(2023). Storying against Non-Human/Superhuman Narratives: Black Youth Afro-Futurist Counterstories in Qualitative Research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v36 n3 p446-464. Antiblackness, and the dominant stories it produces about Black humanity, creates distorted images of Black humanness that are used to justify violence against Black youth in schools and society. However, Black youth have different stories to tell about their being in the world that stems directly from their lived experiences and are inherently counter to damaged center narratives intertwined with Black suffering. Using the theoretical framing of BlackCrit and theorizations of Afrofuturism, I share two composite Afro-futurist counterstories developed by Black high school students in a summer writing course, which confront antiblackness and disrupt the ways the regime makes educators complicit in seeing Black youth as non-human/superhuman. The research provides insights into Black youth futurity in relation to schooling in an anti-Black world…. [Direct]
(2023). "To Be Our Best Selves": Critical Dialogue with Girls of Color about Their Experiences in a Social Justice Leadership Program. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, v20 n1 p63-89. This critical qualitative study explores the affordances of social justice-oriented education that centers youth of color and their desire to engage in complex and nuanced dialogue concerning social and political issues relevant to their lives. In doing so, this paper focuses on the experiences of six high school girls of color participating in a New York City based nonprofit program committed to social justice, activism, and leadership. Specifically, it investigates their participation in a course as they interrogated power, oppression, and privilege at the interpersonal and institutional levels. Guided by the theoretical underpinnings of Critical Race Feminism (CRF) and figured worlds, this study's findings highlight the necessity of discussions about topics often seen as "taboo" in school spaces. The girls saw the dismissal and/or reluctance to engage with "uncomfortable topics" in schools as an attempt to cover up or shield students from histories and… [Direct]
(2023). Divining an Afrofuturist Music Education. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, v22 n4 p131-158. I argue that an analysis of antiblack racism in music education discourse is crucial in identifying and addressing potential for harm in the music classroom. I contend that Black children are particularly, and regularly, subjected to poor stereotypical depictions of their identity in digital media. Furthermore, I contend that this digital socialization has far-reaching implications in school. I use the framework of Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) to explore interpersonal, curricular, and environmental sites of antiblack assault that are commonplace in schools and, specifically, music classrooms. Using a selection of Janelle Mon√°e's music, I explore themes of resistance and affirmation through an Afrofuturist lens. I conclude my paper by proposing that Afrofuturism can serve as a disruption that may create sites of affirmation for Black children. [Note: The page range (131-58) shown on the website is incorrect. The correct page range is 131-158.]… [Direct]
(2023). School and Community Leaders' Experiences Implementing Critical Well-Being during the Dual Pandemics. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago. Emerging research has revealed the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on communities of color (Wilder et al., 2021), and the subsequent rising rates of racialized trauma that has occurred due to increasing racial injustice in the United States (Horsford et al., 2021). Although calls have been made for trauma-informed and social and emotional learning efforts in schools to become more race conscious (Alvarez, 2020), healing centered (Ginwright, 2018), equity focused (Venet, 2021), and promote justice (Jagers et al., 2019); such articulations have not been documented in K-12 settings during this particular context. In this study–School and Community Leaders' Experiences Implementing Critical Well-Being During the Dual Pandemic — I document how a model called Critical Well-Being, which draws from, and remixes these aforementioned discourses, was implemented in a school community during the 20210/2022 school. This study particularly focuses on school and community leaders'… [Direct]
(2023). White, Award-Winning History Teachers' Narrations of Race, Anti/Racism, and Whiteness. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz. This dissertation study explores how white, award-winning history teachers narrate the role of race, racism, whiteness, and antiracism in their identity formation, in their understandings of society, and in their teaching of history. Drawing from a nationwide sample and utilizing surveys and semi-structured interviews, this project explores teachers' racial ideologies, antiracist pedagogies, and their navigation of their state and local contexts, especially those affected by anti- "CRT" legislation or policies. The dissertation provides an overview of teachers' narrations of race and related concepts, homing in on places of consistency and discordances in ideological articulation. This analysis leads to a focus on certain teachers' 'ideologies in pieces' (Philip, 2011), whose articulations of race and teaching commitments appear to conflict, contradict, or operate in tension, which tend to be spaces ripe for learning and transformation. The study follows with an overview of… [Direct]
