(2016). Development of Boys and Young Men of Color: Implications of Developmental Science for My Brother's Keeper Initiative. Social Policy Report. Volume 29, Number 3. Society for Research in Child Development Boys and men of color (BMOC) are at significant risks for poor outcomes across multiple domains including education, health, and financial well-being with little promise of improvement in the near future. Out of concern for this situation, President Obama instituted the My Brother's Keeper Initiative (MBKI) to enlist the combined resources of federal, state, and local governments as well as human services, philanthropy, and business sectors. This Social Policy Report describes MBKI and summarizes ideas gleaned from developmental science that may be useful in efforts to reach the MBKI goals of school readiness, competent reading by third grade, high school and college completion, successful entry into the work force, and reduction of violence. Policy recommendations are offered along with suggestions for research that might involve developmental scientists in this effort. [This report was co-authored by the Boys of Color Research Collaborative. Two commentaries are included: (1)… [PDF]
(2023). Understanding Unacceptable Graduation Outcomes for Historically Excluded Trio Student Support Services Students. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Duquesne University. The primary purpose of this mixed-methods study is to define the problem and to understand the system that has been leading to unacceptably low graduation outcomes for historically excluded Trio Student Support Services (Trio SSS) students at Mid-Atlantic University (MAU), a pseudonym. To achieve the primary purpose extant documents and institutional data that can shed light on system processes and institutional conditions that perpetuate disparities in graduation outcomes, particularly for historically excluded racial groups that exist at the intersection of first-generation status and/or low socioeconomic status, will be analyzed. The secondary purpose of this study is to identify potential change ideas that might improve graduation rates for Trio Student Support Services students at MAU. Achieving the second purpose will yield an improvement agenda that can (1) contribute to improved outcomes for historically excluded Trio SSS students at MAU and (2) instigate new data-based… [Direct]
(2019). A Phenomenological Study of How Organizational Structures Affect Gender and Racial Inequalities Experienced by Black Faculty in North Carolina Community Colleges. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. For years now, reports by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on local and national community colleges consistently show how the number of Black faculty employed at community colleges is relatively lower than the number of White faculty. Recent data show that Black faculty represent only 7.4% of all instructional staff in community colleges, compared to 75.9% of White faculty (American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], 2016). These findings challenge the efforts of many colleges and universities that have created programs, initatives, and strategies to increase the representation of racial/ethnitic minority faculty in their institutions in order to mirror their diverse student population. Due to an increasingly diverse student population and the need to employ and retain Black faculty in today's community colleges, it is important to explore the everyday lived experiences of Black faculty. The purpose of this study was to explore how organizational structures… [Direct]
(2015). Paradox of Performing Exceptionalism: Complicating the Deserving/Underserving Binary of Undocumented Youth Attending Elite Institutions. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, v9 n2 p45-56. This article examines the problematic labels of "deserving" and "undeserving" within a broader context of undocumented immigration. Specifically, we interrogate the categorization of "deservingness" that imposes distinctions between "good" versus "bad" immigrants. We demonstrate these categories are assumed and subverted by undocumented youth in order to challenge disempowerment and racism experienced at both an interpersonal and institutional level. Our findings reveal how narratives of hard work and perseverance mitigate stigma to help youth reframe narratives of "undeservingness" at a micro-level of analysis. By contrast, racialization shapes individuals' experiences and motivations for activism at the macro-level. This study highlights narrative strategies used by youth to frame their accounts of inclusion and exclusion. It also contributes to the scholarship of undocumented youth in higher education through its… [Direct]
(2019). Social Justice Re-Examined: Dilemmas and Solutions for the Classroom Teacher. 2nd Edition. Trentham Books Teachers want to do their best for every child, but worry about causing offence and often shy away from troublesome issues. The classroom situations and strategies presented here will help teachers negotiate their way through complex situations and bring about constructive change. This book clarifies concepts and value differences and the subtle ways in which inequality often works. Theoretical as well as practical, these chapters look from inside out from the perspective of the teacher. They cover a wide range of issues: race, gender, poverty and class, sexuality, religion, English as an Additional Language, Islamophobia, Traveller children and ADHD. The book is essential reading for student teachers, early career teachers and teacher educators, but will also be invaluable for experienced teachers as they navigate their work in an increasingly diverse society. This book contains the following chapters: (1) Shaping Practice: The Impact of Personal Values and Experiences (Rowena… [Direct]
