(2024). Teaching Students about Race and Racism: Navigating Dimensions of Political Ideology. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, v27 n3 p96-105. This teaching case explores the complexities of teaching students about race and racism, a struggle complicated by political efforts to restrict the discussion of critical educational theories. It emphasizes the political ideologies that faculty must consider as they teach in an academic setting. The case narrative illuminates the complexity of diverse and divisive political ideologies that veer from scholarship into emotion. This case offers questions for further reflection on solutions to these challenges…. [Direct]
(2005). Educational Inequities and Latina/o Undergraduate Students in the United States: A Critical Race Analysis of Their Educational Progress. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, v4 n3 p272-294 Jul. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework, the authors analyze the educational inequities and racialized barriers faced by Latina/o college students when navigating the educational pipeline leading to a college degree. The impact of racialized structures, policies, and practices is examined in the context of how they influence the educational attainment and academic progress of Latinas/os. The article concludes by offering CRT-based policy and practical approaches to enhancing the success of Latina/o college students…. [Direct]
(2023). Toward a Framework for Critical Racial Literacy. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v26 n1 p73-93. Racial literacy was introduced in the early twenty-first century and has proliferated as a research framework and methodology. In education research specifically, racial literacy has been used as a foundation for empirical research and as a broader concept informing education practices. Mindful of this wide-ranging approach, a multidisciplinary team conducted a summative content analysis of extant education research explicitly drawing on racial literacy to survey the landscape of its applications and effects. We wanted to catalogue the ways racial literacy informs research in teaching and learning and how racial literacy might be used in 2020 and beyond. Evidence from this analysis illustrated varying ways researchers have viewed and appropriated racial literacy. From these findings, we consider implications of using racial literacy in education research and present an approach that moves towards a more unified and critical embodiment of racial literacy guided by the fact that Black… [Direct]
(2023). Latina Leaders: A Case Study of Successful Latina Administrators Who Have Been Recruited, Promoted, and Retained at Three Universities in South Central Texas. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Baylor University. Latinx students enroll in higher education in more significant numbers than most minorities. However, Latinx administrators in the United States comprised 14% of total administrators in 2021 (Zippia, 2023b). The Association of American Colleges & Universities (Dedman, 2019) explains the college presidency is 58.1% White and male. White women make up only 21% of college presidents. Still, women of color only represent 5.1% of the 21% of college presidents. Additionally, "students were more likely to encounter people of color in service roles than in faculty or leadership positions" (Dedman, 2019, p. 3). With the continuous growth of Latinx students and the lack of increase in Latina leadership at the university level, it is appropriate to study the success stories of Latinas who have attained higher-education administrative positions. This explanatory multiple case study examined the experiences of Latinas recruited, promoted, and retained in administrator positions at… [Direct]
(2023). A Revised GTCrit Framework: A Broadened Critical Lens for Gifted and Advanced Education Settings. Berkeley Review of Education, v12 n2. For decades, gifted education equity advocates have sought to ameliorate the field's longstanding issue of under-representation of students from historically marginalized communities. Little improvement has been realized in schools over this time (Peters, 2021). Recently, Novak (2022a) presented a GTCrit framework in a textbook primarily centered on race and directed towards gifted education practitioners and advocates. However, since critical frameworks have been largely lacking from gifted education research (Goings & Ford, 2018), and additional issues beyond race are present in the field, a broadening of Novak's (2022a) initially proposed framework may be beneficial in moving critical theories into research pertaining to gifted education. In this piece, I highlight the equity areas most relevant to the field of gifted education, review common themes across critical frameworks, and build upon Novak's ideas to present a revised conceptual framework that could be applied to both… [PDF]
