(2017). "Can I Borrow Your Glasses?": A Prescription for Learning to See the Cultural Roots of Identity Terms and Implicit Categories through Others' Lenses. Intercultural Education, v28 n6 p543-556. Why is there so much confusion and conflict around common identity labels, a problem that extends well beyond any stereotypes that they may evoke? How do we escape the seeming paradox that we reject racism but still speak frequently of black and white? Who claims the power to determine or name others' identities? The confusion and conflict about identity that play out on a surface level are often caused by starkly different but implicit understandings that operate beneath the surface. For example, terms like black, Jewish and Muslim may invoke several of our deeper conceptions or categories like race, culture, religion and ethnicity, and to varying degrees in different places. Critically, these categories themselves are culturally rooted. This article shows how our implicit categories can lead to both cross-cultural confusion and problematic misunderstandings in course content. Helping students to recognise and to understand the cultural roots of our implicit categories should be a… [Direct]
(2019). Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives. 10th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc As diversity continues to increase in the United States, ethnic, cultural, social-class, and linguistic gaps are widening between teachers and their students. The rapidly changing educational landscape presents unique challenges and opportunities for addressing diversity both creatively and constructively in schools. "Multicultural Education" helps current and future educators fully understand sophisticated concepts of culture; become more effective practitioners in diverse classrooms; and view race, class, gender, social class, and exceptionality as intersectional concepts. Now in its tenth edition, this bestselling textbook assists educators to effectively respond to the ways race, social class, and gender interact to influence student behavior and learning. Contributions from leading authorities in multicultural education discuss the effects of class and religion on education; differences in educational opportunities for male, female, and LGBTQ students; and issues… [Direct]
(2017). #RhodesMustFall: Decolonization, Praxis and Disruption. Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education, v9 n2 p5-9 Fall. In 2015, a student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, took a bucket of feces and threw it against a bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes located on the university's campus (Nyamnjoh 2016). Rhodes, who was recognized as a British imperialist and racist, became a symbolic focal point for #RhodesMustFall (RMF) – a radical student movement centered on the decolonization of education by confronting questions of institutional racism, access to education, and reforming the university curriculum (Gibson 2016; Luescher 2016; Mbembe 2016). Maxwele's defacement of the Rhodes statue fueled an ongoing national debate on decolonization and the cost of higher education that had started in the early 2000s (Booysen 2016). Protests at universities across South Africa erupted following the defacement of the Rhodes statue expanding RMF into the #FeesMustFall (FMF) movement which has demanded free, quality, decolonized education (Booysen 2016; Hefferman and Nieftagodien 2016, Luescher,… [PDF]
(2014). Toward a Black Radical Independent Education: Black Radicalism, Independence and the Supplementary School Movement. Journal of Negro Education, v83 n1 p5-14 Win. Black Radicalism believes in the centrality of racism to Western imperialism and a Diasporic commitment to the liberation of Africa; existing in distinction to Black Nationalism, Marxism and Critical Race Theory. A Black radical critique of schooling is presented and the mischaracterizations of Black Radicalism as segregationist and separatist are examined. Black independent education is a necessary feature of Black Radicalism and the Black supplementary schools movement in Britain exists as a potential space where such an education can be developed…. [Direct]
(2018). A Case Study of Significant Disproportional Discipline of African American Students in Special Education: Inquiry in a Suburban School District. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Loyola Marymount University. In U.S. school districts, African American special-education students are disciplined more heavily than other students. This case study examined how a suburban high school district in Southern California addressed disproportionality and significant disproportionality in the discipline of African American students with disabilities. The study gathered qualitative data through interviews with 28 of the district's employees–including officials, administrators, psychologists, security officers, teachers, and classified staff–and analysis of the interviews, along with relevant documents and field notes. This research provides an overall picture of the challenges involved in overcoming disproportionality and significant disproportionality in student discipline, especially those of marginalized groups, and suggests ways to improve school programs. The study highlights the importance of taking cultural issues into account as they relate to employing effective disciplinary tactics,… [Direct]
