, ideology, policy beliefs, and policy opinions regarding CRT in education using nationally representative… [Direct]
(2024). Pernicious Campus Polarization over Critical Race Theory: A Case Study. Journal of Political Science Education, v20 n1 p69-89. Legislatures have banned CRT across many states in America, altering the country's campus climate. This case study surveys more than 200 students, faculty, and staff on campus to understand their points of view on CRT. The authors find a "pernicious polarization" dividing the university and suggest that university faculty consider a "Critical Patriotic Civic History" to provide a multi-perspectival pedagogy to prepare our multicultural student body to become our country's next generation of citizens…. [Direct]
(2023). Rejecting the Racial Contract: Charles Mills and Critical Race Theory. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v26 n4 p533-552. In this article, I explore the deep roots and long history of the attacks on Critical Race Theory in education, while at the same time savoring the equally long and eminently venerable and presently visible traditions forged by "the insights of generations of anonymous 'race men' [and 'race women] who, under the most difficult circumstances" developed 'the concepts necessary to trace the contours of the system oppressing them, defying the massive weight of a white scholarship that either morally justified this oppression or denied its existence' (1996, 131). I identify Critical Race Theory as the product of a long history of Afro-diasporic autonomous learning centers and parallel institutions as well as the producer of new ones…. [Direct]
(2023). A Critical Race Theory Assessment of Law Student Needs. Teachers College Record, v125 n5 p135-153 May. Background/Context: Law students of color have been struggling to recover from the heightened challenges they endured during the first two years of the pandemic. Struggles with food insecurity, financial anxiety, and emotional strain contribute to declining academic success for populations that were marginalized on law school campuses long before COVID. Legislative support is necessary to support students through this era so they can maximize their full potential. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The study seeks to understand law students' challenges during COVID and consider ways that administrators, legislators, and others can ameliorate their struggles. The objective is to provide greater support to already marginalized students during a time of significant stress and pressure. The focus of the study is on serving the needs of students of color, particularly women of color (drawing from an intersectional raceXgender framework from critical race theory). Research… [Direct]
(2024). Scales of Educational Resistance Practices against Critical Race Theory "Bans". Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v60 n5 p511-529. Numerous states have attempted to enact sweeping curricular bans targeting Critical Race Theory (CRT) to prevent educators from teaching content that challenges the white-Eurocentric curriculum of American schooling. In this paper, we build on arguments that curricular bans are not new to education, nor is the resistance enacted by educators to curricular bans. Through centering how educators in three different states are navigating the various tightness of spaces in their resistance, we look to provide a pathway forward for those looking to enact resistance to current (and future) curricular bans. This analysis contributes to how teacher educators and educational foundations scholars can think about teacher activism and resistances as pedagogical praxis…. [Direct]
(2023). Assignment Negotiation: Critical Race Theory and Educational Leadership Preparation Program. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, v26 n4 p89-101. The current tensions around racism in public schooling prompted Dr. Edwards, an assistant professor in educational leadership and policy studies, to teach critical race theory and assign a racism audit for doctoral students to use the theory in practice. Students were to complete their racism audit on their school campus. However, several students refused to complete the assignment. Some students refused for fear of job repercussions, while others accused Dr. Edwards of indoctrinating them with liberal political ideologies. This case explores the complexity and dilemmas that faculty encounter as they engage in antiracism leadership teaching during a time of racial reckoning…. [Direct]
(2024). Evolution to Critical Race Theory: Kentucky Legislative Curriculum Bans in 1922 and 2022. Educational Policy, v38 n6 p1418-1448. This article draws from primary and secondary historical sources such as public policy documents, speeches, and media reports to trace attempts made by the Kentucky legislature to ban controversial topics in public school curriculum–evolution in 1922 and critical race theory in 2022. Kingdon's multiple streams framework (MSF) serves as the model for this historical and contemporary comparative education policy analysis…. [Direct]
(2024). What Do So-Called Critical Race Theory Bans Mean for Elementary Literacy Instruction?. Reading Research Quarterly, v59 n2 p173-192. In recent years, a number of states in the United States have enacted educational policies, often referred to as "critical race theory" bans, that aim to restrict teaching about race and racism in schools. This study examines how current and future elementary literacy educators interpreted and intended to respond to one such law in Tennessee. Drawing theoretically on policy sociology and critical race theory policy analysis, we qualitatively analyzed data generated in focus groups with 18 prospective and practicing teachers. Our findings illustrate the restrictive effects of the policy on elementary literacy instruction, caused partially by teachers interpreting the policy as substantially impeding their ability to engage students in critically reading, writing, and talking about race and racism. Further, findings demonstrate how this new policy intersected with and exacerbated existing curricular constraints in elementary literacy classrooms, including developmental… [Direct]
(2024). Towards a Racial Justice Project: Oral History Methodology, Critical Race Theory, and African American Education. Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v60 n3 p414-438. Oral historians have declared the methodology a social justice project. This essay advances that discussion, positing that oral history methodology may represent a more specific "racial" justice project when coupled with critical race theory. An examination of the history of African American education scholarship, we argue, supports this contention. Two central questions guide this essay: (1) What does scholarship on the history of African American education demonstrate about the compatibility between oral history methodology and critical race theory? and (2) How does this methodological-theoretical pairing advance a racial justice project? We aim to show how critical race theory and oral history methodology complement one another as research tools that can strengthen the history of education's capacity to inform current educational issues. Our essay draws on the work of historians of African American education to exemplify possibilities for any historian of education who… [Direct]
(2021). Countering the Furor around Critical Race Theory. NASSP Bulletin, v105 n3 p200-218 Sep. National right-wing media and their viewers are alleging that critical race theory (CRT) is "infecting" public school classrooms, fueling an assault on how schools should discuss race, racism, and our nation's history. This turmoil over curriculum and teaching "sensitive" topics is deeply upsetting to teachers. Principals can strengthen their school's climate, shared leadership, and improve instruction and academic success for all students by helping their teachers manage and respond appropriately to parental and community questions about CRT…. [Direct]