(2023). "Once You See It, You Can't Unsee It.": A White Teacher and White Students' Exploration of Antiracist Education through Critical Whiteness Pedagogy. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Utah. White people have a responsibility due to their complicity in White Supremacy, to practice antiracism in solidarity for racial justice with Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) people and communities. Antiracist education, which fosters this sort of work, necessitates learning about racism and Whiteness to comprehend the violence of White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. With the help of critical Whiteness pedagogy and critical Whiteness studies broadly, I engaged my White student-participants in antiracist education. As a White, male teacher of a social justice course at Crescent View High School (CVHS), a public school in a ski resort town in the Intermountain West, I had two goals with this scholarship. My first goal in the dissertation was to analyze how White students studying and practicing antiracism understood their racial identities. My second goal was to describe the various ways they tried to practice antiracism. I used critical Whiteness methodology and critical… [Direct]
(2023). "It Wasn't Just about Learning How to Speak Spanish": Engaging Histories of Oppression and Enslavement in Spanish Heritage Language Education. Journal of Latinos and Education, v22 n5 p1815-1829. We present a curricular intervention in elementary Spanish heritage language in a Hispanic serving institution located in the US Northeast (Bronx, NYC), that aims to contextualize Latinx students' experiences and perceptions of Blackness within broader histories of oppression and enslavement. Our practice brings together critical Latinx pedagogy and critical approaches to Spanish heritage language education to facilitate sociohistorical consciousness for both language instructors and students through the use of open-access Latinx archival resources. We outline a three-week unit designed using the First Blacks in the Americas online collection curated by the City University of New York Dominican Studies Institute. During the unit, the students practice their full linguistic repertoires and develop historical thinking skills. We discursively analyze survey responses, instructor fieldnotes, and students' coursework collected throughout the course to measure the impact of this pilot… [Direct]
(2023). The Epistemic Uncertainty in Learning and Doing Anti-Racist Work. Thresholds in Education, v46 n2 p305-319. In this article, I start with an overview of two major events in 2020–the Coronavirus and the murder of George Floyd to contextualize White women's engagement in anti-racist work. I make meaning of the learning process for other White Women as I reflect and analyze my own learning experiences using autoethnography. I offer an overview of critical whiteness studies and scholarship about White women who engage in antiracist work. I share my autoethnographic narrative account of engaging in anti-racist work. I conclude by highlighting the hopeful possibilities anti-racist work can create for a more just society…. [PDF]
(2023). Doubling Down: Collective Racial Literacy Development. Pennsylvania Teacher Educator, v22 n1 p1-17. This paper chronicles the journey of how our educational studies department answered student demands for change and engaged in a departmental inquiry into antiracism and abolition that continues to this day. We conceptualize what emerged over this three-year journey as a framework and process for Collective Racial Literacy Development (CRLD)…. [PDF]
(2021). Mapping Socio-Spatial Constructions of Normalcy: Whiteness and Ability in Teacher Candidates' Educational Trajectories. Whiteness and Education, v6 n1 p92-113. In this paper I present a qualitative study in which I investigated how socio-spatial dimensions of schooling influenced the ways four, white, nondisabled teacher candidates made meaning of whiteness and ability throughout their educational journeys. Drawing on literature exploring the socio-spatial dimensions of power and whiteness and ability as property, I employed qualitative mapping to analyse how white, nondisabled teacher candidates appropriated conceptions of normalcy. Data reveal how whiteness and ability were constructed, normalised, and deployed as resources throughout teacher candidates' P-12 schooling and teacher preparation programmes. I assert that such an analysis can inform teacher education programs in dismantling these intersecting ideologies…. [Direct]
