(2019). Examining the Relationship between EQ, Microaggressions, and Achievement in the HBCU Academic Setting. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Tennessee State University. Microaggressions in the higher education setting are a pervasive issue frequently encountered by members of marginalized cultures. The experience of microaggressions can result in negative outcomes on neural substrates, mental health, emotional health, and physical health. Furthermore, academic microaggressions can impact performance, learning, and coping skill abilities of those who are affected by the interpersonal violence. The Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework can help us to understand the role of microaggressions within a system or societal structure; while, the Emotional Intelligence Competences framework can highlight key skills that are involved in emotional decision-making processes. This study seeks to examine the relationship between Microaggressions, Emotional Intelligence, and Academic Performance in the higher educational setting. Results and Implications for educators, interventionist, and society are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are… [Direct]
(2020). Where All the Good Teachers Are Cape Verdean Americans: A White Teacher's Identity Positionings in an Urban Elementary School. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v52 n1 p100-126 Mar. This study examines how a white language teacher's understanding of race affected her teaching practice in an urban elementary language classroom with predominantly Cape Verdean immigrant students. The teacher relied on her experiences teaching English in Namibia and her experiences learning Spanish in the United States and Afrikaans in Namibia to ground her practice, which focused on cultural difference and standard English language teaching without specific reference to race in the context of the United States. I adopt the theory of LangCrit, an intersection between Critical Race Theory, Critical Language Studies, and Positioning Theory, to first demonstrate that the teacher's justifications of her teaching practices were contradictory and conflicting, and in fact shows how, despite her good intentions, whiteness is imposed, assumed, or negotiated in the context of urban language classrooms. Based on these findings, I suggest possibilities for and constraints on using critical… [Direct]
(2020). Hope, Political Imagination, and Agency in Marxism and Beyond: Explicating the Transformative Worldview and Ethico-Ontoepistemology. Educational Philosophy and Theory, v52 n7 p726-737. Given the sociopolitical crisis and turmoil in the world today, there is a great need for philosophical and sociocultural critiques that are not only concerned with deconstructing the present and the past but also with offering forward-looking, radical solutions to the problems and challenges we face. Drastic times call for drastic measures, including in exploring and advancing a "flagrantly partisan" scholarship with explicitly transformative activist agendas of strengthening the public and personal agency needed to constrain capital for the sake of social and economic justice. The argument advanced in this article is that Marxism — reinvigorated, re-envisioned and infused with insights from recent scholarship in feminism, critical pedagogy, cultural-historical and critical race theories, and new materialism, among others — can offer a new worldview in which political imagination and other phenomena of human subjectivity find their due, that is, central and formative… [Direct]
(2016). The New Juan Crow in Education: Revealing Panoptic Measures and Inequitable Resources That Hinder Latina/o Postsecondary Pathways. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, v15 n2 p154-181 Apr. This qualitative study examined the distribution of inequitable resources, a culture of control, and implications for postsecondary pathways for Latinas/os in five California high schools. This study integrated critical race theory in education, school culture, and the concept of "panopticon" to examine school structures, climate, and individual agency, which together can shape the schooling experiences and educational trajectories of Latina/o students. Grounded in the data, the authors establish the concept of the New Juan Crow in Education…. [Direct]
(2023). Academics and Athletics: A Phenomenological Study of Self-Advocacy and Student Involvement in Black Student-Athletes with Disabilities. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Pepperdine University. Studies on Black male athletes and their educational experiences have been conducted for quite some time, whereas research on Black female athletes, despite its emergence, remains limited. Recent research on student-athletes focuses on the rise in socioeconomic status in relation to their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Hence, the focus on education while it continues to exist, NIL deals and its impact on the NCAA have become a topic of interest. The tenets of critical race theory will be examined to comprehend the relationship between these principles and the impact of NCAA and college policies on Black student athletes, and how they support students in navigating the student-athlete experience, particularly those who have been recognized as having learning disabilities. Limited research has been conducted on the factors associated with Black student-athletes with disabilities, such as specific learning disability (SLD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Due to… [Direct]
