(2021). The Trauma-Informed Equity-Minded Asset-Based Model (TEAM): The Six R's for Social Justice-Oriented Educators. Journal of Media Literacy Education, v13 n2 p29-42. This paper describes the Trauma-informed Equity-minded Asset-based Model (TEAM) framework for social justice-oriented educators. We draw on traumainformed approaches to illustrate how systemic racism as systemic trauma and normative whiteness as dominant ideology are embedded in the U.S education and media institutions. From an equity-minded perspective, we critique notions such as egalitarianism, colorblind racism, neoliberal multiculturalism, and abstract liberalism. Using an asset-based model, we urge educators to avoid deficit ideologies to frame marginalized communities. The TEAM approach offers the following "Six R's" as strategies: (1) "Realizing" that dominant ideologies are embedded in educational systems, (2) "Recognizing" the long-term effects of systemic trauma on learners from aggrieved communities, (3) "Responding" to trauma by emphasizing safety, trust, collaboration, peer network, agency, and voice within learning environments,… [PDF]
(2022). Transforming the Role of RPPs in Remaking Educational Systems. Educational Researcher, v51 n7 p465-473 Oct. The realities of a global pandemic coupled with economic, climate, and racial crises have exacerbated existing racial injustices in schools and society. Although many have argued for a principled refusal to return to an inequitable "normal" (Roy, 2020), dominant models of educational improvement prioritize technical-rational approaches that often result in administrative racism in school systems, with little attention to the complexities of race, power, and privilege in addressing long-standing racial injustices. The need to address settler colonialism, anti-Black, and other intersectional racisms are far from new, but we argue that the confluence of these pandemics demands new roles for research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in education that aspire to transform systems beyond their current construction. In this article, we draw on the intersections between racial equity and RPP scholarship to propose key pivots for RPPs in working to foster educational justice in school… [Direct]
(2005). Education Policy as an Act of White Supremacy: Whiteness, Critical Race Theory and Education Reform. Journal of Education Policy, v20 n4 p485-505 Jul. The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on 'whiteness studies' and the application of critical race theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualizing the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken-for-granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate… [Direct]
(2023). School-Based Sexual and Reproductive Health Education for Young People from Low-Income Neighbourhoods in Northeastern Brazil: The Role of Communities, Teachers, Health Providers, Religious Conservatism, and Racial Discrimination. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, v23 n4 p409-424. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education for young people is a challenge for national health systems in low-and middle-income countries. This study analysed SRH education among adolescents in a low-income neighbourhood of Brazil from the perspectives of young people themselves, primary healthcare providers, and school teachers. Using semi-structured interviews, data were collected from twelve informants aged 15-20 years, eight health professionals, and nine teachers. Interviews were analysed using the ecological framework (i.e. with a focus on individual, structural and programmatic levels). At the individual level, there was a marked lack of discussion about SRH in the family, especially with parents. As a result, young people sought information from relatives of a similar age, the Internet and social media. Racism on the part of some teachers was identified as a structural-level constraint, and lack of dialogue between the health and education sectors was a programmatic… [Direct]
(2022). Anti-Blackness at School: Creating Affirming Educational Spaces for African American Students. Multicultural Education Series. Teachers College Press While schools often are framed as places of neutrality and fairness, many American schools have harmed Black children or been silent in the face of their struggles, under-education, and mistreatment. While there are undoubtedly adults in these spaces who support Black children, many others ignore Black families, minimize students' concerns, and believe that colorblindness will solve the problem of inequity in education. Embedded in everyday realities, the authors outline the many ways anti-Blackness shows up in schools. Drawing on more than 44 years of equity work, they provide concrete, doable, and meaningful ways in which teachers and administrators can create Black-affirming spaces. Written for pre- and in-service teachers and others working with Black children and youth, "Anti-Blackness at School" explores both the scope of anti-Blackness and how teachers can reject racism. This book: (1) Provides interracial perspectives from authors Joi Spencer, a Black woman from… [Direct]
