(2023). We Are Still Here: An Exploratory Case Study on Native American Community College Students Enrolled in Transfer Programs. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, North Carolina State University. Native American college students in the United States face significant educational disparities. However, there has been limited research on how they demonstrate resilience within their communities. This research study explored the experiences of Native American community college students enrolled in transfer programs while also considering the perspectives of faculty and staff involved in these programs. Despite efforts to close opportunity gaps, Native American college students continue to face challenges and underperform compared to other racial and ethnic groups. This study fills a critical research gap by investigating the experiences of Native American students in community colleges enrolled in transfer programs, focusing on their perspectives on the enrollment and transfer processes. This research study addresses key questions about personal and social experiences, academic strategies, available support resources, and the transfer process. Nine Native American students, seven… [Direct]
(2021). Addressing Inequities in Higher Education. Policy Guide. Education Commission of the States Although diversity in higher education has continued to increase over the past 20 years, colleges and universities continue to enroll Black, Latinx and American Indian students in bachelor's programs at low rates; additionally, more selective institutions and high-demand fields of study are less likely to enroll these students, and they often are not afforded the supports and services that can help them finish college or obtain a degree. These disparities have a significant impact on the long-term employment outcomes for students, and they maintain a racial and ethnic wealth gap — both problematic scenarios for state policymakers looking to build a prepared workforce and resilient economy. This Policy Guide explores various types of barriers that these students face in: (1) College readiness. This includes inadequate access to advanced coursework, counseling and financial aid resources that prepare students for college or university; (2) Transitions to college. Black, Latinx and… [PDF]
(2017). Deconstructing Systems of Bias in the Museum Field Using Critical Race Theory. Journal of Museum Education, v42 n3 p290-295. With today's fast-paced, ever-changing cultural, political, and social landscape, museums are in a unique position to provide visitors with the opportunity to connect and reflect on the world around them. From issues of social justice to immigration to reproductive rights, communities across the country are seeking spaces that allow and encourage them to have challenging conversations. Museums need to embrace this new role. While working on her dissertation, author Melanie Adams encountered critical race theory (CRT). Through the use of CRT, she discovered a language and a framework that addressed the racial realities of her world as a person of color. As her work in museums became more centered on issues of race, she began looking at how she could use the tenets of CRT to create programs that challenge rather than reinforce the racial status quo. When applied to the education field, CRT examines how African-American students experience and respond to their educational environment…. [Direct]
(2018). Creating Educative Spaces for Second-Generation Somali-Canadian Youth through Informal Education. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, v12 n4 p201-213. Available statistics and literature indicate that Somali-Canadian youth face unique challenges in their everyday lives. Somali students have a 36.7 % dropout rate (Jibril, 2011). Somali-Canadian community members in Edmonton contend that Somali-Canadian students are labelled with behavioural or cognitive disorders, diagnoses that do not take into consideration students' academic, social, or cultural backgrounds (Ahmed, 2007). They are situated in a complex web of family, religion, culture, and education (Forman, 2001) where they have to negotiate their sense of self and develop their identity. This research will attempt to understand the experiences of Somali-Canadian youth regarding their identity as learners, community members, and as Canadians. In this study, we utilize a social justice framework to help uncover the complex intersections of racism, cultural identities, and liberal education systems. This qualitative study is focused on understanding the lived experiences and… [Direct]
(2018). Science Identity Possibilities: A Look into Blackness, Masculinities, and Economic Power Relations. Cultural Studies of Science Education, v13 n4 p1005-1013 Dec. This forum paper dialogues with Sheron Mark's "A bit of both science and economics: a non-traditional STEM identity narrative. In her paper, she discusses the development of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) identity by a young African American male during an informal STEM for Social Justice Program. Here, the discussion focuses on Black masculinities, identity formation, and the role of science educators in making STEM fields a welcoming place for young Black men. Drawing from Mark's data and discussion, this paper is a dialogue between science identity possibilities in the United States and in Brazil when we look at the intersections of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Using the shared colonial past of both countries a connection is established to address race relations within science education. The main argument in this paper is that racism can no longer be denied and dismissed by the science education community worldwide and that… [Direct]