(2014). A Racio-Economic Analysis of Teach for America: Counterstories of TFA Teachers of Color. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, v11 n1 p11-25 Win. This article discusses Teach for America (TFA), one of the alternative education programs of the U.S. Department of Education designed to address the achievement gap of students of color in the country. Topics explored in this research include issues of racism and race in the recruitment and support of its teacher corp; how TFA educators of color perceive the impact of alternative teaching programs in economically disenfranchised communities of color; the function of counterstories in the education; and the interest-convergence theory in education. Interviews were conducted with TFA teachers of color to capture their counterstories in terms of: (1) knowledge and beliefs about race, power and education, (2) information on the participant and her/his experiences in the program, and (3) perception of the program's impact in economically disenfranchised communities of color. Results showed that TFA effectively benefits the economic and racial interests of Whites. Organizational… [PDF]
(1994). Border Issues in Education, Part 1 [and] Part 2. SEDLETTER, v6 n3 Sep-Dec 1993 v7 n1 Jan-Apr. These newsletters examine issues in education along the United States and Mexico border. Topics in Part 1 include the ramifications of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for education, the impact of immigration on schools, and the structure and history of the Mexican educational system and its reforms in theory and practice. Educators along the border have voiced concerns about the effects of NAFTA, most notably the impact of population growth on school facilities and budgets already stretched by illegal and legal immigration and the movement of populations from rural to urban areas on both sides of the border. Many in the United States are alarmed at the continuing waves of immigrants and discriminate against both legal and illegal immigrants. In any case the areas of concern that have been most frequently cited by border educators and experts have been growth and immigration. Some saw the burgeoning population as an opportunity; others saw it as a problem…. [PDF]
(2022). "I'm a Slave Man for Sure": Incarcerated Teens' Restoried Narratives of Resistance. Qualitative Research Journal, v22 n2 p236-247. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to challenge the "single story" narrative the authors utilize counterstorytelling as an analytic tool to reveal the paradox of exploring human rights with incarcerated BIPOC teens whose rights within the justice system are frequently ignored. Shared through their writing, drawing and discussions, the authors demonstrate how they wrote themselves into narratives that often sought to exclude them. Design/methodology/approach: This paper centers on the interpretations of Universal Human Rights by Black adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system in the Southeastern region of the United States. Critical ethnography was selected as we see literacy as a socially situated and collaborative practice. Additionally, the authors draw from recent work on the humanization of qualitative methods, especially when engaging with historically oppressed populations. Data were analyzed using a bricolage approach and the framework of… [Direct]
(2017). "Black Lesbians–Who Will Fight for Our Lives but Us?": Navigating Power, Belonging, Labor, Resistance, and Graduate Student Survival in the Ivory Tower. Feminist Teacher: A Journal of the Practices, Theories, and Scholarship of Feminist Teaching, v27 n2-3 p157-175. Author S. Tay Glover describes two instances of having seen Sara Ahmed give her talk about institutional diversity, racism, and the "immense labor of being queer, a feminist killjoy, and a willful subject". The first was during Glover's time completing her MA Degree in a women's studies program where Ahmed delivered the keynote. The second ocurred two years later when she studied at an elite private university to earn her doctorate in African American studies with a concentration in Black feminisms and Black queer studies. Glover writes that although she experienced both lectures in different midwestern institutions, departmental, interdisciplinary contexts, she blinked back tears of sadness and anger while in the majority-white rooms. She identified all too well with Ahmed's poetic overview of the violence, and bureaucracy that Black people, queers of color, and women are set up to experience, to weather, or be weathered by within primarily white cisheteronormative higher… [Direct]
(2015). Upping the "Anti-": The Value of an Anti-Racist Theoretical Framework in Music Education. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, v14 n1 p66-92 Apr. In a time that some have argued is "postracial" following the election and reelection of Barack Obama (see Wise 2010, for discussion), this paper argues that antiracism is a crucial theoretical framework for music education. I explore three areas of music education, in which such a framework can push toward change. The first area speaks directly to positionality and recognition of where students are situated in the matrix of domination (Collins 2000). Secondly, anti-racism encourages multicentricity and readily allows for multiple epistemologies or ways of knowing the world, in a manner quite contrary to a more ensemble-based paradigm. Finally, this critical theoretical orientation enables the pursuit of an equity agenda in the actual practice of teaching. In order to give practical context to these ideas, I draw on research from a multiple case study of four elementary music teachers in a large Canadian city. To varying extents, all four teachers employed an anti-racist… [PDF]