(2022). "Pity Y'all Don't See Me": Differential Racialization, Resistance, and the Persistent Erasure of Invisible Boys of Color in Science Classrooms. Journal of Science Teacher Education, v33 n2 p154-169. Using previously collected data from a multi-site, mixed methods longitudinal study, we operationalize a conceptual frame of invisibility to describe and understand the phenomenon of erasure that some Boys of Color experienced by teachers in science learning environments where most others were hyper-visible (and subsequently hyper-criminalized). Recentering these "invisible Boys of Color" revealed three descriptive categories: (a) introversion, (b) newcomers, and (c) frequently absent. In detailing these categories and their associated narratives and labels, we complexify our understandings of the lived experiences of Boys of Color in science education and offer frameworks for ways in which teacher education can equip pre-service and in-service science teachers to disrupt these insidious and sophisticated forms of systemic racism…. [Direct]
(2022). Black Queer Students' Counter-Stories of Invisibility in Undergraduate STEM as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space. American Educational Research Journal, v59 n5 p863-904 Oct. Black queer undergraduates experience invisibility at the juncture of anti-Black racism and cisheteropatriarchy in their campus environments. With the absence of research on queer students of color in undergraduate STEM, it has been unexplored how Black queer invisibility is reinforced and disrupted in uniquely racialized and cisheteronormative STEM spaces. Drawing on Black queer studies and a proposed framework of STEM education as a White, cisheteropatriarchal space, our study addresses this research gap by exploring four Black queer students' experiences of oppression and agency in navigating invisibility as STEM majors. A counter-storytelling analysis reveals how curricular erasure and within-group peer tensions shaped variation in undergraduate Black queer students' STEM experiences of invisibility. Findings inform implications for education research, practice, and policy…. [Direct]
(2024). "The Students Led Me Here": A White Teacher's Movement toward Antiracist and Abolitionist Practice. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, v56 n5 p763-783. The racial mismatch between the overwhelmingly white teaching force and an increasingly heterogeneous student population continues to widen (Boucher, M. (2016). "Urban Education," 51(1), 82-107.) with pernicious implications for BIPOC students "who are systematically marginalized by the institution of schooling" (Kinloch, V., & Dixon, K. (2017). "English Teaching: Practice & Critique," 16(3), p. 332). This article employs critical whiteness studies to examine one white teacher's progress toward antiracist praxis. By "problematizing the normality of hegemonic whiteness" (Matias et al. (2014). "Equity & Excellence in Education," 47(3), p.291), critical whiteness studies expose the ways that whiteness and white people's resistance to acknowledging their whiteness upholds racism and systems of racial injustice. Analysis uncovered two shifts: 1) from a deficit perspective to an asset-based stance, and 2) from a dominant culture… [Direct]
(2019). School Segregation: A Realist's View. Phi Delta Kappan, v100 n5 p8-13 Feb. The nation's greatest anti-racist education policy — school desegregation — has proven no match for the adaptations of institutionalized racism. Over the last 40 years, school segregation has evolved and reemerged in housing patterns, school zoning policy, and curricular tracking. This has led to calls for new solutions to the problem of racial segregation in schools. Is it possible, however, that the pursuit of such solutions is a form of avoidance, an unwillingness to face the intractable nature of institutionalized racism? Jerry Rosiek considers the power of pessimism about racial justice as a stance for educators in an era of resegregating schools…. [Direct]
(2024). Critical Global Citizenship Education: Unpacking Representations of Racialization in Korean English Textbooks. English Teaching, v79 n2 p57-87. This paper aims to investigate how and to what extent 'critical' global citizenship is reflected in middle school English textbooks in Korea. Framed within Freire's concept of critical literacy, the study is concerned with analyzing the written texts in two English textbooks, with a focus on the issue of representations. Using critical content analysis, the research centers on unpacking how race, racism, or racialization, especially in the United States, is represented, and to what extent these representations may be associated with global citizenship education in English language learning. The major findings indicate a notable absence of sufficient sociohistorical and cultural contexts of race in the United States as presented in the concerned English textbooks. Based on the analysis, this paper calls for an expansion of the dimensions of critical global citizenship in English language learning settings, aiming to provide students with broader opportunities to question colonial… [PDF]