(2023). Elevating Mathematics Achievement Outcomes for Black Boys: Guidance for Practitioners, Policymakers, and Researchers. Theory Into Practice, v62 n4 p420-430. School-aged Black boys are mathematically gifted; however, they are often underserved vis-√ -vis their mathematics education. In this article, we provide guidance for multiple stakeholders to support and elevate high-quality mathematics learning opportunities for Black male youth. In doing so, we begin by engaging W. E. B. Du Bois' storytelling. We then offer BlackCrit as a theoretical frame to enrich evidence-based work regarding Black mathematics teachers and culturally relevant pedagogy. We also advocate for the establishment of "grow-your-own" programs given the strong links to Black male achievement as well as the critical need for continuous federal funding in service to Black boys' mathematics education. We conclude with a summary of the guidance provided to bolster school-aged Black boys' mathematics achievement outcomes…. [Direct]
(2005). Weaving Multiple Dialects in the Classroom Discourse: Poetry and Spoken Word as a Critical Teaching Tool. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, v9 n2 p71-90 Fall-Win. Spoken word is a form of poetry that utilizes the strengths of the communities: oral tradition, call-and-response, home languages, storytelling, and resistance. Spoken word poetry is usually performed for an audience and must be heard. The authors are interested in investigating how spoken word can be utilized as a critical teaching tool that can be employed to foster critical consciousness, dialogue, and action. In other words, how students can reflect and articulate their lived experiences while envisioning new possibilities. In this paper, the authors provide an overview of some of the key ideas and concepts of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, and Critical Literacy studies. Through an examination of the major components of Critical Pedagogy, they evidence the libratory potential of spoken word. In offering an overview of Critical Race Theory, they highlight the practice of counter-storytelling as a central theme of spoken word. An analysis of Critical Literacy studies… [PDF] [Direct]
(2022). "It Reeks of First-Wave Whiteness": A Reimagined Critical Whiteness Studies and Feminist of Color Teacher Education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v35 n7 p737-743. In this article, we offer the perspective of a feminist of Color analysis on how teaching has been constructed into a race, gender, and class mold that purposely includes certain bodies–namely white middle-class women–while excluding anyone who does not fit the mold. More specifically, we use intersectionality to analyze the interplay between teachers and the structuring of teaching. In doing so, we respond to the recent compartmentalization of the critical whiteness studies (CWS) field by putting CWS in conversations with feminist of Color perspectives. We also provide take away points for why a cohesive CWS field, in dialogue with other critical conversations, is essential in making visible the larger social landscape of power in education, a landscape in which we, as scholars and educators, are all embedded…. [Direct]
(2010). Successful White Mathematics Teachers of African American Students. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Georgia State University. In the United States, a growing disparity exists between the racial composition of teachers and the students they teach. In 2006, 43.1% of K-12 public school students were reported as non-White–in 1990, 32.4% (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). Teachers, however, are predominantly White, 83.3% (U.S. Department of Education, 2007a). Exacerbating this disparity, it has been noted that fewer African Americans are choosing education as a profession (see, e.g., Irvine, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 1994). This growing disparity motivates a crucial question: Can White teachers be successful with \other people's children\ (Delpit, 1995)? This study explores this question by examining the life histories of four White mathematics teachers who have experienced success with other people's children, specifically, with African American children. The purpose of the study was to better understand what led each of the participants to teach African American children, and what factors may have led to her… [Direct]
(2013). The Dilemma: Career Transition of African American Male Football Players at Division I Institutions. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Mississippi. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore and understand perceptions of African American male football athletes at Division I institutions that also played professional football, regarding their collegiate experiences and transition from athletics to post-playing careers. The study examined issues of race and social interaction, academic preparation, economic status, leadership opportunities, and the transitions from collegiate and professional sports. The participants in this study consisted of six former NFL players who attended college and played collegiately at NCAA predominately white Division I institutions in the Southern Regional Education Board member states in the United States. Using qualitative interview methods (pre-interview, focus group, individual interview), data was collected and analyzed using critical race and transition theories. The results of the analysis of the interview data identified six major themes: 1) The Importance of… [Direct]
