(2023). "Trickle-Down" Racial Empathy in American Higher Education: Moving beyond Performative Wokeness and Academic Panels to Spark Racial Equity. Journal of Education, v203 n3 p718-725 Jul. Recent racial justice protests in response to police-related brutality in the U.S. illuminate tensions reflective of persistent power differentials and social and racial traumas of which the U.S. education system has played a pronounced role in both historically producing and, more recently, reproducing by trafficking in an "ethos" of "trickle-down" racial empathy. Asking questions of the reader, this reflection explores how institutions of higher education persistently fail to accurately diagnose and problematize systemic racism and their role in mediating it, thus failing to engender impactful policy toward diversity, equity, and inclusion within and outside of their academic communities…. [Direct]
(2024). What's Hot in Literacy 2023: The Ban on Books and Diversity Measures. Literacy Research and Instruction, v63 n1 p1-16. The annual "What's Hot in Literacy" survey uncovers the current focal points within literacy education. A panel of twenty-five literacy leaders participated and engaged in interviews to identify the most and least emphasized literacy topics, as well as those deserving more attention. The findings for 2023 spotlight several topics categorized as "very hot," including dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities, early literacy, phonics/phonemic awareness, and social justice/equity/anti-racism in literacy. The topics of the science of reading and structured literacy emerged as "extremely hot," and the sole topic ranked as "should not be hot" for the 2023 survey cycle. Assessing these outcomes and their potential impacts on literacy education holds importance for educators across all levels…. [Direct]
(2023). Decolonising Dental Educational Research: Reflections from a White Researcher. Advances in Health Sciences Education, v28 n5 p1679-1695. While there is an emerging scholarship on decolonising dentistry, the debate about reflexivity, positionality and white privilege in dental educational research and practice is still at a developmental stage. This article aims to contribute to this nascent debate by contemplating the question- is it appropriate, or possible, for a white researcher to undertake decolonisation work in dental education? If so, what would it entail or 'look' like? To answer this important question, the author offers a reflective account of their ethical and epistemological journey with this very question. This journey begins with how I, a white researcher, first became aware of the everyday racism experienced by my racially and ethnically minoritized students, the whiteness of dental educational spaces and how my white privilege and position as a dental educator consciously and unconsciously implicated me in these processes of exclusion and discrimination. While this revelation led to a personal… [Direct]
(2023). "Twenty-Four White Women and 'Me'": Controlling and Managing Men of Color in Teacher Education. Urban Education, v58 n1 p36-58 Jan. Diversifying the student body in teacher education programs (TEPs) remains an elusive goal. Despite recruiting efforts, few men of color complete programs leading to teaching credentials. To problematize this phenomenon, this study examines the experiences of three men of color enrolled in a predominantly White teacher education program (PWTEP). Participants were interviewed using a narrative inquiry protocol with emphasis on providing a space for counter-storytelling. Analysis of their narratives was conducted using a critical race theory (CRT) framework. Findings from the narratives highlight the way racism intersects with gender to reproduce, reinscribe, and protect dominant conceptions of "who belongs" in TEPs…. [Direct]
(1994). Racial Issues in Education: Real or Imagined?. Multicultural growth in teachers is measured through their level of cultural self-awareness, their emotional response to difference, their mode of cultural interaction, and whether their teaching approach is ethnocentric or multicultural. Overt racial issues in education include racial differences in standardized testing, gifted and remedial placement, academic tracking, and dropout rates. These differences typically discriminate against children of color. Covert racial issues in education encompass negative teacher attitudes about children. Factors that influence teacher expectations include students': (1) ethnicity; (2) gender; (3) socioeconomic status; (4) past achievement; (5) personality; (6) seat in the classroom; (7) attractiveness; (8) handwriting; (9) speech characteristics; and (10) combinations of these characteristics. Covert racial issues in education require that teacher interactions with children of color be monitored for balance in positive and negative reactions,… [PDF]