(2017). A Narrative Reflection on Examining Text and World for Social Justice: Combatting Bullying and Harassment with Shakespeare. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, v13 n1 p1-14 Spr. Based on classroom readings and discussions of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," this Voices from the Field article examines the ways that teachers might use traditional canonized texts to encourage students to both critique and react against bullying behaviors. The author's experiences detail the narratives that students introduced while reading the play, enabling complex considerations of contemporary issues such as Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism, with the hope that other educators and teacher educators might use similarly sanctioned literacy selections both to counter school- and community-based resistances and to advance social justice in education…. [PDF]
(2017). Who Will Make America Great Again? "Black People, of Course…". International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v30 n10 p946-956. The author reflects on the relevance of her intellectual journey through the Black consciousness movement in the 1960s to her pedagogy teaching from a Black Studies theoretical perspective on liberating knowledge. This pedagogical approach aims to fortify education students' consciousness regarding a systemic understanding of how racism and domination work. The argument is that this approach is especially needed given the current regime. Using the 1968 poem by Amiri Baraka that asked: 'Who Will Survive America?' the author illustrates content and pedagogy that can respond to the presidential campaign slogan understood as "making America white again."… [Direct]
(2017). "These People Are Never Going to Stop Labeling Me": Educational Experiences of African American Male Students Labeled with Learning Disabilities. Equity & Excellence in Education, v50 n1 p96-107. This investigation employs Disability Critical Race Studies as a theoretical framework to determine the interdependence of racism and ableism in school settings. African American male students with learning disabilities are queried about their interpretations of special education placement and labeling while attempting to secure educational opportunities during high school. Their responses were used to determine the consequences of labeling as they intersect with factors such as race, gender and, to a lesser extent, social economic status. Subsequently, as a result of this investigation, implications for empowering students through self-advocacy and enhancing teachers' knowledge of diverse learning styles are discussed…. [Direct]
(2018). "Brown Morning": Classed Interpretations of Anti-Racist Text. Critical Studies in Education, v59 n1 p108-126. This article examines the interpretations of high school students from different socioeconomic locations (in terms of socioeconomic class and ethnicity) with regard to the text "Brown Morning," used as a didactic tool for antiracism education within the framework of Civics courses. The research findings uncover differences in the students' interpretations of the text. An in-depth understanding of these differences will be attained through clinical analyses based on the distinctions between metaphor and metonymy made by linguist Roman Jakobson. Among students from low socioeconomic locations, interpretations related to racism were dominated by "metonymic" characteristics, while that of students from higher socioeconomic locations were predominantly "metaphoric." Study findings do not only show the different interpretations among the students, but also the various ways in which metaphorical and metonymic language affect teachers. These analyses will focus… [Direct]
(2019). Learning Race to Unlearn Racism: The Effects of Ethnic Studies Course-Taking. Journal of Higher Education, v90 n6 p860-883. Over the past two decades, higher education research has built a consensus that engaging with coursework on race is beneficial to students' socioemotional and cognitive development. Paradoxically, we do not have clarity as to what that means, specifically. Most studies exploring the association between diversity courses and the development of students' racial understanding examine a variety of dependent variables and consider combinations of outcomes — attitudinal, behavior and cognitive — that, while related, are distinct. This heterogeneity of results is a challenge for institutions of higher education, researchers, and practitioners. This study addresses that challenge by narrowing the scope of inquiry. We focus on Ethnic Studies courses in particular, and on their effect on two distinct types of racial attitudes: students' understanding of structural racism, and students' cross-racial empathy. Employing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF), we address a… [Direct]
