(2023). The Tale of Two Cities: A Critical Spatial Analysis of Access to Two-Way Dual Language Programs in San Antonio and Austin. Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, v17 spec iss. Texas is home to a burgeoning linguistically diverse population, which has contributed to the exponential growth of bilingual education programming across the state. One program type, two-way dual language (TWDL), has become a popular enrichment model of bilingual education and has received increased attention and funding at the state level. While bilingual education was originally intended to serve linguistically diverse, primarily Latinx, students, there is a growing body of research that suggests the rapid growth of TWDL has come to serve primarily white, affluent, English-dominant students. The present study sought to contribute to this research by examining the locations of TWDL within two major cities in Texas: San Antonio and Austin. This tale of two cities employed a critical race spatial analysis to describe TWDL locational patterns within San Antonio and Austin based on neighborhood demographics including race/ethnicity and socioeconomics. Findings suggest that access to… [PDF]
(2023). Understanding the Experiences of Black Students Supported by Black Mentors While Attending a Predominantly White Institution. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Wayne State University. America's higher education system was not created with consideration to supporting Black students. Now, centuries later, the majority of Black students choose to attend predominantly White institutions (PWIs) and enroll at comparable rates to their White peers. However, Black students do not graduate at the same rate as White students, with only 40% completing their degree within six years compared to 64% of White students completing their degree in the same timespan (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Black students continue to report PWI campuses as being hostile, toxic environments that can negatively impact their psychological well-being and learning experiences (Harvey, Harvey, & King, 2004; Beasley, Chapman-Hilliard, & McClain, 2016; Cabrera, Watson, & Franklin, 2016; Means & Pyne, 2017). Many PWIs have worked to implement diversity initiatives focused on supporting underrepresented minority populations, including Black students (Patton, Sanchez,… [Direct]
(2023). Bruised, Not Broken: Scholarly Personal Narratives of Black Women in the Academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v36 n10 p2229-2251. With growing research on our experiences, this paper explores the academic lives of four doctorate-holding Black women. Using Scholarly Personal Narrative as a methodology, monologues and reflections from a conference on race in higher education were analyzed and thematically situated to understand the vantages of navigating gendered racism in the academy. Black women experience advancing the academy in painful ways that impact their well-being and professional trajectory. Amidst a growth in social justice-focused academic programs, contemporary politics have undercut the experiences of Black women whose stories are often academicized and co-opted by others. Through the unique lens afforded by intersectionality, this paper addresses the need to listen to and value Black women's stories. Additionally, discussions herein underscore how providing a venue for Black women to foster commu nity benefits our and others' success which has implications for practice, research, and policy…. [Direct]
(2023). Teacher Candidates Dismantling Racism, One Book Study at a Time. Teacher Educators' Journal, v16 n2 p211-227. Starting in fall of 2020, two faculty created and facilitated a book study with teacher candidates the semester before they entered student teaching. They read "This Book is Anti-Racist" by Tiffany Jewell and viewed the content through their own personal journey lenses and also applied the ideas to how they hope to bring anti-racism and multiculturalism into their teaching practice. In the spring of 2022, they conducted a pilot study to gauge the effectiveness in increasing teacher candidates' confidence in bringing anti-racism and cultural responsiveness to their teaching. Their initial findings showed promising results with a small sample size. They have progressed to over tripling their sample size during the fall 2022 semester with the hypothesis of seeing the promising pilot results further confirmed. This study has inspired ideas for future study and considerations for programmatic improvements, all with making anti-racism the norm for the teaching profession…. [PDF]
(2022). The Impact of Analyzing Young Adult Literature for Racial Identity/Social Justice Orientation with Interdisciplinary Students. Journal of College Reading and Learning, v52 n4 p264-289. Research suggests that students need authenticity by welcoming their stories, even causing tension and discomfort with complex topics, encouraging discussion, and questioning. Our study explores undergraduates' open-ended reflections on using young adult literature to challenge dominant, deficit perspectives about themselves and others, which is not yet the norm but more common in high school settings. We explored how students questioned their implicit biases and assumptions toward a more critically aware identity through a holistic qualitative case study. Our analysis of students' open-ended reflections produced three major themes: (a) Importance of Diverse Books and Analysis; (b) Books as an Impetus for a Change in Thinking and Awareness of Self; and (c) Lingering Tensions and Ongoing Resistance. Although many students expressed a change in thinking, there were still instances that reflected resistance…. [Direct]
