(2021). No Love Found: How Female Students of Colour Negotiate and Repurpose University Spaces. British Journal of Sociology of Education, v42 n5-6 p717-732. This study explores the lived experiences on campus of five female undergraduate students of colour. Drawing on a critical race theory perspective and inspired by CRiT walking, walking interviews were conducted to give voice to the students' experiences of marginalisation, both metaphorical and physical. The findings reveal how whiteness impacts on participants' negotiation of university spaces; how the 'white gaze' influences their geographies; and how their experiences lead them to occupy counter-spaces within the university. Further, we found that participants' aspirations of postgraduate education were tainted by these negative experiences at the undergraduate level, leading them to reject altogether or begrudgingly continue their education. The study proposes theoretically framed walking interviews as a productive methodology in future critical studies of race in education and highlights the urgent need to address the marginalisation of female students of colour on campus as one… [Direct]
(2021). Curriculum Integration and the Forgotten Indigenous Students: Reflecting on M√©tis Teachers' Experiences. in education, v26 n2 p3-23 Spr. Curriculum integration, or in other words, changing what students are taught within racially desegregated Canadian schools, has served as a primary but incomplete pathway to racial justice. In this paper, I present evidence from a qualitative critical race theory (CRT) methodological study with 13 M√©tis teachers to demonstrate how curricular integration has been framed as a key solution to inequitable outcomes concerning Indigenous students. This strategy has been instilled within the Saskatchewan K-12 education system by a wide spectrum of authorities over several decades. Although absolutely essential for multiple reasons, I argue that teaching students about Indigenous knowledge systems and experiences, as well as anti-racist content, cannot resolve the systemic racial injustices encountered by Indigenous students who attend provincial schools. In particular, three CRT analytical tools–structural determinism, anti-essentialism, and interest convergence–are utilized to examine… [PDF]
(2021). Experiences of (Not) Belonging among Higher Education Students from Nondominant Ethnic Backgrounds. Education and Society, v39 n2 p69-91 Dec. Students from nondominant backgrounds face challenges in educational contexts related to finding support and having a sense of belonging. In this study, we focus primarily on race and ethnicity in shaping experiences of nondominance. Using a theoretical framework based upon critical race theory and sense of belonging, we interviewed ten young adults from nondominant backgrounds about their educational experiences in primary, secondary, and tertiary education in the Netherlands. Findings indicate challenges related to interactions with White peers, low teacher support and expectations, and discontinuities between home and school cultures. Sources of support included peers from nondominant backgrounds, religion and faith communities, and family. Implications suggest that teachers and leaders in educational institutions develop their own, and their dominant students', understandings of nondominant students' experiences. Additional arguments for the need to focus on race in the European… [Direct]
(2021). Transforming PETE's Initial Standards: Ensuring Social Justice for Black Students in Physical Education. Quest, v73 n1 p22-44. Calls to transform the initial Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) standards to reflect social justice have garnered little attention. Recent events have magnified the racial injustices inflicted upon Black people in America and their ability to participate as full equals in a society influenced and characterized by white supremacy. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework, the authors examine the racial formulation of the historical and current installations of SHAPE America's initial PETE standards. Illustrated is the influence of white supremacy in PETE programs, the relationship to physical literacy, and the impact on Black students. After analysis, the authors integrate culturally relevant frameworks, and provide a blueprint of socially just PETE standards that challenge structural racism, and diversity initiatives promoted by SHAPE America and in higher education. The authors conclude that infusing Black perspectives is essential to the advancement of inclusive… [Direct]
(2021). Critical Race Comics: Centering Black Subjectivities and Teaching Racial Literacy. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, v18 n2 p119-133. This article seeks to explore the complexities of Black subjectivities as written and illustrated by comic book creators of color who wrestle with the enigmatic qualities of blackness as they write within and beyond racial imaginaries and social realities. I call these works "critical race comics" to highlight their explicit engagement with the ubiquity of race and racism and other tenets of critical race theory in education. Critical race comics teach through onto-epistemological explorations of blackness and by centering the black gaze in ways that foster humanizing racial discourse in classrooms, develop racial literacy in readers, and contribute to antiracist pedagogy. As such, I position critical race comics as pop culture and curriculum as they reflect larger literary, artistic, and social movements for racial justice in America (e.g. Antislavery, Reconstruction, New Negro, Civil Rights, Black Power, Hip-Hop, and #BlackLivesMatter)…. [Direct]
