(2021). 'Studying in This England Is Wahala (Trouble)': Analysing the Experiences of West African Students in a UK Higher Education Institution. Studies in Higher Education, v46 n11 p2405-2416. 'Studying in this England is Wahala' critically analyses social/academic experiences of 12 West African overseas undergraduate/postgraduate students in a London University. It discusses structural and individual factors impacting on decisions to study here, including perceptions of differences between quality of university education in the UK and 'back home'. To analyse this, I draw on the 'Push-Pull' model and Gidden's (1991) Structuration approach as theoretical frameworks. I also examine students' experiences of adapting to life in the UK, views on teaching and learning experiences in the UK and their home countries, and strategies used to facilitate their educational success. In so doing positives and challenges faced by students are highlighted. These were largely shaped by staff-student relationships, some of which were positive and supportive. In others, racism was prevalent, which reflects ongoing debates about Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) student experiences in UK Higher… [Direct]
(2021). Still Separate: Black Lives Matter and the Enduring Legacy of School Segregation in Rural Georgia. Journal of Research in Rural Education, v37 n7 p23-33. The purpose of this article is to critically probe racial discourse around how the convergence of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and white nationalist organizations complicate the reality of segregation, education, and social change in a rural community in Central Georgia. Critical race studies ground the work, using narratives as a device to frame and examine what school transformation can look like for Black people living in rural communities. The method for this study is a critical ethnography that draws on census data, school district achievement data, and informal conversations and interviews conducted in person and though social media. The findings from this research suggests that some African Americans in this rural community are beginning to embrace forms of segregation as a reparative compromise to dealing with racism in their community. The implications of this study contribute to the literature on race and education in rural schooling and community…. [Direct]
(2021). Experiences and Perceptions of School Staff Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic and Racial Equity: The Role of Colorblindness. School Psychology, v36 n6 p546-554 Nov. As schools physically closed across the country to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear early on that the burden on students will not be equally shared. Structural racism patterns the lives of people of color that, in turn, increases their exposure to the effects of the pandemic further impacting the quality of education the students of color have access to. It is critical to examine the ways in which racial disparities in social emotional and educational outcomes have the potential to increase as a result of the pandemic. To that end, using a content analysis of an open-ended survey, this study examines (a) how teachers and school staff experienced the pandemic, (b) their perception of student experiences during the transition to remote learning, and (c) school staff's perceptions of how racial inequities may be increased as a result of the pandemic. Our findings highlight the deep, but unequal impact of the pandemic on school staff, students, and… [Direct]
(2024). Conceptualizing the Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Issues General Education Requirement at Uh Manoa: A Qualitative Case Study Using Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach and Kanaka 'Oiwi Critical Race Theory. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. This study applied Kingdon's (2003) Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) in conjunction with Kanaka 'Oiwi Critical Race Theories (Wright & Balutski, 2015; Salis Reyes, 2018) to contextualize the creation of the Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Issues (HAP) general education requirement at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UH Manoa), a large, public, Research One, and self-identified Indigenous serving university located on the island of O'ahu. Utilizing qualitative case study methodology and data sources including institutional documents, archival records, and qualitative interviews with faculty members, this study examined the various elements of influence, organized into MSA's problems, policy, and political streams, to articulate how a particular policy came to be within our institution of study. Furthermore, Kanaka 'Oiwi Critical Race Theories served to interrogate the various influences race and racism, settler colonialism, and institutional isomorphism had in shaping policy and… [Direct]
