(2020). "I Didn't Wanna Believe It Was a Race Issue": Student Teaching Experiences of Preservice Teachers of Color. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v52 n3 p435-457 Sep. Teacher education scholars are increasingly calling for critical theories to unearth how diverse histories are silenced in teacher education. Employing critical theories to study student teaching experiences is of particular importance because placements are considered a vital component of new teacher preparation. In this study, we utilize Critical Race Theory to examine the student teaching experiences of preservice teachers of color in a graduate-level teacher education program committed to diversifying the teacher force. Through interview "testimonios," participants revealed racialized experiences and described how they responded to and resisted racism within their student teaching placements. Racial, nativist and religious microaggressions left them feeling invisible, hypervisible, disrespected, and stereotyped by the very teachers responsible for mentoring and guiding them into the teaching profession. We share "testimonio" narratives that illustrate the… [Direct]
(2023). 'I Don't Want to Be Pushed into an Islamic School': Biography and Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v26 n6 p735-753. This article argues for the significance of biographical theory in research on raciolinguistic ideologies in education. It accounts for biographies as a basis for the study of the ways in which students conceive the languages, social spaces and power relations which shape processes of inclusion and exclusion. Taking anti-Muslim discourses in Austria as a point of departure, this article introduces raciolinguistics as a way to theorize the co-naturalization of language and race in education. It then delineates the use of biographies to contextualize understandings of the significance of language across the life course. In the empirical part, I analyze the biographical narration of a university student who wears a headscarf. I focus on her experiences with the specific relationship between anti-Muslim racism and language in different stages of her life. The final part of the article discusses how biographical research can contribute to a broader understanding of raciolinguistic power… [Direct]
(2019). A Framework for Race-Related Trauma in the Public Education System and Implications on Health for Black Youth. Journal of School Health, v89 n11 p926-933 Nov. Background: A combination of increased suicide in the past decade, documented high rates of anxiety and depression, and the preponderance of other behavioral and emotional regulation challenges place black youth at risk for school suspension and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Pointing to deficits in black youth and their families negates how forces of racism, whether unconscious or conscious, can disrupt well-being. Methods: A framework for race-related trauma in the public education system illustrates the interplay between macro-level forces, such as institutional and symbolic racism, and micro level forces of racism such as racial discrimination and violence. Identifying causal links between these forces and adverse academic and health outcomes for black youth can inform interventions and strategies to reduce race-related trauma. Results: The framework for race-related trauma is a multi-level analysis of racism and recognizes school districts facing economic restraints… [Direct]
(2024). Confronting the Racism Boogeyman: Educational Leaders Make Meaning of the Impact of George Floyd. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, v19 n1 p124-138. Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators' reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to leadership. The four of the most prominent themes that emerged from this qualitative study, including Increased Critical Self Awareness and Reflection, Critical Awareness Influencing Decision Making, Disconnect Between What is Known, What is said, and What is practiced, and Racial Battle Fatigue. Despite the resolute and rampant backlash against Critical Race Theory, the findings from this study underscore its relevance to education. Implications of these findings beseech educational leaders and policymakers to consider implementing professional development and accountability measures that center race in educational equity…. [Direct]
(2022). Elusive Desires: Towards a Queer Feminist Asian Diasporic Approach to Museum Education and Curation. Journal of Museum Education, v47 n1 p44-58. This case study traces the initial investigations in developing a culturally responsive intervention in museum education and curation entitled Elusive Desires. I explore the ways in which curatorial and pedagogical work in an art museum may disrupt traditionally held notions of "Canadian art," the archive, and belonging. Embracing an intersectional approach, I take on a queer feminist Asian diasporic lens to thinking through all aspects of the curatorial intervention, from the participating artists and the educational outreach to the community and school groups. I argue that taking on such a lens enacts curating and museum education as a social intervention that counteracts anti-Asian racism, toxic heterosexual masculinity, and settler-colonial logics that are frighteningly prevalent today…. [Direct]
