(2022). White Saviorism: An Insider Perspective. Art Education, v75 n3 p9-13. White Savior Industrial Complex (WSIC) encapsulates a myth that non-White communities need White outsiders to rescue them. WSIC is one of many ways well-intentioned outsiders fail to serve communities, and teacher education programs perpetuate WSIC by obscuring race, Black culture, and White privilege. In addition to WSIC theory, the author used critical race theory (CRT) and Whiteness critical theories to identify how Whiteness informed their pedagogical decisions. A process of narrative storytelling, unstructured interviews, and critical self-reflection provided data for this research. The author examined how the culturally developed identities of Alexis, a Black artist/art educator and colleague, informed the different and similar ways of knowing, thinking about, and enacting art instruction within the same community. In this article, the author explores Alexis's experience and pedagogical choices, arguing that art and teacher education programs should help to inform critical… [Direct]
(2020). Antiblackness in the Hispanic-Serving Community College (HSCC) Context: Black Male Collegiate Experiences through the Lens of Settler Colonial Logics. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v23 n1 p55-73. This qualitative longitudinal study explored the experiences of Black males attending a public, two-year, community college Hispanic-serving community college (HSCC) in Southern California. Drawing on the perspective of HSCCs as reflecting a colonial relationship between whites and Students of Color, we outline specific forms of anti-Black racism that include the rejection of Black intellectualism, presumed ownership of Blacks' intellectual and material property, and psychological violence and rejection of Black suffering. We articulate a need for researchers to attend to institutionalized forms of anti-Blackness across structurally diverse institutional contexts — as well as predominantly white ones — and a need to articulate realities that exist outside the 'settler colonial logics' that permeate higher education…. [Direct]
(2021). Art Museums and Exclusionary Visions of Nationhood: The Possibilities for Docent Training. Journal of Museum Education, v46 n3 p375-392. Art museums around the world play an integral role in the formation and preservation of collective identity and national belonging. As part of wider efforts for social change, these institutions are being challenged to decolonize and confront racism with renewed and sustained focus. As such, they are thinking more deeply about how they engage visitors with their collections. Within this context, this article considers how docents are uniquely positioned in the collective response to these calls for action. Drawing on strategies used in museum and teacher education pedagogy, it offers a renewed approach that emphasizes docent training's capacity to create meaningful experiences that dismantle exclusionary national narratives operating within collections and exhibitions. This article responds to calls for art museums to multiply voices and become spaces for decolonization, and will resonate with other museums, galleries, and heritage institutions invested in ongoing critical learning… [Direct]
(2024). Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks for Leveraging Makerspaces to Encourage and Retain Underrepresented Populations in Stem through Learning by Design. Educational Technology Research and Development, v72 n1 p425-445. Amidst this era of rapid technological advancement, the impact of White dominance in STEM causes inequity throughout the design, implementation, and function of modern technologies. Evidence of this includes AI systems that perpetuate racial and gender biases, medical devices that are incompatible with non-White medical needs, and hiring algorithms that prioritize the White male experience. Though not a panacea, greater representation of traditionally marginalized groups in the STEM workforce will help reduce and safeguard against digital racism, sexism, and ableism. Advocates of greater representation in STEM fields suggest that makerspace pedagogy and design that is rooted in equity and inclusivity can attract students from traditionally marginalized groups and make STEM more accessible and welcoming to all. To this end, this paper proposes a modification of the TPACK theoretical framework (Koehler and Mishra in Contemp Issues Tech Teach Educ 9(1):60-70, 2009) that centers… [Direct]
(2016). The Legacy of Racism and Indigenous Australian Identity within Education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v19 n4 p784-807. It may be argued that the emerging discourses focusing on the social, emotional, educational, and economic disadvantages identified for Australia's First Peoples (when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts) are becoming increasingly dissociated with an understanding of the interplay between historical and current trends in racism. Additionally, and if not somewhat related to this critique, it can be suggested that the very construction of research from a Western perspective of Indigenous identity (as opposed to identities) and ways of being are deeply entwined within the undertones of epistemological racism still prevalent today. It is the purpose of this article to move beyond the overreliance of outside-based understanding Western epistemologies, and to explore not only the complex nature of both racism and identity from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, but to also explore the role of education and research in perpetuating varying levels of racism and… [Direct]