(2024). Democratizing Social Studies Education: Testimonios of Mexicana Youth in El Llano Grande de Aztlan. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. This research presents the testimonios of Mexicana youth. Through a qualitative research design, this centered on the central question: How does testimonio in the social studies classroom serve as a decolonizing practice and how does this impact Mexicana students? and secondary question: How do Mexicana make meaning and reclaim identity using lived experiences as brown bodied women? As an individualized approach to social studies education, the testimonios give voice to the life and schooling experiences of Mexicana youth in El Llano Grande de Aztlan. As methodology, testimonio bears witness to bring about new theorizing. With intention, the theoretical frame, a Chicana Feminist Epistemology (CFE) constructs testimonios to understand Mexicana lived experiences. Four emergent themes originated from the data that included: communality, language constructs overarching contradictions, a Mexicana Identity, and microaggressions (racism and sexism). The findings reveal Mexicana experiences… [Direct]
(2024). Free Schooling or Freedom Schooling? Negotiating Constructivist Learning and Anti-Racism in the Berkeley Experimental Schools. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v32 n2 p281-301. Critical pedagogues advocate a constructivist approach to learning emphasising the self-directed construction of knowledge from the learners' experiences while also expecting students to develop an explicit critique of the social order. However, the use of a constructivist approach for the pursuit of explicit ideological goals leaves educators with a dilemma: what happens when students' reflections don't lead them to the anti-oppressive conclusions teachers desire? Using comparative historical archival methods and oral history interviews, this study interrogates how teachers and students navigated this paradox in the Berkeley Experimental Schools Project (1968-1975), a public educational programme that sought to actualise the goals of both the Free School and Black Power movements. This study sheds light on this dilemma with particular clarity because the Free Schools represent one of the U.S.' most radical experiments in constructivist pedagogy, and the Black Power movement one of… [Direct]
(2022). Program Redesign to Prepare Transformative Special Educators. Journal of Special Education Preparation, v2 n2 p18-29. Teacher educators are in a unique position to prepare future educators to disrupt the status quo and enact changes that ensure equitable access to educational opportunities for all students, including those with disabilities. It is critical that those who prepare future special education teachers (SETs) ensure they are prepared to engage with the broader school community to foster inclusivity and positive outcomes for all students, in addition to designing specially designed instruction (SDI) responsive to the unique learning needs of individual students with disabilities. Addressing this task requires candidates who are prepared to employ high leverage and evidence-based practices, culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy, and universal design for learning. In this article, we describe how one small Department of Special Education sought to reinvent its program to center anti-racism and anti-ableism to inspire the next generation of SETs to adopt a transformative vision for… [PDF]
(2018). Examining Noddings' "Educational Malpractice" Assertion: Serious Considerations for Local-Global Issues in Social Studies Education. Theory Into Practice, v57 n4 p307-315. The article utilizes a decolonizing theoretical lens to advocate for the need to engage in a more nuanced approach to conceptualizing local/global aspect of social justice discussions within social studies education. The article engages with questions of social justice by utilizing Noddings's (2006) argument that "educational malpractice" (p. 250) is a daily occurrence in US classrooms because students are expected to reproduce textbook answers, rather than generate their own questions and reasoned research and deliberation. Kumashiro's (2004) writings on antioppressive education speak of how the repetition of mainstream narratives normalize what ought to be taught and learned in schools. We propose that educators cannot avoid questions of racism and Islamophobia as critically important issues within social studies classrooms. Therefore, through engaging in critical inquiry on the prevalence of racism and Islamophobia, educators can disrupt the continued educational… [Direct]
(2021). As Elders in Our Villages: Re-Imagining Racist and Anti-Indianist Public Schools. Multicultural Perspectives, v23 n3 p161-166. The authors, a Cherokee woman and an African American man, write from the important stance of multicultural education Elders, working from the foundational concept of the community as a village to raise a child. They discuss the caste system in the U.S. and briefly outline the historical and contemporary dehumanizing and assimilative actions of racism and anti-Indianism waged against communities, and specifically children in public schools. The authors then move to Elders? demands for the protection of children and call for public schools to institute practices such as funds of knowledge. They conclude with their personal and professional obligations and responsibilities to prepare teachers to be effective for all children, ensuring the well-being and cultural continuance for the children of their respective communities…. [Direct]