(2013). Black at Higher Education. Universal Journal of Educational Research, v1 n2 p83-92. This is an exploratory paper, drawing on the author's experiences as well as those of three other black lecturers in Higher Education (HE). Three interviews were carried out, asking the same five questions around themes of concern to the author. These are about the learning and teaching approaches used by these lecturers; their experiences of racism in HE; the professional role that they feel they play in HE; their strategies for the empowerment of black students and finally the meaning of academic "success" from their perspective. The individual narratives that emerge are explored and commonalities between them and with the author's own experiences and hopes are identified.It is the desire of this work to add to the scholarship on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Pedagogy and to emphasise the need for more counter-hegemonic narratives from the "black" experience in HE. This is explored through the voices of these academics as they recount their strategies… [PDF]
(2022). "Nobody Ever Says That": A Case Study Countering Deficit-Framing of Black Students by Centering Their Community Cultural Wealth. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan. Historically, Black students have been positioned using a deficit perspective (Valencia, 1997; 2010), resulting in students' classroom and schooling experiences being less than favorable. For example, Black students have experienced a disproportionate number of suspensions and unequal discipline measures (Howard & Rodriguez-Minkoff, 2017; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2009; U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014). At the same time, Black students are often faced with psychological distress and frustration when students feel like the schools they attend devalue and disrespect them (Choi et al., 2006; Cholewa et al., 2014). As a way to counter deficit framing of Black students, my dissertation identifies young, Black students' assets and Community Cultural Wealth (CCW; Yosso, 2005) and examines whether and how young, Black students' CCW is embedded in their classroom learning. I use an embedded, single case study design to share examples of six, Black second… [Direct]
(2015). Queer of Color Agency in Educational Contexts: Analytic Frameworks from a Queer of Color Critique. Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v51 n1 p28-44. Although queer students of color face multiple obstacles to safe and full participation in numerous educational contexts, cultural and scholarly narratives that emphasize their vulnerabilities can lead educational stakeholders to overlook, and thus miss opportunities to capitalize on, the agency that these students possess to negotiate the barriers to their academic success. To counterbalance discourses on youth as "at risk" or "in crisis," this article explores how a body of critical scholarship known as "a queer of color critique" can serve as a heuristic for educational research on the agentive practices of queer students of color. Situated largely outside of educational studies, a queer of color critique–much like critical race theories, disability studies, and similar discourses on difference–can organize analytic works across subfields of educational scholarship into a more coherent educational research agenda on queer of color difference while… [Direct]
(2012). Rethinking Research on Multiracial College Students: Toward an Integrative Model of Multiraciality for Campus Climate. Online Submission, Paper presented at the Biannual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference (2nd, Nov 2012). Although recent research on multiraciality exposes mixed race experiences in the post-Civil Rights era, higher education scholarship still seems to lack a framework that connects two racial systems of oppression that inform and reinforce each other: traditional racisms targeting monoracially-constructed groups, and monoracism targeting multiraciality. Considering that college has the potential to prepare all students to effectively engage in our increasingly diverse society, we must also examine how multiple racisms function around multiraciality in college. Accordingly, this paper reviews race-based theories and frameworks common in American higher education research, and builds upon aspects of them to develop an integrative model for examining multiraciality in a way that accounts for historical and contemporary contexts, individual identities, campus structures, and broader systems of oppression. It draws upon elements of racial formation theory, multiracial identity theory,… [PDF]
(2016). On Extending the Truncated Parameters of Transformation in Higher Education in South Africa into a Language of Democratic Engagement and Justice. Transformation in Higher Education, v1 n1 Article 7. Universities, in their multiplex roles of social, political, epistemological and capital reform, are by their constitution expected to both symbolise and enact transformation. While institutions of higher education in South Africa have been terrains of protest and reform — whether during apartheid or post-apartheid — the intense multiplex roles which these institutions assume have metaphorically come home to roost in the past 2 years. Not unlike the social-media-infused rumblings, coined as the 'Arab Spring', the recent cascades of #mustfall campaigns have brought to the fore the serious dearth of transformation in higher education and have raised more critical questions about conceptions of transformation, and how these translate into, or reflect, the social and political reform that continues to dangle out of the reach of the majority of South Africans. What, then, does transformation mean and imply? How does an institution reach a transformed state? How does one know when such a… [PDF]