(2020). COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter: Examining Anti-Asian Racism and Anti-Blackness in US Education. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, v5 n1 p190-199. The intersection of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd has refocused attention on the hitherto hidden, but pervasive, impacts of race and racism in the US. As this essay will argue, examining anti-Asian racism and anti-Blackness in the context of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter movement, allow a deeper understanding of how white supremacy operates in institutions of higher education and in US society. While universities have a critical role and responsibility to spearhead transformative justice and change, racial capitalism is still at work, whereby profits are prioritized over delivering equitable educational experiences for students and the health of all its constituents. School closures in spring 2020 and reopening plans for fall 2020 are used to illustrate racial capitalism in higher education…. [PDF]
(2023). Implementing Anti-Racist Strategies in the Evidence-Based Sexuality Education Classroom. American Journal of Sexuality Education, v18 n1 p149-169. Many sexuality educators in the United States have noted that current sex education models do not meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body, and they have begun advocating for anti-racist sex education. Many sexuality instructors, however, work in public schools that require the use of prevention-focused, evidence-based sexuality curricula. This article explores the unique challenges for sexuality instructors in incorporating anti-racist content into the public school classroom. It outlines the intersections of racism and sexuality to manifest the need for anti-racist sex education and offers five strategies for sexuality instructors wishing to incorporate anti-racist frameworks into the evidence-based sex education classroom…. [Direct]
(2024). Intersections of Trauma: War, Systemic Racism, and Higher Education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, v56 n1 p31-37. Using their own experience of war as a backdrop, the author explores how trauma shatters an individual's foundational beliefs, leaving them grappling with questions about their own worth and the inherent goodness of humanity. The discussion moves from personal to collective trauma, examining the profound betrayal felt by Black scientists in academia due to systemic racism and drawing parallels to Newton's third law to explain the cause-and-effect relationships at play. Finally, the article offers a starting list of recommendations for individuals and institutional leaders in higher education, aimed at fostering equity and addressing the multifaceted nature of trauma…. [Direct]
(2024). Rehabituating Theology: Habit Forming Theological Education Integrating Contemplative and Embodied Pedagogy. Teaching Theology & Religion, v27 n1-2 p19-23. Theological education faces the task of forming leaders and scholars with the capacity for personal and social transformation. This effort requires a deeper understanding of habit formation as both problem and potential. Utilizing the example of how racism functions through embodied habits, this article emphasizes bodily awareness and repeated practice as necessary components for theological formation. In doing so, this approach integrates contemplative and embodied pedagogies and suggests ways to address the research gap in these areas, especially regarding the study and teaching of religion. The tools and resources of somatic abolitionism offer a way to rewire bodily perceptions with theological classrooms…. [Direct]
(2024). The Stories We Tell Our Young Children: Using Picture Books to Explore Race and Black-Jewish Relations. Journal of Jewish Education, v90 n3 p246-268. Early childhood Jewish education provides an opportune moment to teach about race and Black-Jewish relations as young children grapple with concepts like justice. This article argues that picture books containing interactions between Black and Jewish characters or a Black Jewish character are a powerful pedagogical tool for this purpose. We created the first inventory of picture books that contain these characters, finding 188 of them which we believe can be invaluable in introducing the vital topic of race and racism to young children in early childhood Jewish classrooms through the historically important lenses of Black-Jewish relations and Black Jewish individuals…. [Direct]
(2023). Examining Virginia's African American History Course through the Lens of Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Social Studies, v114 n6 p266-281. During the 2020-2021 academic year, Virginia piloted a state-designed secondary African American history elective in 16 school divisions. Using the framework of Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge (RPCK), this study examined the treatment of race in the new course by analyzing the state-created curriculum materials and interviewing three teachers that were part of the pilot program. Findings suggest that the curriculum challenged problematic traditional historic narratives, addressed issues of identity and structural racism, and applied racial knowledge through civic action projects. Teachers felt prepared to teach the course due to sustained racially conscious professional development facilitated by the Virginia Department of Education. The curriculum of the state-designed course and its implementation by teachers align with the core tenets of RPCK, such as its interrogation of power structures and inequalities, examination of intersectionality, and empowerment of students to… [Direct]
(2023). Legislate to (Un)Educate: Examining the Impact of Divisive and Dehumanizing Education Policies. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, v25 n1-2 p51-68. Authors explore recent education policies that ban the teaching of critical race theory, restrict teaching race-related topics, prohibit conversations about divisive concepts, and problematize their impact in further silencing (and potentially erasing) complex issues about race and racism and other forms of oppression in historical and sociocultural contexts. This article highlights legislative efforts and examines findings and implications from a study designed to explore perceptions of educators related to the anti-critical race theory bills…. [Direct]
(1996). Facing Racism in Education. Second Edition. Harvard Educational Review Reprint Series No. 28. Since the publication of the first edition of this book, the nation has moved from silence about the reality of racism to the denial of its existence. Talking about racism is never easy, but the eight chapters from the original edition and eight new chapters provide insight into racism in education and strategies for change. Included are: (1) \Wounding the Spirit: Discrimination and Traditional American Indian Belief Systems\ (Carol Locust); (2) \Navajo Youth and Anglo Racism: Cultural Integrity and Resistance\ (Donna Deyhle); (3) \Reflections of a Black Social Scientist: Some Struggles, Some Doubts, Some Hopes\ (Jacquelyn Mitchell); (4) \Racism in Academia: The Old Wolf Revisited\ (Maria de la Luz Reyes and John J. Halcon); (5) \Giving Voice to the Voiceless\ (Beverly McElroy-Johnson); (6) \The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children\ (Lisa D. Delpit); (7) \Fundamental Considerations: The Deep Meaning of Native American Schooling, 1880-1900\…