(2019). The Hidden Curriculum of Reading Intervention: A Critical Content Analysis of Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention. Journal of Curriculum Studies, v51 n5 p601-618. In an age of increased accountability and high-stakes testing, educators continuously seek to locate quality reading intervention curricula intended to improve students' reading performances. Yet, the basics-first emphasis commonly associated with reading intervention curricula may result in districts assigning reading intervention that helps students develop foundational literacy skills through interacting with materials that perpetuate oppressive ideologies. Relying on critical curriculum and critical race theories as an analytic lens, this critical content analysis examines the ways in which twenty books and accompanying lesson scripts in Level U of the Fountas and Pinnell Leveled Literacy intervention (F&P LLI), a widely used intervention curriculum, present racialized representations to students. Iterative layers of inductive coding reveal that 70% of fiction and 20% of nonfiction F&P LLI books present people of Colour as inferior, deviant, and helpless, while 30% of… [Direct]
(2019). "It Just Doesn't Add Up": Disrupting Official Arguments for Urban School Closures with Counterframes. Education Policy Analysis Archives, v27 n110 Sep. Mass school closures have become commonplace in urban school districts. To explain their actions, school system leaders often rely on a dominant frame that presents closures as an inevitable, data-driven, and politically neutral phenomenon in an educational landscape defined by shrinking budgets, demographic changes, and increased school choice. In response, research has typically focused on how communities tell counternarratives that seek to interrupt official accounts of school closures. Using a critical frame analysis of qualitative data from the 2013 school closure process in Washington, DC, I discuss another grassroots approach to disrupting school closures: counterframes. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and social movement theory, I discuss counterframes as discursive arguments that allow communities to directly challenge official rhetoric and offer alternatives. Findings show that communities in DC crafted counterframes that pushed back on the notion that the closures were… [PDF]
(2019). DisCrit Solidarity as Curriculum Studies and Transformative Praxis. Curriculum Inquiry, v49 n4 p442-463. Classroom and behaviour management are often touted as ways to build relationships in the classroom. Yet conceptions of classroom and behaviour management often focus on controlling or eradicating student behaviour; these carceral logics limit the ways educators can build classroom relationships focused on love and respect. Moreover, classroom and behaviour management are often rooted in punitive, top-down approaches wherein practices are dictated to teachers and classroom contexts and the students within are ignored. To disrupt these carceral and technocratic logics imbued within classroom and behaviour management, we argue that integrating disability studies exceeds constraining and quarantining boundaries of curriculum, shifting to meta-curriculum. Using Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), we explicitly conceptualize relationships built in the classroom as a necessary part of critical curriculum studies. We then apply Disability Justice principles to curriculum studies to… [Direct]
(2019). The Grow Your Own Collective: A Critical Race Movement to Transform Education. Teacher Education Quarterly, v46 n1 p23-34 Win. This article introduces a strategy to diversify the teaching workforce through de-centering teacher education as the primary stakeholder in the preparation of diverse teachers. The article expands the focus on teacher recruitment and retention by proposing a model that counters the educational context of White supremacy through Grow Your Own (GYO) programs. Using a critical race theory (CRT) orientation to educator development, this article introduces the national Grow Your Own Collective (GYOC) as an advocacy and support network for locally tailored collaborations to recruit, prepare, place, and retain culturally rooted teachers of color. In clarifying how GYOC applies CRT as an operational framework for preparing teachers to teach within historically underresourced school systems, the article defines GYO programs, shares nationwide models, and argues that collaborations between community-based organizations, districts, schools, and higher education partners are essential to disrupt… [PDF]
(2020). (In)Visible Men on Campus: Campus Racial Climate and Subversive Black Masculinities at a Predominantly White Liberal Arts University. Gender and Education, v32 n7 p843-861. There is an emerging body of literature examining the academic success of Black men attending predominantly White colleges and universities, though less is known about Black college men's experiences at liberal arts institutions. In this paper, I draw upon semi-structured and photovoice interview data from a study on Black male college students attending a predominantly White liberal arts institution in the USA. Specifically, I will present narrative and visual data of how Black college men perceive the campus racial climate and make sense of their (in)visibility at the university. Drawing upon poststructuralist theories of gender and critical race theory, I analyze the ways in which they managed race, gender and sexuality within university spaces, giving attention to their agency in performing a range of masculinities in response to and in anticipation of campus-based racism and racialized discourses. By situating their gendered performances within the context of the campus racial… [Direct]