(2022). Crafting a Racial Equity Practice in College Math Education. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, v15 n4 p401-405 Aug. While assessment, curricular, and pedagogical reforms have improved overall success rates in college math courses, they have been less effective in closing racial equity gaps and fostering equitable classroom experiences for racially minoritized students. Following the insights of critical race math scholars, we argue that racial inequity persists because these reforms do not tackle the dominant instructional template that informs how many math faculty teach. We propose that racial equity requires a reconfiguration of practice involving (a) race-conscious sensemaking of teaching; (b) awareness of racial dynamics in math classrooms; and (c) a humanizing math pedagogy. We describe these three principles of a racial equity practice, along with the challenges that can arise when faculty confront complicity in producing racial inequity, attempt to undo practices serving them well, and wrestle with institutional factors that constrain change…. [Direct]
(2022). Shamed into Action?: The Historical Avoidance of Pursuing Anti-Racist Educational Policies and Content in Social Work Education. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, v42 n2-3 p247-264. Linguistic norms concerning issues of social injustice, racism specifically, vary by discipline. In this study, the authors used content analysis to examine discourse in the social work profession related to racism and anti-racist action. Our investigation found that the usage of forthright terms such as racism, white supremacy, and oppression in the description of social work courses, authoritative disciplinary statements, and educational standards, was uncommon prior to the uprisings that occurred worldwide following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In contrast, we find the pervasive promulgation of anti-racism as an explicit social work priority across multiple high-profile educational venues since this time. In our discussion, we interrogate the implications of this contrast as it relates to the ability of social work students and practitioners to both conceptually and practically engage in effective anti-racist action…. [Direct]
(2022). A Critical Discourse Analysis of the 1619 Project Controversy and Its Implications for Social Studies Educators. Social Studies, v113 n5 p223-236. The protests of 2020 cast a national spotlight once again on police brutality and ongoing racial injustice in America. Within this context, many activists and even mainstream commentators have given more attention to a critical analysis of how American history has been taught, especially regarding race relations. The publication of the "1619 Project" has touched off a wave of controversy regarding some of its historical claims and its larger interpretation of American history. In this paper, we analyze some of the discourses that have emerged from the post-publication controversy over the "1619 Project" and then discuss applications of our inquiry for the preservice teacher classroom. The paper will provide an overview of the background of the topic, important theoretical frameworks, methods, and sources…. [Direct]
(2023). From Fisher to Fisher: A Critical Race Feminist Counterstory about Access to U.S. Higher Education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v36 n6 p1003-1017. Most education and legal scholarship overlook gendered-race themes in pre-Brown v. Board of Education desegregation higher education cases that remain relevant to examining post-"Brown" race-conscious admissions cases. The author engaged critical race feminism to create a counterstory with Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, a U.S. Supreme Court plaintiff in conversation with two fictitious Black women, Geneva Crenshaw, a civil rights attorney, and Nia Lytle, a tenure-track assistant professor of higher education. During a fictionalized one-day oral argument presented with dialogue composed from texts of actual race-conscious admission cases, the Black women react to and critique the societal and legal logic used by organizations and individuals who recruited the white women plaintiffs in those cases. The counterstory illustrates how civil rights discourse was coopted to advance white supremacist grievances. The conclusion calls on those invested in racial equity to reframe the… [Direct]
(2023). Diversity in Honors: Understanding Systemic Biases through Student Narratives. Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, v24 n1 p57-80. Centered on superiority over a certain group or individual, discrimination becomes predominant in prestigious institutions that pride themselves on exclusivity. Collegiate honors programs tend to deepen this practice by creating highly elite spaces accessible only to a select few. This rigidity can lead to an underrepresentation of historically marginalized groups, students who often lack the necessary resources for achieving academic excellence. This case study examines the ways honors programs inadvertently perpetuate discrimination among different social identities. Using inductive interviewing of honors students (n = 12) to gauge individual perceptions of program diversity, researchers rely on content analysis to generate four themes (relationship, discrimination, exclusion, conformity). By cross-analyzing participant responses with social identities, key programmatic components that may have led to covert systemic bias are uncovered. Results further indicate a possible link… [PDF]