(2024). Planting Gardens versus Fighting Fires: A Critical Race Narrative Inquiry of Black and Latinx Students' Lower Participation in Education Abroad. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University. Education abroad personnel have relied on a 30+ years old rationale that Black and Latinx students participate in college study abroad programs at a lower rate than their white peers due to cultural differences attributed to the backgrounds of Black and Latinx students. Despite contemporary guidance from education scholars to move beyond this rationale, education abroad personnel on a whole have yet to consider if and how education abroad personnel's discussions on participation rates of Black and Latinx students reflect racialized deficit-based thinking, a mindset that attributes disparities in educational performance to the fault of Black and Latinx students. Therefore, this qualitative research study sought to understand how: (1) education abroad personnel narrate the phenomenon of the lower participation rate of U.S. Black and Latinx college students in education abroad programs, (1a) what, if any, patterns of race and racism are present in their narrative, and (2) to understand… [Direct]
(2022). 2020 Council on Anthropology & Education Presidential Address Decolonizing Education: Roles for Anthropology. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, v53 n3 p196-214 Sep. In this address I identify specific and unique roles anthropology can play in the necessary work of decolonizing education. These include: building anti-racist schools that honor all "ways of being human"; decolonizing school leadership and working towards culture creation for equity and anti-racism; decolonizing teaching and learning and honoring how humans learn best; decolonizing teacher education; decolonizing student-teacher relationships; putting the social in social and emotional learning; and decolonizing education research and policy…. [Direct]
(2022). 'That's My Job': Black Teachers' Perspectives on Helping Black Students Navigate White Supremacy. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v25 n7 p978-996. This paper presents the findings of a research study that sought to understand the perspectives of exemplary Black teachers utilizing emancipatory pedagogies to help Black students navigate systems of white supremacy in a contemporary American social landscape where racism is simultaneously invisible and hypervisible. Using critical race theory, the findings of this narrative inquiry indicate that participants made their students aware of the ubiquity of racism and the inevitability that they would experience it. Findings also show that participants provided their students with opportunities to speak back to their oppression, shifted the ways they practiced emancipatory pedagogy based on the teaching and social context in which they found themselves, and learned to engage students in these ways at various points in their lives but not through teacher education. This study has implications for teachers, school administrators, teacher educators, and researchers…. [Direct]
(2022). Multiculturalism and the Cultural Politics of Racism in Hong Kong. Multicultural Education Review, v14 n1 p13-27. This article examines a new element in the cultural politics of multicultural Hong Kong, namely the emergence of racism towards ethnic and other minorities in on-line discussion forums. To gauge the extent of this problem, we examined 2,918 on-line reader commentaries about the 249 news articles on ethnic minorities published by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) between 2012-2018. A discourse analysis found that racist and racialized discourses pervade these commentaries. While our data are from Hong Kong, our study has international implications. The publication of racist commentaries on news articles legitimizes and institutionalizes a culture of racism that, we propose, acts as a potent form of racist public pedagogy. Nevertheless, shedding light on this problem opens up new possibilities for multicultural interventions in policy and education in Hong Kong and beyond…. [Direct]
(2021). Dismantling Barriers to Anti-Racist Education. BU Journal of Graduate Studies in Education, v13 n4 p17-20. Teachers desiring to address inequity within education must acknowledge the inconsistencies experienced by students who belong to historically marginalized or oppressed communities. Antiracist education addresses conventions rooted in systemic or structural racism, colourblindness, and implicit bias, creating an environment that facilitates equity in education for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, or culture…. [PDF]
(2024). 'This Is Almost Like Ruby Bridges': Young Children's Demonstration of Racial Literacy. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v27 n1 p118-137. Young Children of Color in the United States experience the effects of racism on a daily basis. There have been calls for anti-bias and anti-racist education across the field of education, yet most recommendations are based on older students or studies in laboratory settings. Additionally, state and local governments have enacted legislation designed to make it harder for teachers to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive education. In this ethnographic study of two early childhood classrooms, children explored individual and collective racialized identities and investigated the role of race in the lives of children across time, including 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, who integrated New Orleans schools in 1960. Children also applied theories of justice to ideas about race. Findings suggest racial education should support students' racial inquiry by acknowledging what they already experience, do, and wonder about race…. [Direct]
(2024). Consequential Intersections: Examining Equity Expressions and Experiences within Special Education Ecosystems. AERA Open, v10 n1. We employ the metaphor of an educational ecosystem to explain how racial inequity in special education manifests in a midsized urban school district via equity expressions and experiences. We focus on two ecosystems operating at the mesol-evel within school districts: 1) special education and 2) equity ecosystems. We show how these educational ecosystems converge and diverge when a state education agency (SEA) cites a local education agency (LEA) via federal disability legislation for racial disparities in special education outcomes–commonly referred to as racial disproportionality. Using document analysis and semistructured interview data, we empirically examine how equity and special education ecosystems converge and diverge and discuss the implications for addressing racialized inequities. We highlight that there was limited equity absorption across the two ecosystems and how racism and ableism are implicated in the convergences and divergences between the two systems. We… [PDF]