(2019). Understanding Integration and Policy Challenges Facing Multicultural Schools in South Africa. Africa Education Review, v16 n6 p66-81. This article reports on research that investigated integration challenges in multicultural schools. The inquiry followed a qualitative approach, using interviews, focus groups and open-ended questionnaires. The understanding of the integration of multicultural challenges in schools was done through the lens of critical race theory (CRT). Individual interviews were conducted with eight principals, followed by focus groups with 34 teachers, together with open-ended questionnaires which were administered to 82 participants. The findings revealed that policies on school integration present opportunities for integration but do not address the challenges of diversity in schools. The research highlighted the problem that integration is not recognised in schools although it is mandated by government policy. The research conducted highlighted the fact that it is not easy to implement a policy on integration because some schools do not see so-called "colour" in the learners. Schools… [Direct]
(2019). "A Positive, Safe Environment": Urban Arts High Schools and the Safety Mystique. Harvard Educational Review, v89 n3 p397-421 Fall. In this research article, Rub√©n A. Gaztambide-Fern√°ndez and Dominique Rivi√®re examine the discursive frames that students and teachers in four specialized arts high schools in Toronto used in describing their schools as safe environments. The belief that arts high schools are safe is shared by students and teachers, particularly in relationship to LGBTTQ+ students, making these schools optimal settings for examining what safety means and how it is construed. The authors show how the assumption that arts high schools are safe is related to the larger social and cultural context in which each school is situated. By asking what it means to be safe, whose safety, and from what dangers, they aim to demystify the notion of safety, showing how it is related to dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that can be traced to broader national discourses. Drawing on critical race theory, as well as the concept of homonationalism and the construction of exalted subjects, the article highlights the… [Direct]
(2019). Turbulence in St. Louis County: School Transfers, Opportunity Hoarding, and the Legacy of "Brown". Peabody Journal of Education, v94 n4 p403-419. In the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, and the process of school desegregation fell mostly to Black children. For over 35 years, Black families in St. Louis City have been using school transfers to cross boundaries in order to send their children to higher performing, predominately White schools in suburban St. Louis County in search of "a better education." Relying on turbulence theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study uses a media framing analysis to examine how newspaper articles described school transfers to the broader public between 2007 and 2017. Findings indicate that the articles described Black and White school districts as being affected by varying levels of turbulence and conflict. Findings also outline examples of opportunity hoarding by White schools and districts. The original focus of the "Brown" case was the lack of equitable resources in Black schools,… [Direct]
(2023). Teachers' Perception and Knowledge of Gifted Math Students' Ethnic/Racial and Gender Identities: A Qualitative Descriptive Study. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Northcentral University. The problem addressed by this study was disparities in the STEM professional and scholastic pipelines persist and are exacerbated by the underrepresentation of females and Black populations, indigenous populations, and people of color (BIPOC) in a variety of STEM fields. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to examine teachers' knowledge and perceptions of the racial/ethnic and gender identities of their students in a gifted math classroom setting. Critical race theory (CRT) in education and critical race pedagogy (CRP) were used as frameworks for this study. Two research questions supported this study. Research Question 1 focused on what teachers know about the racial/ethnic and gender identities of their students in a gifted math classroom. Research Question 2 focused on how teachers perceive the racial/ethnic and gender identities of their students in a gifted math classroom. Data collection occurred through semi-structured interviewing and a directed journaling… [Direct]
(2024). A Document Analysis of State Plans: An Analysis of the Policies in Response to "Yazzie-Martinez v NM". ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, New Mexico State University. Policies in education ensure that educators and educational leaders are receiving and implementing equitable and adequate educational services and opportunities to all students. Some of these policies are proactive and others are reactive. In 2018, Judge Singleton decided in the "Yazzie-Martinez v. NM" (2018) court case the State of NM and the NMPED implemented policies that maintain and increase the achievement and opportunity gap for "at risk" students. In a reactive action, NMPED created the Action Plan to address the four major claims in the "Yazzie-Martinez v. NM" (2018) ruling, NMPED violated the State Constitution, failed to assist "at risk" students, failed to provide sufficient funding, and failed to conduct oversight. In the Action Plan, the Linguistic and Cultural Division was created to implement the Culturally and Responsive Guidance Handbook in schools and districts across NM. The three documents were created to apply social… [Direct]