(2024). Fostering Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies in Preservice Teachers: The Role of the University Supervisor. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v37 n2 p597-612. As anti-oppressive pedagogies gain increasing prominence in teacher education, there is a need to examine how preservice teachers understand and implement anti-oppressive frameworks. The role of the university supervisor is uniquely well-positioned to allow for insight into preservice teacher pedagogical practices; however, this role is grossly understudied. This study explores how the university supervisor fosters White preservice teachers' theoretical and historical understandings of oppression, as well as the supervisor's role in the negotiation between preservice teacher identity and implementations of anti-oppressive pedagogies. This study utilizes data from preservice teachers' observations and reflections, and positions the university supervisor as an autoethnographic educator-researcher in order to understand the White supervisor's own anti-oppressive practices. Drawing on Critical Whiteness Studies informed by intersectionality, we present two vignettes that illuminate the… [Direct]
(2024). Justice-Oriented, Antiracist Validation: Continuing to Disrupt White Supremacy in Assessment Practices. Educational Assessment, v29 n1 p1-20. Traditional validation approaches fail to account for the ways oppressive systems (e.g. racism, radical nationalism) impact the test design and development process. To disrupt this legacy of white supremacy, we illustrate how justice-oriented, antiracist validation (JAV) framework can be applied to construct articulation and validation, data analysis, and score reporting/interpretation phases of assessment design/development. In this article, we use the JAV framework to describe validation processes that acknowledge the role and impact of race/racism on our assessment processes–specifically construct articulation, analysis, and score reporting–on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other students from historically marginalized populations. Through a JAV framework, we seek to disrupt inaccurate white supremacist approaches and interpretations that for too long have fuelled measurement practices…. [Direct]
(2024). Constructing an Educational "Quality" Crisis: (E)quality Politics and Racialization beyond Target Beneficiaries. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, v46 n2 p192-221. In this critical, political discourse analysis, we trace how two concepts, equity and quality, became discursively linked and contested in the administration of postsecondary education policy over time (1968-1994) — a developmental process we refer to as (e)quality politics. By engaging in a historical analysis, we investigate (a) the racialized political origins and discursive processes by which arguments over educational "quality" are advanced as part of an antiequity policy paradigm and (b) how this paradigm reinscribes racial inequity into administrative and organizational action over time. We illustrate how, once an (e)quality politics paradigm is established, racialized policy designs can persist, even in the absence of explicit references to racialized social constructions of target populations in later periods of policy development…. [Direct]
(2024). "Convivencias" across Space and Time within Educational History: A Critical Race Feminista Approach. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v37 n5 p1321-1334. This paper extends Critical Race Feminista Methodological (CRFM) approaches by contending that "convivencias" — the coexistence necessary for creating relationships in the field — are an integral part of engaging research collaborators within educational historical research. Drawing on oral histories with Chicana/o librarians, personal collections, and archival sources, I outline the "convivencias" I shared with librarians that span across spatial and temporal dimensions. These interactions were centered on recollecting, remembering, and learning about the activism within Latina/o/x children's literature and librarianship's history. "Convivencias" across space were possible through diverse interactions, such as in-person meetings, phone conversations, video conferences, and emails. "Convivencias" across time are represented by the continuity of sustained efforts to advance social justice in librarianship across multiple decades. The… [Direct]
(2006). Race and TESOL: Introduction to Concepts and Theories. TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect, v40 n3 p471-493 Sep. The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) brings people from various racialized backgrounds together in teaching, learning, and research. The idea of race, racialization, and racism are inescapable topics that arise in the contact zones created by teaching English worldwide and thus are valid topics to explore in the field. Nonetheless, unlike our peer fields such as anthropology, education, and sociology, the field of TESOL has not sufficiently addressed the idea of race and related concepts. This special topic issue is one of the first attempts in our field to fill the gap. This introductory article will survey key concepts and theories defined and debated in various fields, including race, ethnicity, culture, racialization, racism, critical race theory, and critical White studies, to provide a foundation for future explorations. (Contains 2 footnotes.)… [Direct]