(2022). The Colonial Grid: Mapping the Social Work Classroom. Whiteness and Education, v7 n2 p160-174. Social work education in the Global North is rooted in an underlying discourse of power that defines the 'knower' parameters and, therefore, legitimises who can 'teach'. For this paper, the spatial orientation of whiteness in the classroom in a time of coloniality and intersectionality is the unit of analysis. This whiteness is made visible by not just the presence of the racialised 'Other,' but a non-white, female professor from the Global South educating from marginalised and discounted knowledge. Using reflexivity and story-telling methods combined with critical theory, I present an analysis of my lived experience of navigating social work students and institutions' whiteness. How the classroom is experienced becomes a part of racialised professors' lived process, embodying the tensions and contradictions in the profession and knowledge base. Using this analysis, I map out the colonial grid embedded in the social work classroom…. [Direct]
(2022). Thriving Together: A Phenomenological Study of the Contributions of a Professional Counterspace to Black Women Higher Education Leaders' Cultivation of Resilience. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Black women who serve in administrative leadership roles in higher education do so amidst conflicting experiences wherein they are positioned to exercise authority while being subjugated to conditions, socially and institutionally, that uphold racism and sexism. The manifestations and effects of gender and race-based oppression on Black women professionals in higher education have been well documented, but limited research makes visible the strategies that enable Black women leaders to persevere amidst the oppressive conditions they encounter in the higher education context. Professional counterspaces may add to the strategies employed by Black women leaders by offering inclusive spaces to cultivate resilience to persist in their professional practice. This phenomenology explores the impact of institutional racism and sexism on the leadership experiences of eleven mid-level and senior-level Black women administrators historically White Institutions (HWIs), the ways these leaders… [Direct]
(2005). Perceptions of African American Faculty in Kinesiology-Based Programs at Predominantly White American Institutions of Higher Education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, v76 n2 p224-237 Jun. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of African American faculty on their organizational socialization in kinesiology-based (i.e., sport pedagogy, exercise physiology, motor behavior, sport management/history) programs at predominantly White American (1) institutions of higher education (PW-IHE). Participants were 9 African American tenure-track faculty members from various kinesiology-based programs at PW-IHE. Data were gathered via interviewing and analyzed within the framework of critical race theory (Ladson-Billings, 2000). Findings are presented using storytelling and thematic narratives. Interviews with the participants revealed four major recurring themes with regard to: (a) resources, opportunities, and power structures; (b) programmatic neglects and faculty mentoring needs; (c) social isolation, disengagement, and intellectual inferiority issues; and (d) double standards, marginalization, and scholarship biases. This study suggests that faculty and… [PDF]
(2024). "Ain't Nobody about to Trap Me": The Violence of Multi-System Collusion and Entrapment for Incarcerated Disabled Girls of Color. Journal of School Violence, v23 n2 p202-219. Incarcerated disabled Girls of Color reside and exist within a nexus of systems that continually entrap them through the ongoing use of carceral logics. Utilizing interviews from a larger qualitative study, this article centers the lived experiences of disabled Girls of Color by interrogating the collusive partnerships between schools, child "welfare," and other related systems in entrapping and criminalizing them. The narratives shared by the incarcerated disabled Girls of Color highlight the role of schools in perpetuating state induced entrapment, how multi-system collusion makes carceral and state-sanctioned protection systems indistinguishable, and showcase the creative ways that Girls of Color resist and subvert confinement and entrapment within carceral apparatuses. Ultimately, this article recognizes how multiple systems are set up to trap incarcerated disabled Girls of Color through collusive relations. However, through forged connections, economies, and the girls'… [Direct]
(2024). The Voice of the Other in a 'Liberal' Ivory Tower: Exploring the Counterstory of an Asian International Student on Structural Racism in US Academia. Whiteness and Education, v9 n1 p161-176. The normative institutional practices of White, native English speakers have been explored in detail by CRT scholars in US academia, and these practices perpetuate a system which maintains White privilege to the detriment and systemic exclusion of the Other. Consequently, students of colour and non-native English speakers are inclined to face a number of forms of inequality, inequity, discrimination and harassment based on Whiteness and nativism including English speaker centrism, and this eventually serves to reproduce Whiteness and White racial domination. To better understand this institutional practices based on Whiteness in US academia, this paper explores how structural inequity based on linguistic racism and White privilege is reproduced by patterns in everyday institutional practice in US academia, and how intersectional structural inequity influences non-White, non-native speakers of American English such as international students from Asia by interviewing an Asian… [Direct]
