(2021). Writing (for) Our Lives: Black Feminisms, Interconnected Guidance, and Qualitative Research in Special Education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v34 n6 p496-514. In this collaborative sense-making of mentorship and interconnected guidance for education research, two Black women academics in special education offer lessons learned from their sustained dialogues with each other, other Black women, and with Black and endarkened feminists' texts. The authors reflect on how traditional approaches to academic mentorship were, at times, incompatible with their onto-epistemic and methodological needs as researchers. They revisit their initial entry into the field and examine the ways U.S. schooling is implicated in the racism, ableism, and other systemic oppression experienced by multiply-marginalized students, families, and educators. The authors consider the distinctive contributions Black women offer(ed) special education research and revisit the improvisational moves they enact to make space for qualitative inquiry informed by Black and endarkened feminisms…. [Direct]
(2023). The Promise of Assessments That Advance Social Justice: An Indigenous Example. Applied Measurement in Education, v36 n3 p255-268. In the United States, systemic racism against people of color was brought to the forefront of discourse throughout 2020, and highlighted the on-going inequities faced by intentionally marginalized groups in policing, health and education. No community of color is immune from these inequities, and the activism in 2020 and the consequences of the pandemic have made systemic inequities impossible to ignore. In the Hawai?i context, social and racial injustice has resulted in cultural and language loss (among other markers of colonization), but it is within this loss that we can see the potential for the most significant evolution of assessment practices that champion self determination and social justice. We illustrate how injustices can be addressed through the development of assessments centered in advocacy of and accountability to our communities of color. It is time for us to reimagine what self-determination and social justice in all assessment systems can and should look like…. [Direct]
(2023). Pl√°ticas with Latinx Preservice Teachers: Insights about Navigating Teacher Education in the New Latinx South. Journal for Multicultural Education, v17 n2 p212-222. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of Latinx preservice teachers (PSTs) while enrolled in a teacher preparation program in the New Latinx South, a cluster of states that have seen a precipitous growth in the Latinx population over the last decades. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used pl√°ticas, or informal conversations with a group of six female Latinx PSTs. Findings: Two main themes were identified: experiences with racism and discrimination and feelings of isolation. These themes, along with the narratives of the participants, reflect the barriers this population experiences in the education field and how professionals in this field can improve to best assist Latinx PSTs. Originality/value: Latinx PSTs' experiences are yet to be fully investigated to improve not only their schooling but also the number of Latinx teachers serving a growing number of Latinx children in US schools. Additionally, the use of pl√°ticas elevates this paper as this is… [Direct]
(2023). Dismantling the Master's House: A Decolonial Blueprint for Internationalization of Higher Education. Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education, v15 n5 p27-43. While critical scholars have attempted to decenter internationalization, limited research has aimed to understand internationalization efforts in the context of the socio-historical particularities of the postcolonial condition. This paper takes a decolonial perspective in the study of internationalization, in light of the Eurocentric tendencies of modernity, whose major manifestation in higher education is neoliberal globalization. We unpack internationalization in the U.S. and examine how it is embedded in and reproduces neoliberalism, racism, and colonialism. Since decolonization is not merely deconstructive but also regenerative, we reconceive what it means to be international and recommend how internationalization can be deployed as a tool of decolonization, considering various possibilities for hopeful and ethical praxis. We identify promising practices to spark ongoing reflection and action about ways to contest coloniality/modernity and rethink mobility. This paper can… [PDF]
(2021). Dismantling Tools of the Incompetent: Exploring Cultural Competence Training in Undergraduate Education Policy and Education Studies Programs. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Loyola University Chicago. Cultural competence is described as a set of skills, values, and principles that acknowledge, respect, and work toward optimal interactions between the individual and the various cultural and ethnic groups with which an individual might come into contact. Scholars have been critical of cultural competence training because the three-dimensional approach which is its foundation fails to address institutional and systemic racism. I posit that undergraduate programs should provide training, so graduates are culturally competent entering their respective fields. I examined cultural competence training within education policy and studies undergraduate programs because these graduates will work within education at all levels from the federal government to the classroom impacting student success. I conducted a qualitative study utilizing document analysis of ten education policy and studies programs across the country. Based on my analysis of program overviews, program courses, course… [Direct]