(2016). Parenting Practices of Black Mothers Amid an Uptick in Racial Violence: Implications for Family-School-Community Partnerships. AERA Online Paper Repository, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Washington, DC, Apr 8-12, 2016). Black mothers are viewed through negative lens when it comes to parental involvement in education and childrearing practices. Although a variety of beliefs and values exist about the proper ways to raise children, it seems that Black mothers' perspectives are deemed deficient. These negative views carry over into the educational system causing Tatum to epitomize that despite the courageous leadership and sacrifice of many strong women, Black mothers continue to fight the legacy of racism at home and in schools. With the uptick of racism against the black community, a study exploring the impact of current societal racism on parenting practices is warranted. Data from this study can aid schools in fostering deeper, more effective partnerships with Black families…. [Direct]
(2022). Critical Ethnography and Education: Theory, Methodology, and Ethics. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group In this book, Fitzpatrick and May make the case for a reimagined approach to critical ethnography in education. Working with an expansive understanding of "critical," they argue that many researchers already do the kind of critical ethnography suggested in this book, whether they call their studies critical or not. Drawing on a wide range of educational studies, the authors demonstrate that a methodology that is lived, embodied, and personal–and fundamentally connected to notions of power–is essential to exploring and understanding the many social and political issues facing education today. By grounding studies in work that reimagines, troubles, and questions notions of power, injustice, inequity, and marginalization, such studies engage with the tenets of critical ethnography. Offering a wide-ranging and insightful commentary on the influences of critical ethnography over time, Fitzpatrick and May interrogate the ongoing theoretical developments, including… [Direct]
(2021). A Call for the Conceptual Integration of Opportunity Structures within School Safety Research. School Psychology Review, v50 n2-3 p172-190. Few studies explicitly examine how opportunity structures impact school safety, school climate, or bullying. This article applies school-centered ecological theory as a heuristic conceptual framework that links opportunity structures and school safety. Historically, opportunity structures identified how institutional characteristics such as labor conditions, combined with factors such as geographic location, gender, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and family background, influence the opportunities open to individuals and shape patterns of entering the labor market. In education, the concept has been used when describing systemic racism in educational inequality. Examples are drawn from several bodies of research that have strong implications for future study of these issues. These areas include research on communities and families, creating positive school cultures and climates, and different types of educator bias that restrict opportunities and result in less safe… [Direct]
(2021). Toward Collaborative Partnerships: Lessons from Parents and Teachers of Emergent Bi/Multilingual Students. Theory Into Practice, v60 n1 p18-27. There is widespread consensus that parental involvement in their children's education contributes to the children's success at school. However, it is also recognized that non-dominant populations, particularly immigrant families, face language and cultural barriers, racism, poverty, and other obstacles to navigating school practices that many families do not face. In this article, we argue for the need to reject overtly school-centered parental involvement practices in favor of collaborative partnerships that position parents as equal partners and decision-makers. We first present critical features that characterize home-school collaborative partnerships, based on key literature detailing research from this perspective. Second, we present 2 examples of attempts to forge home-school partnerships, based on qualitative research independently conducted by the coauthors. Finally, we discuss the challenges and possibilities of school-parent partnerships that are illustrated by these… [Direct]
(2021). Resistance to Conversations about Race. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University. Qualitative research continues to demonstrate a majority white, female, middle-class teaching force is struggling to effectively teach an increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse U.S. student population (Hollins & Guzman, 2005; Nieto, 2000). As a result, teacher education incorporates multicultural education/diversity coursework to teach prospective teachers (PSTs) how to incorporate culturally and/or linguistically diverse children in the classroom (Hollins & Guzman, 2005). This has resulted in having discussions about race and racism. Consequently, due to the social-political nature of the topic, teacher educators have had a difficult time discussing how inequities occur along racial lines. Commonly, PSTs resist conversations about race by disengaging from the class discussion or dismissing viewpoints that highlight the historical influence of race in today's society. This project compares teacher educator's approach to resistance, my own experimental experience,… [Direct]