(2020). Structured Whiteness: A Study of Social Studies Teachers Who Teach in Predominantly-White Public School Districts. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a powerful and insightful theoretical framework that examines the way race plays a role in American society and, by extension, its education system. However, much of the empirical work framed by CRT is qualitative and explores the way race plays a role in the educational experiences of marginalized students and/or is used to prepare white teachers to educate marginalized students. This study sought to use quantitative methodology framed by CRT to study teachers who teach in predominantly-white districts, examine their critical multicultural educational competencies, their critical consciousness, and finally their knowledge of CRT and comfort level with its basic premises. As the one of the basic premises of CRT posits that "racism is normal in American society" (Ladson-Billings, 1998), it therefore becomes crucial to employ CRT as a framework to study predominantly white districts as well as districts populated by marginalized students. The… [Direct]
(2019). Toward Critically Transformative Possibilities: Considering Tensions and Undoing Inequities in the Spatialization of Teacher Education. Teachers College Record, v121 n6. Background: Racism remains a deep-rooted and pervasive feature of U.S. society. Racist ideas, defined by Ibram X. Kendi as "any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way," are major topographies in the current landscape of teacher education. Focus: Rejecting the production of racial inequities as an unavoidable outcome of teacher education, in this article, a university-based teacher educator of color and an early childhood teacher/teacher educator of color unveil the complex sociospatial dialectic of teacher education across settings. Positioning mapping as a possible pathway for coauthoring a counternarrative that rejects teacher education's first spaces, characterized by the overvaluation of White ontologies, Eurocentric epistemologies, and ideologies that deem university-based knowledge superior, they identified and mapped inequities across the physical, relational, and pedagogical locations where teacher education… [Direct]
(2023). An Asian American Feminist Manifesto: Asian American Women Heads of Schools Embodying Culturally Responsive School Leadership. Teachers College Record, v125 n7-8 p173-187. Background: Within more than 1,600 preK-12 member schools in the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in the United States, there were only seven Asian American women heads of schools in 2019, representing 6% of all heads of color, 1% of all women heads, and 0.4% of all heads of schools. There has been limited research on intersectionality in educational leadership, particularly in the context of independent schools. Purpose of Study: This article sets out to address the research gap in current literature as it pertains to examining the intersectional impact of race, gender, culture, and epistemology on the leadership experiences of Asian American women heads of independent schools, and to deconstruct mainstream leadership narratives by unearthing and complicating critical narratives of a small group of educational leaders who are women of color. Research Design: This qualitative study employs intersectionality theory as the conceptual framework, culturally responsive… [Direct]
(2013). Racism, College, and the Power of Words: Racial Microaggressions Reconsidered. American Educational Research Journal, v50 n3 p432-465 Jun. Based on interview data from a collective case study, this article uses current notions of racial microaggressions to explore this \subtle\ racism through the voices of six Latino/a students as they transition to a predominantly White university. Using critical race theory as a framework, I argue for greater understanding and increased use of the term \racial microaggressions\ within education generally and specifically with regard to higher education. I also, however, argue for specific changes in the existing framework of racial microaggressions, contending that the term microaggression is at times misused within academia and that this misuse has potentially negative consequences. Implications for discussions of racism writ large as well as for specific changes on college campuses are discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 6 notes.)… [Direct]
(2015). "Listen to the Voice of Reason": The "New Orleans Tribune" as Advocate for Public, Integrated Education. History of Education, v44 n3 p293-315. The "New Orleans Tribune" (1864-1870), the first black daily newspaper in the United States, was the singular text in the public South at its time to staunchly advocate for public, integrated education, anticipating the ruling of "Brown v. Board of Education," and arguing that separate education would always be synonymous with unequal education and would reinforce the mark of inferiority already placed upon blacks by slavery. This article argues that the "Tribune" grounded its argument against segregated education in logos-centred rhetoric that focused specifically on combating the dominant discourse of white supremacy and black inferiority embedded in the emerging ideology of scientific racism. The "Tribune" defended against the divisive rhetoric of the newly forming eugenics movement and instead posed public, integrated education as a necessary prerequisite to rebuilding a nation destroyed by the Civil War…. [Direct]