(2020). Human Rights before and after COVID-19: Getting Human Rights Education out of Quarantine. Journal of International Social Studies, v10 n2 p127-140. This essay explores the way in which the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened human rights conditions across the globe, particularly around the rise of authoritarianism, erosion of democracy, increase in hate crimes and racism, and deepening of economic inequality. We then advocate for the possibilities and significance of human rights education as a core component of every student's learning experience and provide suggestions and specific resources for teaching human rights during and after the COVID-19 pandemic…. [PDF]
(2021). Every Tool in the Toolbox: Pursuing Multilevel Institutional Change in the DeLTA Project. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, v53 n2 p25-32. For decades, educators and policy makers have called for reform in higher education, yet now the urgency is palpable. The COVID-19 pandemic and heightened attention to systemic racism have highlighted the fact that outdated teaching practices can stunt student learning and trust of science, maintain systemic biases, and prevent equitable education. Promoting change to outdated teaching practices requires fundamental shifts at each level of a university–among faculty, departments, and the institution as a whole. The Departmental and Leadership Teams for Action (DeLTA) project at the University of Georgia pursues transformative shifts in policies and practices related to undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. This article provides examples of how DeLTA applies various change perspectives to shift thinking, practices, and policies related to evaluating teaching…. [Direct]
(2023). Challenging Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in Schools amidst the 'What Works' Agenda. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v26 n3 p257-276. Education policy in England's schools is driven by the 'what works' agenda, characterised by interventions claiming to be scientifically objective and evidence-led. In this article I show how what works interventions reproduce anti-Black linguistic racism because to be perceived as someone who is 'working', racialised children must assimilate their language practices towards idealised whiteness. I present case studies of two teachers working in low-income, majority Black schools who rejected what works interventions concerning a commercially produced curriculum package and the so-called word gap, both of which framed racialised children as displaying linguistic deficiencies in need of correcting. I describe various institutional oppositions the teachers faced, including having their own language, expertise and evidence questioned by white management. I argue that the what works agenda is crafted by the state to delegitimise anti-racist efforts, and that for the state, what counts as… [Direct]
(2023). What's the "Problem of Teacher Education" in the 2020s?. Journal of Teacher Education, v74 n2 p127-130 Mar-Apr. This article is a rejoinder, some 20 years later, to a "JTE" editorial, titled "The Problem of Teacher Education." The previous piece suggested that in response to unprecedented attention by high-level policy makers to "fixing" the "broken" system of teacher education, teacher education was treated as what I called a "policy problem" during the late 1990s and 2000s From this perspective, the goal was to identify which of the broad aspects of teacher education that could be controlled by policymakers was most likely to have a positive impact on teacher quality, defined primarily in terms of teachers' effectiveness at producing a strong workforce for the new economy. In this new article, the author argues that now–during the 2020s–teacher education should be constructed as an "equity problem." This means acknowledging that, despite many important and powerful multicultural and other initiatives over the last two decades,… [Direct]
(2022). Thriving Together: A Phenomenological Study of the Contributions of a Professional Counterspace to Black Women Higher Education Leaders' Cultivation of Resilience. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Black women who serve in administrative leadership roles in higher education do so amidst conflicting experiences wherein they are positioned to exercise authority while being subjugated to conditions, socially and institutionally, that uphold racism and sexism. The manifestations and effects of gender and race-based oppression on Black women professionals in higher education have been well documented, but limited research makes visible the strategies that enable Black women leaders to persevere amidst the oppressive conditions they encounter in the higher education context. Professional counterspaces may add to the strategies employed by Black women leaders by offering inclusive spaces to cultivate resilience to persist in their professional practice. This phenomenology explores the impact of institutional racism and sexism on the leadership experiences of eleven mid-level and senior-level Black women administrators historically White Institutions (HWIs), the ways these leaders… [Direct]