(2021). The Second ID: Critical Race Counterstories of Campus Police Interactions with Black Men at Historically White Institutions. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v24 n2 p149-166. Although campus racial climate on colleges and universities has been scrutinized in research on higher education, scholarship focused on Black male collegians' interactions with campus police remains limited. Considering how the logics of white supremacy and anti-Black racism have characterized policing across the nation, we assert that a critical examination of how those practices are mirrored on college campuses can illuminate the challenges Black students face when navigating white campus spaces. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, this study reports on the encounters between three Black male students and campus police officers at three distinct historically white institutions. We posit that for Black college students, the student identification (ID) evokes a legacy of surveillance that can be traced to the freedom papers that freed slaves were required to carry while traversing white spaces as a means to affirm rights to freely belong. We conclude with implications and directions… [Direct]
(2021). Staying Local: How Mature, Working-Class Students on a Satellite Campus Leverage Community Cultural Wealth. Studies in Higher Education, v46 n12 p2542-2555. This paper presents the experiences of mature students at a satellite campus of an English higher education institution. Twenty students over age 25 who fit various widening participation criteria were interviewed at four points during their first two years of bachelor's level study at a higher education (HE) centre in an area underserved by HE. Three aspects (familial, aspirational and social capital) of Yosso's model of community cultural wealth emerged as assets supporting students' success. Staying in their home communities allowed them to benefit from family and community networks, and their aspirations for their children fuelled their motivation. The study extends critical race theory to mature mostly white working-class students in English HE, contributing to policy debates about the role of satellite centres in supporting widening participation agendas. HEIs need to consider the capitals that mature students bring with them to their studies and how those support persistence…. [Direct]
(2021). Negation of Being and Reason in the World History Classroom: "They Used to Think of Me as a Lesser Being". Race, Ethnicity and Education, v24 n4 p542-559. This article addresses how students of color experience negation through world history, and exclusion from being recognized as fully human. What are the logics of exclusion within a world history classroom, and how do these logics of exclusion reproduce themselves in student experiences of alienation and exclusion from the curricular narrative? This study draws from interviews with 10th grade global studies students of color, and employs critical theory, critical race theory, critical disability studies, and queer studies, to conduct a different reading of these students. These frameworks redirect our gaze to the exclusionary logics of reason, the politicized construction of history as a discipline, and the impact of distinctions between being and non-being, civilized and savage, in world history. The article intervenes into these moments when teachers dismiss what students say, to understand the impacts history has on how students understand themselves, and how history has engaged… [Direct]
(2021). Race-Visible Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature from 2002 to 2018. Journal of Teacher Education, v72 n3 p329-341 May. In this review of the literature, we draw on critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and critical pedagogy to examine teacher educators' race-visible efforts in preservice teacher education and inservice teacher professional development. Our review specifically centers on race and racism in teacher education because race is often silenced or largely unaddressed in teacher education programs and teacher professional learning. Through a systematic search of electronic databases and a hand search of journals in this research area, we located 39 peer-reviewed articles published at the intersection of race, white teachers, and teacher education. Findings reveal the kinds of race-visible instructional practices used by teacher educators to scaffold race consciousness as well as larger themes teacher educators and education researchers encounter in their work related to race with preservice and inservice educators. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and offer future… [Direct]
(2021). Reversing the Gaze on Race, Social Justice, and Inclusion in Public Librarianship. Education for Information, v37 n2 p187-202. While contemporary revisionist narratives frame the public library as a benevolent and neutral community resource, it has existed for over two centuries and has a deeply shaded past. Particularly, public libraries played key roles in projects tied to the industrialist mission of states and the education of select social groups during key historical times. In no uncertain terms, these were inherently racist and colonial projects in which libraries helped proffer socially constructed and politically motivated ideas of race and class. This work draws on relevant and important work in anti-oppression studies, Black studies, critical diversity studies, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to trouble contemporary revisionist perspectives in public librarianship to show how they further entrench monocultural normativity and structural racism. It also draws on scholarship in anti-racism studies to reimagine possibilities for public librarianship that genuinely reflect its core values of equity and… [Direct]