(2023). White Women's Affect: Niceness, Comfort, and Neutrality as Cover for Racial Harm. Journal of College Student Development, v64 n1 p31-47 Jan-Feb. This critical narrative inquiry explored how white women's racialized emotions are structured by whiteness as a technology of affect (Leonardo & Zembylas, 2013) and connected to particular college experiences. Specifically, white women college students used claims of niceness and demands for emotional comfort as cover for racial harm, while anger with racism and frustration with their own white complicity (Applebaum, 2010) signaled an ability to tarry with white complicity and motivated actions in solidarity with people of color. Pedagogies of both discomfort and white complicity suggest ways to center marginalized and vulnerable communities while engaging white students in confronting white supremacy and its affective roots. These pedagogical approaches have implications for curricular and cocurricular education across and beyond higher education. Findings also suggested that theories of student development must account for the insidious nature of whiteness under white supremacy…. [Direct]
(2023). Are Formal Rules Sufficient to Counteract the Burden of History? Racial Inequality and the Historical Evolution of Formal Educational Rules in Brazil. Comparative Education Review, v67 n4 p840-860. This article addresses the issue of racial inequality in Brazil, specifically within the education system. We present statistical data highlighting the disparities between White and Black students regarding illiteracy rates, school attendance, and learning outcomes. We argue that traditional economic frameworks have difficulty incorporating racial issues in their analyses of inequality and call for increased academic research on the subject. Our discussion shows that these disparities are perpetuated by cyclical and historical processes that produce and reproduce various forms of racism. We also introduce the concept of "racial rules" to understand better how formal and informal rules have been institutionalized and employed to promote or hinder racial equity. The article outlines a typology of racial rules, including exclusionary, inclusionary, and nonrules, and uses it to analyze the historical evolution of public education policies in Brazil. To illustrate how formal… [Direct]
(2024). Teaching against Islamophobia: Educational Interventions. Multicultural Perspectives, v26 n1 p14-26. Islamophobia is a specific form of racism that targets Muslims in different ways (physically, psychologically, socially, educationally, and politically) at different times and in different places. The purpose of this study is to review the meanings of Islamophobia, its manifestation in western societies, and its negative effects on Muslim students, and how it should be treated in educational settings. It encourages a justice-oriented and religiously sensitive discourse in education that takes the Muslim students' needs and identities into consideration. Educators and students in public schools are encouraged to deconstruct and criticize the role of the media, state, school textbooks, and popular culture in circulating misinformed, inaccurate, and fearful images of Muslims and Islam. Teachers, after all, are expected to provide all students, including Muslims, with a safe and supportive environment. This environment is crucial for Muslim students' wellbeing, their social integration,… [Direct]
(2022). Communities of Care: A Collective Writing Project on Philosophies, Politics and Pedagogies of Care and Education in the Early Years. Policy Futures in Education, v20 n8 p907-921 Nov. This collective writing project considers the central issue of how we account for, understand, and talk about, the professional work of care in early childhood education. As an international collective, we stake out some of the messiness, the specificities and complexities of care in early childhood education. Each scholar explores the issue of foregrounding care in the professional work of early childhood educators and reflects on the complexities of care in early childhood education and care. While these musing are collected together in this paper, they are each a standalone provocation to grapple with diverse issues of care in relation to etymology, policy, risk, relationships, power, and racism. As a collective, we explore ways of engaging in the messiness of care and education with a spirit of vulnerability and the courage of risk taking to unpack care in early childhood education…. [Direct]
(2023). "I Can Learn from the Past": Making the History of Higher Education Relevant through Social Justice Education Pedagogy. History Teacher, v56 n3 p367-386. Today, close to 300 graduate-level higher education and student affairs (HESA) programs exist nationally, and the Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) recommends studying the historical context of higher education as part of the curriculum. The strong social justice emphasis within HESA programs offers a valuable hook for introducing the complexities of the past and the craft of the historian. Research on the history of higher education has expanded in the last decade and is beginning to reshape the field, including current explorations of the relationship between institutions of higher education, slavery, and racism. For this study, the authors surveyed HESA programs nationally to understand the current landscape of history of higher education courses and conducted follow-up interviews with twenty-eight faculty. Drawing upon this rich data, this article examines the ways in which history of higher education instructors worked through the lens of social justice to make… [PDF]