(2023). A Multiple Case Study of Parents' Views of Educational Experiences of African American Students in High School Advanced Placement in STEM Related Courses. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Northcentral University. In the United States, education continues to be plagued by a racial achievement gap that disproportionately affects Black children. Although significant progress has been made in eliminating some of the country's long-standing racial discriminatory practices, the effort to eradicate racism remains unfinished as long as disparities exist between ethnic groups. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to gain insight into parents' perceptions and experiences of the inequities faced by Black students that restrict access to and involvement in Advanced Placement science, technology, engineering, and math courses in one urban high school. The problem addressed was the underrepresentation of African American students in high school Advanced Placement classes. The guiding foundational theoretical framework was critical race theory, which suggests that racism continues to be the unseen culprit tarnishing major systems within society, including the educational system…. [Direct]
(2023). International Student Orientations: Indian Students at American Universities around the Turn of the Twentieth Century. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, City University of New York. This dissertation examines the writings and experiences of five Indian international students in the United States during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By drawing attention to these students, I attend to the ways in which notions of freedom, progress, and inclusivity associated with American higher education, and liberalism more generally, are related to structures of racialized and colonial dispossession in India. I build these arguments by reading archival sources such as university administrative records, student publications, personal and official correspondence, as well as understudied aesthetic works, such as memoirs, travel narratives, essays, doctoral dissertations, and public lectures. These historical materials show us how Indian international students oriented themselves amidst the shifting power relations between British colonialism, Indian anticolonial nationalism, and American higher education. I explore how the American university became a site that… [Direct]
(2022). The Challenges of Achieving Equity within Public School Gifted and Talented Programs. Gifted Child Quarterly, v66 n2 p82-94 Apr. K-12 gifted and talented programs have struggled with racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, native language, and disability inequity since their inception. This inequity has been well documented in public schools since at least the 1970s and has been stubbornly persistent despite receiving substantial attention at conferences, in scholarly journals, and in K-12 schools. The purpose of this article is to outline why such inequity exists and why common efforts to combat it have been unsuccessful. In the end, poorly designed identification systems combined with larger issues of societal inequality and systemic, institutionalized racism are the most likely culprits. I end the article with a hierarchy of actions that could be taken–from low-hanging fruit to major societal changes–in order to combat inequity in gifted education and move the field forward…. [Direct]
(2024). Reimagining Raciolinguistic Ideologies through an Analysis of Localized Language-in-Education Policies in Turkey and Korea. Current Issues in Language Planning, v25 n4 p355-375. As global migration and transnational mobility have increased steadily in the recent few decades, interests in equity-based theories and pedagogies have intensified to respond to racially and linguistically diverse student needs in today's classrooms. Raciolinguistic ideology is a theoretical framework challenging monoglossic language ideologies and the 'White gaze' that privileges White speaking and listening subjects (Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. "Harvard Educational Review," 85(2), 149-171. doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149). While raciolinguistic ideologies aim to critically examine the idealized monolingualism, the framework is typically adopted to analyze racial realities in Western or European educational contexts. In this study, we intend to (re)imagine raciolinguistic ideologies situated in non-Western educational contexts by examining language-in-education… [Direct]
(2020). Academic Freedom and the Challenge of Diversity: Upholding Two Core Values Essential to the Pursuit of the Common Good. Liberal Education, v106 n3 Fall. Academic freedom is undoubtedly a core value of higher education, but should it sometimes be compromised in order to accommodate efforts to tackle the many considerable challenges of the twenty-first century, from fighting climate change and global pandemics to reckoning with the stubborn legacies of institutional racism? More specifically, can American colleges and universities sustain their commitment to serving a more diverse student body, recruited from all classes and ethnic groups and increasingly from around the world, and still rigorously uphold academic freedom? This article concludes that it is easy to defend academic freedom and free speech when everyone is saying pretty much the same things. But diverse communities give voice to diverse experiences, diverse assumptions, and diverse needs. And with diversity comes disagreement. In the wake of sometimes disruptive protest movements against institutional racism and in the context of the country's political polarization,… [Direct]