(2021). Teaching Black Lives amidst Black Death: Reflections from a Black Visiting Professor. Journal of Effective Teaching in Higher Education, v4 n2 p99-117. In this essay the author addresses the struggles of teaching a special topics course, Black Freedom Movement Education, in the midst of a global pandemic and Donald Trump's proposed ban on anti-racist training and critical race theory. The educator framed the course under the conceptual lens of stealin' the meetin'–a Black Antebellum practice of creating otherwise literacy practices under repressive circumstances. This form of educational resistance continued beyond enslavement as Black communities used the resources available to educate each other by any means necessary (Robinson, 2020). On a smaller scale, this class carried on the resistance through critical metacognitive engagement with Black education history. The author discusses how he navigated the course when, less than halfway through the quarter, a Black man was killed and burned in a trench. Using emails, lecture notes, student evaluations, texts, and reflections, the author shares vignettes of tension, Black affinity,… [PDF]
(2021). Localizing Responses to CRT and Curricular Questions: Helping Your Community Understand What Your Schools Do and Don't Teach. Kansas Association of School Boards Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a legal framework that originated in the 1970s intending to challenge legal scholarship to consider the historical and present impact and causes of structural inequality and racism. CRT is an academic lens primarily used at the doctoral level and is not a defined curriculum or something outlined in the Kansas State Board of Education's education standards. It is distinctly different from the guiding tenets of educational equity with which it is regularly confused. In the state of Kansas, curriculum choices are completely controlled by the locally elected board of education. Based on input from district staff, parents, and other important stakeholders, the board is tasked with establishing and approving a curriculum. The Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) has created this in-depth guide to help local school districts address the debate over CRT and other curriculum issues… [PDF]
(2024). Transformational Leadership for Rapid School Improvement. Teachers College Press To address today's numerous goals and challenges, K-12 schools need transformational leaders–leaders able to substantively enhance and improve educational systems and educator practices in order to achieve better, longer-lasting outcomes for all students. This practical resource is for superintendents, principals, and other education leaders who are charged with rapidly improving their schools and districts. Grounded in WestEd's research-based and field-tested Four Domains of Rapid School Improvement framework, this book offers guidance, support, and resources in the areas of school turnaround, talent development, instructional transformation, and culture shift. Every chapter includes prompts to encourage reflection and discussion with colleagues, as well as action steps to put guidance into practice. "Transformational Leadership for Rapid School Improvement" can be used as a text for educational leadership courses and for professional learning with practicing principals… [Direct]
(2024). Equity as a Leadership Competency: A Model for Action. Journal of School Leadership, v34 n6 p565-584. In Ontario, Canada, principals' work is guided by competencies outlined in the Ontario Leadership Framework which reflect the leadership skills and behaviours needed to successfully lead schools, improve student achievement and well-being. The problem is that this document largely ignores equity and anti-oppressive leadership behaviours. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), created an addendum to this document, introducing the notion of equity as a leadership competency. Other documents of this nature have emerged in multiple systems in Ontario in response to the increasing need to provide guidance to principals about how to engage equity work. The challenge is the gap between the competencies on the page and the actions taken in schools. There is little guidance around how to make these competencies actionable. This paper engages a discourse analysis of the TDSB's equity as a leadership competency document resulting in the creation of a model for equitable action. A focus on… [Direct]
(2024). Diversity's (In)visibility at Two Hispanic Serving Institutions: How the Whiteness of Higher Education Constrains Racially Diversifying the K-12 Teaching Force. Journal for Multicultural Education, v18 n4 p460-473. Purpose: Most research about combating the whiteness of teacher education neglects to analyze the whiteness of the higher education institutional contexts housing teacher preparation programs. This gap also holds true within research exploring Minority Serving Institutions' potential to graduate large numbers of teachers of color. Consequently, this paper aims to argue that without strong institutional commitments to dismantle the whiteness of higher education, Hispanic Serving Institutions (a type of Minority Serving Institution) compromise their potential to robustly prepare and graduate K-12 teachers of color. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on an inductive qualitative analysis of interviews with teacher educators of color and students and a deductive qualitative analysis of publicly available data at two Hispanic Serving Institutions, this paper uses Critical Race Theory tenets of lived experience and intersectionality. Findings: Both institutions enacted diversity… [Direct]