(2016). Disrupting Postsecondary Prose: Toward a Critical Race Theory of Higher Education. Urban Education, v51 n3 p315-342 Mar. Ladson-Billings and Tate ushered critical race theory (CRT) into education and challenged racial inequities in schooling contexts. In this article, I consider the role CRT can play in disrupting postsecondary prose, or the ordinary, predictable, and taken for granted ways in which the academy has functioned for centuries as a bastion of racism and White supremacy. I disrupt racelessness in education, but focus primarily on postsecondary contexts related to history, access, curriculum, policy, and research. The purpose of this article is to commemorate and extend Ladson-Billings and Tate's work toward a CRT of higher education…. [Direct]
(2017). A Phenomenological Exploration of Resilience in African American Male College and University Presidents. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Capella University. Colleges and universities across the nation are seeking a president with unique qualities to transform their institution. Notwithstanding, surprisingly, few studies have examined how African American presidents confront race while also successfully ascending into the presidency. The purpose of this study was to explore and interpret the experiences and perspectives of African American male college and university presidents in their ascension to presidency. This study aimed to catalyze strategies for leaders in higher education who aspire to ascend into presidency. In this critical phenomenological study, the researcher sought to address the experiences of 12 African American male college and university presidents in the South. This study included African American male presidents at public two-year institutions as well as public and private four-year institutions, some of which were Historically Black Colleges and Universities. By combining resilience theory and critical race theory,… [Direct]
(2018). Intersectional Analysis in Critical Mathematics Education Research: A Response to Figure Hiding. Review of Research in Education, v42 n1 p122-145 Mar. In this chapter, I use figure hiding as a metaphor representing the processes of exclusion and suppression that critical mathematics education (CME) seeks to address. Figure hiding renders identities and modes of thought in mathematics education and mathematics education research invisible. CME has a commitment to addressing figure hiding by making visible what has been obscured and bringing to the center what has been marginalized. While the tentacles of CME research address different analytical domains, much of this work can be connected to the social "isms" that plague our world (e.g., sexism, racism, heterosexism, colonialism, capitalism, ableism, militarism, nationalism, religious sectarianism). However, the trend in CME research is to address these "isms" in silos, which does not reflect the compounded forms of oppression that many experience. I review CME studies that employ intersectionality as a way of analyzing the complexities of oppression…. [Direct]
(2018). "Babylon by Bus?" The Dispersal of Immigrant Children in England, Race and Urban Space (1960s-1980s). Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v54 n6 p750-765. The history of forced dispersal of immigrant children in England, which affected mostly non-Anglophone Asian pupils in areas such as Southall (West London) and Bradford (West Yorkshire) in the 1960s and 1970s has only very recently elicited the interest of historians. Mobilising archival material as well as interviews with formerly bussed pupils, this paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate on the education and integration of immigrant children in Britain. This it does by appraising dispersal policies from the point of view of State and bureaucratic simplifications wherein the Department of Education and Science urgently introduced some policies to assuage white fears of an immigrant takeover locally (Southall). It focuses on perceptions of "tax-payers rights", at the heart of white autochthonous appreciations of the education system itself but which was largely denied to immigrant parents. Lastly, it analyses the extent to which, for the bussed pupils, racism on… [Direct]
(2024). Sustainability, Solidarity, Resistance: Anti-Racist Student Organizing at a Minority-Serving Institution. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago. University students are increasingly coming together to take action for racial justice and equity. Anti-racist student organizing includes how students collectively work to address racism and oppression at their institutions or beyond through sociopolitical engagement and action (e.g., protests, political education). Minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are in a unique position to support anti-racist student organizing because of their service to students and communities of Color. Yet, research also finds that student organizers can face threats to their psychological well-being and receive little institutional support, resulting in burnout and racial battle fatigue. Given these conditions, there is a limited understanding of how students practice anti-racist organizing, are able to sustain their labor, build solidarity, or engage in resistance. To address these limitations, this study used power mapping workshops to identify the practices of anti-racist student organizing, and how… [Direct]