(2023). Character Education Initiatives and Preparation for School Administrators: A Review of Literature. Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, v9 n1 p80-99. Over the past 25 years, substantive scholarly literature has been published that focuses on ethical decision-making by school administrators. In addition, learning activities integrated in principal preparation programs (PPPs) that relate to professional ethics and character education provides aspiring school administrators with functional tools and strategies to address challenging workplace issues, including matters that relate to inequity, racism and oppression. This literature review provides a current understanding of K-12 character education and ethics as it relates to school administrator professional preparation and practice. Using well-defined criteria, 31 peer-reviewed research articles published during the past 25 years were included in this review. After a thorough comparative analysis was completed, four overarching themes emerged that relate concepts of ethics and school leadership: (a) principal preparation program practices that focus on professional ethics, (b)… [PDF]
(2023). "The Lab Isn't Life": Black Engineering Graduate Students Reprioritize Values at the Intersection of Two Pandemics. Journal of Engineering Education, v112 n2 p542-564 Apr. Background: Black engineering graduate students represent a critical and understudied population in engineering education. Gaining an understanding of the lived experiences of Black engineering graduate students while they are simultaneously weathering two pandemics, COVID-19 and systemic racism, is of paramount importance. Purpose/Hypothesis: Black engineering graduate students hold a unique duality, as both Black people in the United States and Black graduate students in US engineering programs that espouse white supremacist ideals. Their real-world experiences necessitate understanding, and this paper highlights the related impact on the students themselves, their adaptations to the pandemics, and how those adaptations relate to and affect their support needs and navigation of their engineering academic environments. Design/Method: An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach was combined with community-based participatory action research and was situated in Boykin's… [Direct]
(2024). The Bans on Teaching CRT and Other 'Divisive Concepts' in America's Public Schools. Journal of Educational Administration and History, v56 n1 p69-83. The Arizona state legislature has aimed to pass a series of bills banning those in schools from teaching topics associated with inclusion, social justice, and equity. Since 2020, the legislature has targeted teaching 'critical race theory' (CRT), often (mis)using the term to refer to any ideas related to systemic discrimination and racial inequality. The debates on the need to educate children about race and racism are ongoing, and school leaders in Arizona have been cast into the debate on the CRT bans. In this study, I put actor-network theory (ANT) to work to explore how school leaders navigate the uncertainties, contradictions, and controversies of the debate and potential bans. I demonstrate the ways in which ANT is particularly useful in exploring controversies in education leadership and policy that bring to the fore the uncertainties of who is acting, when, with what and whom — for what purposes…. [Direct]
(2024). Educating Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students with Disabilities in Inclusive Settings: Beyond Debates. Multicultural Learning and Teaching, v19 n1 p111-122. Inclusive and equitable education is the ultimate tool to develop students, communities, and the general society. And, special education is an added tool to help atypical and vulnerable students to be productive citizens in a thriving society. Ceteris paribus, for many culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities, being educated in an inclusive environment should be the ideal policy. However, it is not! Inclusion has continued to be debatable, challenged, and controversial, making this ideal goal implausible and unrealistic. Coupled with their disabilities, CLD students experience the loaded problems of discrimination, racism, and xenophobia in the multidimensional forms of misidentification, misassessment, mislabeling/miscategorization, misplacement, and misinstruction. These multiple problems make it easy for general and special education professionals and service providers to (a) view placement as instruction, (b) focus on unidimensional and narrow… [Direct]
(2022). Indigenous Instructors' Perspectives on Pre-Service Teacher Education: Poetic Responses to Difficult Learning and Teaching. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v25 n6 p855-873. Instructors teaching an Indigenous education course face the challenges of shifting students' understanding and inviting them into the work of decolonizing education. Indigenous instructors take on the embodied and emotional work of highlighting diverse representations of Indigenous peoples, histories, and perspectives in scholarship in order to make this learning meaningful to students. Bringing such views to education students, who are mostly non-Indigenous, is no easy task. In this study, we examine instructor experiences of difficult teaching within a mandatory Indigenous education course in Canada. We adopt a 'poetics of anti-racism' to represent and explore the moments of difficult teaching that are indicated by what is said, and unsaid, by the Indigenous instructors we interviewed. We argue that poetic approaches are powerful in articulating the complexity of Indigenous instructors' experiences, as well as inspiring moments of transformation in education…. [Direct]