(2023). Common Ground: How Public K-12 Schools Are Navigating Pandemic Disruptions and Political Trends. Bellwether This document is the first of a semi-annual "stocktaking" publication to analyze various political trends impacting education and young people. Bellwether hopes to help the field separate signal from noise and provide context around various issues and trends affecting the sector. The impact of COVID-19 school closures on schools and students, which are only starting to be understood, was an obvious starting place for the first project. But while the pandemic has dominated attention for the past several years, it is not the only issue in American life. Other issues are stressing Americans, such as mass shootings, inflation, mental health needs, and racism, to name a few. Because schools are institutions that transfer culture and norms and one of the last public venues where Americans regularly come together, schools are often battlegrounds for society's various debates. In this report, the authors focus on six issues related to pandemic disruptions and broader cultural… [PDF]
(2022). A Narrative Self-Study: The Intersection of Anti-Racism, Whiteness, and the Institutionalization of Ethnic Studies in K-12 Education. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota. In November 2020, the school board governing Patinmay Public Schools (PPS) passed a policy change requiring ethnic studies coursework to graduate. For several years, numerous people have worked to make ethnic studies a possibility for all students. My story with ethnic studies in PPS, however, began more recently in August 2020. Utilizing methods from narrative inquiry and self-study, I examined opportunities and challenges encountered during the early stages of implementing the new ethnic studies graduation requirement. Desiring to be a co-conspirator (Love, 2019), it was critical for me to reflect on ways in which my identity as a white woman impacted my work implementing ethnic studies as a graduation requirement. By conducting a self-study, I hoped to grow in my own practice, with the ultimate goal of improving ethnic studies programming for students and teachers in Patinmay Public Schools. For this self-study, narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was utilized to… [Direct]
(2023). "I Didn't Know I Could Have a Voice": How Asian American Childhood Experiences Shaped Lived Identities. Journal for Multicultural Education, v17 n3 p330-342. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into Asian Americans' experiences with racism during elementary, middle and high school and how those experiences shape the ways they describe their racial identity. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a qualitative research design and narrative inquiry strategy. The authors used Chang's (1993) Asian Critical Race Theory framework to examine participant's descriptions of experiences with racism during elementary, middle and high school and how these experiences shape how they describe their Asian American racial identity. Findings: Participants' narratives revealed a common theme of silencing through two major processes: acceptance of the Asian American identity as an "other" and measuring the Asian American self against the barometers of physical appearance and the model minority stereotype. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature on Asian Americans by examining how experiences as a child… [Direct]
(2023). Addressing Health and Wellness for At-Risk Urban Youth: A Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Study to Assess Environmental Health (EH) Concerns. Journal of STEM Outreach, v6 n2. At-risk urban youth benefit from mentored activities. The Champion Academy (CA) is a youth mentoring program for high risk urban youth. We used a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach to explore: 1) youth perspectives on health and wellness, EH and EJ; and 2) community perspectives on the intersection of structural racism, health equity, and youth health and wellness. We surveyed CA participants to assess health and wellness and conducted youth and adult interviews and focus groups to understand what environmental factors impact their daily lives. In 45 youth surveys, 64% reported enjoying time outdoors; 45% had concerns about pollution. The five youth focus groups (N = 49) and individual interviews (N = 10) identified 3 themes: (1) pervasive community violence; (2) systemic racism, and (3) limited power to make change. The two adult focus groups (N = 7) and individual interviews (N = 5) identified: 1) normalization of environmental problems and violence; 2) youth… [PDF]
(1999). Educators Healing Racism. This book presents a collection of essays on racism and the role of teachers in healing racism. There are three sections with nine papers. After an "Introduction" (D. John McIntyre), Section 1, "Historical Perspectives," includes: (1) "Racism in Education" (Gwendolyn Duhon Boudreaux, Rose Duhon-Sells, Alice Duhon-Ross, and Halloway C. Sells); and (2) "History of Racism: Social, Political, and Psychological Perspectives on Modernity" (H. Prentice Baptiste, Jr., James B. Boyer, Socorro Herrera, and Kevin Murry). Section 2, "Instructional Perspectives," includes (3) "Healing the Wounds of Instructional Racism" (Patricia Larke, Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson, Ronald Rochon, and Mary Anderson); (4) "Family Involvement: Empowering Families To Heal Racism" (Phyllis Y. Hammonds and Cathy Gutierrez-Gomez); (5) "Dealing with Issues of Racism in the Classroom: Preservice and Beginning Teachers" (Norvella P. Carter, Anne… [PDF]