(2024). "It's in [Their] Roots": A Critical Race Discourse Analysis of Media Accounts Depicting Black Hair Discrimination in K-12 School. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v56 n1 p35-58. As many U.S. school administrators create policies around hair, many often neglect to consider racial differences, especially those pertaining to hair care and maintenance styles. News media outlets have recently highlighted the ways schools create and sustain racially biased policies and schooling environments, demonstrating the media's role in promoting awareness of schools' mistreatment of Black children. This study examines media reports that shed light on these dynamics, focusing on urban/metropolitan areas in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Massachusetts. We ask: What do news media accounts–explicitly and implicitly–reveal about Black children and their families' experiences with hair policies in K-12 schools? We take up critical race discourse analysis to examine selected news media accounts of four recent, high profile (i.e., viral) events of Black students' experiences with hair policies in K-12 U.S. schools. Analysis of our data revealed that Black students face undue… [Direct]
(2024). Diversifying the 'HSI Bubble': Black and Asian Women Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v27 n5 p620-639. This qualitative case study explored the experiences of seven Black and Asian women faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The unique experience of each woman is shared in this paper. Three themes highlight the interconnectedness of participant experiences. The first theme indicated that these Black and Asian women faculty operated in unsupportive microclimates within their HSIs. Secondly, participants communicated a need for representation within the 'HSI bubble.' Finally, our participants felt as though their HSIs needed to exercise greater intentionality in terms of truly serving their student populations. Amongst the implications of this research is a better understanding of the experiences of a minority group (i.e., Black and Asian women faculty) within higher education. These experiences can inform administrators on how to move beyond recruitment of Black and Asian women faculty to foster a supportive microclimate so as to retain these women and enable their success…. [Direct]
(2024). A Holistic View of Student Success in Systemic Change: An Investigation of Student Identities and Experiences in Undergraduate Mathematics. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, San Diego State University. Student success is an integral part of systemic change research. However, students' lived experiences and voices are often subdued in this programme, leaving the change that occurs to be evaluated upon measures that do not capture a holistic view of the experiences students and their shifting identities during the roll-out of those changes. These experiences could include not only the grades received and math course persistence, but also their perception of instructional practices, their attitudes towards mathematics, and their sense of belonging in math settings. In this dissertation, students' experiences and identities are investigated through a mixed-methods research design, with a critically inspired theoretical perspective of Figured Worlds interfaced with Critical Race Feminism. A survey that included Likert scale and free-response items was administered to students enrolled in Precalculus, Calculus I, and Calculus II. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with several… [Direct]
(2024). Responding with Confidence: An Inclusive Educator's Guide to Handling the Culture Wars, Inclusion, and Curriculum. Multicultural Perspectives, v26 n4 p240-250. NAME declared, "… we must all rise up against the current tide of white supremacy to defend multicultural education." Yet, fearful educators omit curriculum and conversations deemed 'divisive.' In response to these challenges posed by white supremacy and the consequential pressure on educators to avoid "divisive" topics, this manuscript details a workshop aimed at empowering educators navigating the "culture wars" that pervade the educational landscape and impact classroom practice. Drawing on research and current events, our interdisciplinary group of teacher and leadership educators from the College of Education's Diversity Council, offers strategies and tools designed to empower educators to advocate for social justice-oriented and multicultural education, despite facing backlash and punitive measures from conservative entities. Recognizing teachers as classroom experts, this work aims to bolster their confidence and equip them with a robust toolkit… [Direct]
(2021). Reading Woke: Exploring How School Counselors May Use Bibliotherapy with Adolescent Black Boys. Professional School Counseling, v25 n1 part 4. Bibliotherapy is a therapeutic intervention that uses stories and narratives to offer insight about personal dilemmas, teach cultural traditions, and assist in fostering various facets of identity development. For adolescent Black boys, exploring stories with protagonists that look like them, who come from similar cultural backgrounds and contend with familiar social/emotional issues and systemic barriers, stimulates healthy discussions that can increase self-awareness and an understanding about the systemic barriers they navigate. This article provides clear, concise, step-by-step guidelines to assist practicing school counselors in effectively using bibliotherapy with adolescent Black boys…. [Direct]