(2022). Thoughts, Reflections, and Perceptions of African American Students about Becoming Teachers in a Small Urban School District. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2020), in 1999, 84% of teachers were white, and 8% of teachers were African American. Unfortunately, these statistics have not changed much in two decades. In 2018, 79% of teachers were white, and 7% of teachers were African American. In order to change the experiences in our schools for African American students, we must find a solution to grow more African American teachers. Waiting to recruit African American adults to become teachers seems to be an afterthought. Researching the thoughts, reflections, and perceptions of African American students about becoming teachers provides insight and recommendations to minority teacher recruitment and retention programs at both the collegiate level and K-12 schools. To increase the number of African American teachers, school districts will need to change what they are currently doing to recruit and retain African American teachers. Through qualitative student focus group interviews,… [Direct]
(2023). Multi-Lens Noticing in Preservice Teachers' First Attempts at Facilitating Discussion in Diverse English Classes. Teachers College Record, v125 n4 p95-133 Apr. Background: Classroom discourse featuring meaning making supports students achieving discipline-specific learning. However, moving beyond recitation requires developing beliefs, skills, structures, and practices. Any theorizing we do about developing discussion practice must attend to realities of culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Purpose: Our study offers a teacher education innovation that prepares ELA candidates to facilitate discussion, framed by a set of noticing lenses: noticing for "collaborative communication," "content learning," and "equity." We asked: As they reflected on their first attempts at facilitating discussion in diverse secondary ELA classes, what did preservice teachers (PSTs) notice about their discussion practices and students' engagement and response patterns? Participants: Our study features an inquiry course in a teacher credential program. Participants were 83 PSTs pursuing secondary English credentials,… [Direct]
(2018). Roma Women's Higher Education Participation: Whose Responsibility?. Gender and Education, v30 n7 p811-828. There are striking gaps between Roma and non-Roma higher education (HE) participation rates, with less than 1% of Roma possessing a tertiary-level qualification [United Nations Development Programme, World Bank and European Commission. 2011a. "The Situation of Roma in 11 EU Member States." Accessed 3 April 2015. issuu.com/undp_in_europe_cis/docs/_roma_…. As the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005–2015) closes, this renders the present a salient moment to reflect on Roma students' HE experiences. Widening educational access for marginalised groups raises specific questions about where responsibility for doing so lies–with tensions between individualised articulations of raising aspiration and notions of collective responsibility framed in a social justice agenda. Drawing on interviews with five Roma women students, this paper unpacks the contradictions between desiring access to HE for individual self-betterment and concurrent pulls towards… [Direct]
(2017). A Portrait in Black and White: An Analysis of Race in the Adult Education Classroom. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of South Florida. Adult education is a reciprocal relationship between adult learners and adult education practitioners. As such, it is essential to understand the experiences of adult educators and adult education practitioners as they teach adults. This study focuses on how ideas about race and racism are examined in the graduate-level classroom and the adult learners' experience as they focus on subject matter that challenges their assumptions and forces them to create new understandings about race. This study examines, through the portraiture methodology, the experiences of a White researcher and the adult learners engaging in dialogues about race in a CRT course. The findings of this study include an examination of my role as a White researcher engaging in dialogues in this CRT course, including an inquiry into my silences, trepidation, and feelings of helplessness during the classroom interactions. I also examine the ways in which the adult learners who participated in this course communicated… [Direct]
(2015). The Dynamics of Multiculturalism in "Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education". Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, v14 n3 p10-26 Nov. This review of "Music Matters," Second Edition, focuses on the portion of Chapter 13: "Music Education and Curriculum," dedicated to the discussion of multicultural music education. Discussions are presented through the discursive lens of antiracism and critical multiculturalism, positioned against the backdrop of the racial violence experienced in the U.S. between August 2014 and July 2015, and the long history of human rights abuses in both Canada and the U.S. Following from a discussion of multiculturalism's initial emergence as a way to remedy racism, and an investigation of the relationship between multiculturalism and power, the review turns to Elliott and Silverman's preference for the term intercultural (over multicultural) music education. An examination of the differences between interculturalism and multiculturalism, and the possible unintended consequences of an interculturalist stance in music education, conclude the review…. [PDF]