(2024). Critically Conscious Early and Elementary Educators: Towards Abolitionist Education in Teacher Preparation. Multicultural Perspectives, v26 n3 p203-215. How do teacher preparation programs re-culture themselves so that we can supply educational settings with teachers who work toward liberation from racism and other systems of oppression? Abolitionist education is one strategic framework that can be utilized to support this systemic re-culturing. I share my experiences in re-designing and facilitating a diversity course in an early childhood education (ECE) teacher preparation program toward abolitionist education through culturally and historically responsive learning, social justice teaching frameworks, Chicana/Latina feminist philosophy, and abolitionist pedagogy. The course explored four units: Identity, Justice and Anti-Bias, Intergenerational Genius, and Freedom Dreaming and Abolition. In-class and at-home projects included positionality statements, analyzing characteristics of white supremacy culture operating in ECE, studying abolitionist movement organizers, and transforming mandated curriculum based on social justice for… [Direct]
(2022). Health Information Equity: Rebalancing Healthcare Collections for Racial Diversity in UK Public Service Contexts. Education for Information, v38 n4 p315-336. COVID-19 illustrated health disparities experienced by racially minoritised people, with heightened risks faced by Black and South Asian communities lending the issue transparency and urgency. Despite efforts to decolonise medical education, deficits in racial representation in research and resources remain. This study investigates the potential and imperatives for healthcare information services to contribute to health equity through their collections. The literature analysis explores collection management, decolonisation, social justice in librarianship, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework for change in information contexts. A survey of UK National Health Service (NHS) librarians provides a snapshot of awareness of health information inequity. Semi-structured interviews explore information professionals' experiences of anti-racism in the system. The findings indicate strong engagement with the need for equitable resources but highlight some barriers to success…. [Direct]
(2024). Reality and Rationalization: Insights on Rural Teachers' Efforts to Build Racial Literacy. Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v60 n2 p216-233. Racism remains endemic and pervasive throughout the United States, its institutions, structures, and systems. And yet, efforts to build racial literacy have been widely absent in K-12 educational institutions. Research exploring the racial pedagogical decision making of teachers is essential for disrupting systemic educational inequalities brought on by white supremacy. Drawing on scholarship focused on racial literacy, critical race theory, and rural education, this study explored the racial literacy and racialized teaching of ten rural social studies teachers. Findings illustrate that teachers embodied racial literacy in two ways: rooted in reality and as rationalization. This research also reveals the tensions, affordances, challenges, and opportunities of teaching for racial literacy teaching in rural classrooms…. [Direct]
(2021). "Wherever Nurses Are, They Change the Game": A Conversation with G. Rumay Alexander on Transforming Nursing Education for A More Equitable Future. Liberal Education, v107 n2 Spr. G. Rumay Alexander is a leader working to transform nursing education and address systemic racism within the nursing profession and the health care system more broadly. At the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, Alexander serves as clinical professor at the School of Nursing and assistant dean for relational excellence at the Adams School of Dentistry. She was also formerly the university's associate vice chancellor and chief diversity officer. On a national level, Alexander is a scholar-in-residence for the American Nurses Association (supporting the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing) and immediate past president of the National League for Nursing. She spoke with "Liberal Education" about how COVID-19 has affected nurses and nursing students, how faculty and administrators can create equitable and inclusive environments that allow all students to thrive, how lessons learned from the pandemic might help transform nursing education, and how… [Direct]
(2022). Developing an Anti-Biased, Anti-Racist Stance in Second Language Teacher Education Programs. Canadian Modern Language Review, v78 n4 p385-414 Nov. Addressing race/racism and colonialism in French as a second language (FSL) education is essential to preparing culturally responsive teachers and meeting the Ministry mandate to teach students equitably and with respect. This article describes whether, and if so, how, candidates are being prepared to disrupt colonial ideologies and practices with data from a three-year project on FSL teacher preparation in two Ontario faculties of education. Interviews were conducted with professors and teacher candidates. Using a critical qualitative approach to identify emerging themes, the study applied an anti-biased, anti-racist (ABAR) lens to identify racialized power inequities that can form across French languages, cultures, and marginalized groups, oppressive common-sense principles, and systemic influences around three main themes: teaching culture and promoting intercultural competence; addressing equity, inclusion, and racism explicitly; and Whiteness, Eurocentrism, and representation in… [Direct]