(2022). Organizational Barriers to Equity: Stories from Virginia Gifted Education Coordinators. Roeper Review, v44 n4 p212-230. This article emanated from a narrative inquiry into the stories of three Virginia gifted education coordinators whose years in service coincided with years of improved equitable representation in their gifted programs. By analyzing their experiences, the article sheds light on the organizational barriers they encountered. Organizational barriers developed from the system of relationships between district stakeholders and the subcomponents of the organization, creating an environment in which underrepresentation could flourish. Findings suggest the need for systemic solutions. Professional learning is implicated for all district leaders. For gifted education coordinators, professional learning experiences should strengthen their ability to discuss issues related to racism while helping them manage the multiple relationships complicit in underrepresentation. Recommendations for research and district reform are also suggested…. [Direct]
(2024). Is Dis-Ability a Foregone Conclusion? Research and Policy Solutions to Disproportionality. Review of Educational Research, v94 n6 p843-882. Research on disproportionate representation in special education has potential to influence policy in ways that rectify educational inequities. In this study, we investigated how disproportionality researchers have operationalized dis-ability, identified key themes and theories used in disproportionality research, and evaluated the coherence between this research and related policy. We found that studies using medical/rehabilitative frameworks to define disability tended to offer policy recommendations focused on preventing inappropriate identification and enhancing access to early interventions. In contrast, studies situated in social models of dis-ability tended to offer policy recommendations for holistic improvement of educational systems. Finally, disproportionality studies applying legal frameworks tended to advocate for explicit policies regarding race and racism without attending to ableism. Given that federal policy continues to operate from a deficit perspective regarding… [Direct]
(2016). Distress in the City: Racism, Fundamentalism and a Democratic Education. Trentham Books Every day brings news about so-called Islamic State and its seduction of young people in the West. The radicalization of young Muslims causes alarm; even the desirability of multiculturalism is questioned in troubled cities where racism and Islamophobia are on the rise. This book is a case study of one distressed post-industrial city struggling with various discontents, drawn from those who live there. Their stories illuminate how racism, Islamophobia and Islamism take hold, rendering the city emblematic of wider problems across the world today. Through Linden West's holistic, psychosocial analysis, racism, Islamophobia and fundamentalism are understood by reference to growing inequality, mental illness and hopelessness, all within a context of fractured economies, malfunctioning democracies and the narrowing of education's purpose. But the author also describes the resources of hope in the city–the experiments in democratic education and the working class struggle against Nazi… [Direct]
(2019). Hiding in Plain Sight: Understanding and Addressing Whiteness and Color-Blind Ideology in Education. Kappa Delta Pi Record, v55 n3 p112-117. The author argues that color-blind ideology amounts to a refusal to deal with the reality of racism, which protects and extends White racial advantage, as well as shares thoughts on dismantling Whiteness in education…. [Direct]
(2021). COVID-19 and Structural Racial Inequity: Lessons Learned for Social Work Education. Journal of Social Work Education, v57 suppl 1 p238-252. This article examines how structural racism amplified the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 for African American, Asian/Asian American, and Latino/a/x and Hispanic social work students during the unplanned transition to synchronous and asynchronous education at three social work programs across the United States, creating additional educational barriers. The aim of the article is threefold. First, centering critical race theory, it discusses the experience of African Americans, Asian/Asian Americans, and Latino/a/x and Hispanic students at three different institutions across the country. Second, it highlights the structural challenges faced by social work students of historically, racially, and ethnically oppressed communities and the lessons learned from the social work programs' pandemic response. Third, social work faculty lessons learned suggest ways to better meet the needs of historically, racially, and ethnically oppressed social work students, and the integration of… [Direct]