(2021). Social Justice as a Framework for Addressing Mental Health Disparities. Communique, v49 n5 p14-16 Jan-Feb. This article is part of a year-long series facilitated by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Social Justice Committee (SJC) highlighting the impact of health disparities on youth through a social justice lens for school psychologists. Historical and systemic racism and instructional inequities contribute to mental health disparities for minoritized youth. This article focuses on school-based applications of utilizing social justice principles to promote the mental well-being of students. Mental health disparities in education are discussed and an advocacy framework is proposed as a mechanism for addressing mental health disparities. [For the article preceding this one in the series, "Physical Health Disparities as a Social Justice Issue: Actions School Psychologists Can Take at the Systems Level," see EJ1275729.]… [Direct]
(2021). HBCU Presidents and Their Racially Conscious Approaches to Diversifying STEM. Journal of Negro Education, v90 n3 p288-305 Sum. HBCUs have outpaced all other institutions of higher education in graduating Black students who are empowered to pursue graduate programs and contribute to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) ecosystem. These successes are due, in part, to Black presidents who are at the helm of these institutions. This study examined the practices of thirteen Black HBCU presidents or senior administrators. The authors interviewed these leaders and relied upon Gallos and Bolman's four frameworks to explore university presidents' decision-making to understand the skillsets and values that enabled them to create educational environments where Black STEM students thrived. These HBCU presidents utilize multiple leadership frames concurrently, while operating under a race-conscious approach to understand, identify, and counter the structures of systemic racism…. [PDF]
(2023). Haudenosaunee Men and Masculinities in Higher Education: Perceptions, Reminders, and Responsibilities to Community. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Syracuse University. Native men in higher education experience among the lowest persistence and graduation rates in the United States (Condition of Education, 2020). Native men are subjected to systemic barriers brought by settler colonialism such as racism and patriarchal hegemony which negatively impact their perceptions of masculinity and forces them to move away from their traditional cultural teachings (Boyden, et al., 2014; Innes & Anderson, 2015). These systemic barriers also detrimentally impact the perceptions and experiences of Native men in higher education (Poolaw, 2018; Still, 2019). The experiences of Native men in higher education still need to be explored further (Reyes & Shotton, 2018). Native students often feel marginalized, and their experiences are made invisible in education research and statistics, causing their stories to be left untold. Using Indigenous Storywork (Archibald, 2008) and Critical Race Methodology (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002), this qualitative study examines… [Direct]
(2021). Internationalization, Whiteness, and Biopolitics of Higher Education. Journal of International Students, v11 n1 p50-67. From a postcolonial perspective, U.S. higher education is entangled with the colonial past and the neoliberal neo-colonial present as an economic actor that dominates global educational markets through internationalization. The COVID pandemic and the nationwide movement for racial justice have brought these entanglements into stark relief in the ways U.S. colleges and universities are implicated in the neoliberal biopolitics of race. Applied to higher education, Michel Foucault's concept of biopolitics as the management of life and wellbeing of populations and his conceptualization of racism as a biopolitical tool illuminate how U.S. colleges and universities maintain racialized categorizations of lives worth protecting and lives considered disposable in the service of dominant whiteness. De-centering whiteness and eliminating its advantage and superiority in research, curricula, instruction, and internationalization is a necessary step toward a future that envisions a more inclusive… [PDF]
(2019). Whiteness Is a White Problem: Whiteness in English Education. English Education, v51 n2 p182-199. This article relies on methods of racial storytelling to provoke the field of English education (and teacher education more generally) to see how race is a white problem. Specifically, I tell and make sense of stories from my experiences as a white high school English teacher and English education scholar to wonder about the potential work white people might engage to contribute to better understandings of whiteness and, perhaps, antiracism. I argue that it is time for white people to worry about how mediating race through people of color affects engagement with race, racism, and antiracism in the field of English education…. [Direct]
(2021). Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership. Race and Education Series. Harvard Education Press An incisive case study of change-making in action, "Stuck Improving" analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K-12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves "stuck improving," caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process. Irby brings readers into a large suburban high school as school leaders strive to redress racial inequities among the school's increasingly diverse student population. Over a five-year period, he witnesses both progress and setbacks in the leaders' attempts to provide an educational environment that is intellectually, socioemotionally, and culturally affirming. Looking beyond this single… [Direct]