(2020). Ko tenei te wa…. Te Tiriti o Waitangi Education, Teacher Education, and Early Childhood Care and Education. Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice, v35 spec iss p1-12. This paper offers a brief personal reflection on some leadership related observations from work as an early childhood teacher educator over the past thirty years. Te Tiriti o Waitangi education is a specific area that has previously not been sufficiently prioritised and has only comparatively recently been affirmed in government policy as a key focus of education henceforth. This paper reflects on some of the underlying reasons for this omission within education, pointing to notions of white supremacy in the colonialist assumption of sovereignty and ongoing racism that has negatively impacted on educational experiences and outcomes for Maori in Aotearoa and has also resulted in the degradation of our environment despite Tiriti o Waitangi assurances about the sustenance of rangatiratanga and protection of taonga which should have supported ongoing kaitiakitanga of te taiao. Some hopeful recent policy initiatives are acknowledged. It finishes with recognition of the current climate… [PDF]
(2021). Racing the Muslim: Strategies for Teaching Race and Ethnic Studies in the Education Curriculum. Urban Education, v56 n7 p1042-1066 Sep. In this paper, I insert the importance of teaching race through Middle Eastern America and Muslim America. By bringing in critical analysis of Middle Eastern America and Muslim America, I offer theoretical insights and pedagogical strategies in the education curriculum to teach race that will deconstruct, destabilize, and interrogate the dominant White-Black racial logic in the United States. While my theoretical engagement with Critical Race Theory complicates how we theorize race in the United States, I couple the theory with transhistorical, transnational, embodied, performative pedagogical strategies to enable a wide assortment of ways to engage with the dynamism, fluidity, and constantly shifting nature of race and Whiteness through an engagement with scholarship on Middle Eastern America and Muslim America. I present a way to teach race that enriches the curriculum on race in the education program while preparing future educators with resources to support students and expand… [Direct]
(2024). Identifying the Barriers to Inclusion and Belonging Experienced by Students and Alumni in Higher Education. Psychology Teaching Review, v30 n1 p32-68. Students minoritised because of their race and/or ethnicity have a different university experience from their peers, which is reflected in degree completion statistics, awarding gaps, and graduate outcomes. One factor influencing these outcomes is students' sense of inclusion and belonging with the university, which is lower in minoritised students. We aimed to identify whether barriers to inclusion were present across students and alumni in one university, and whether this varied according to ethnic and/or racial backgrounds. Three-hundred and twenty-three students and alumni completed an online questionnaire measuring students' belonging, experience of the curriculum and microaggressions, and 14 students and alumni attended focus groups to further explore the barriers to inclusion and belonging, and proposed recommended actions to reduce these barriers. From the questionnaire, ethnicity and/or race did not influence students' sense of belonging, experience of the curriculum or… [Direct]
(2021). Online Joint Professional Development: A Novel Approach to Multicultural Education. Journal for Multicultural Education, v15 n4 p445-458. Purpose: The current research presents findings from an innovative online Teachers Professional Development (TPD) program entitled — The Israeli Society is Meeting Online. This study aims to examine to what extent does online contact promote meaningful acquaintance among teachers from different cultures in Israeli society, and how did the online TPD program influence the way teachers perceive their roles in the Israeli education system. Design/methodology/approach: This study implemented a qualitative phenomenological approach to learn about the teachers' experiences (through the TPD program. Findings: The findings indicate that teachers who live and study in a diverse and divided society can improve intergroup relations using online contact with teachers from other groups. This contact may lead to a significant acquaintance, which, in turn, prepares teachers as agents of change in the field of multicultural education. Originality/value: Israeli society is diverse and divided and… [Direct]
(2023). The Recruitment and Retention of Teachers of Colour in Wales. An Ongoing Conundrum?. Curriculum Journal, v34 n1 p118-137 Mar. There are a disproportionate number of teachers of colour (ToC) in Wales in comparison to pupils of colour. Teachers are less ethnically diverse than the pupils they are teaching with only 1.3% of teachers categorising themselves as being from a non-White background. This paper sets out findings from research investigating recruitment into Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and the career progression of ToC in Wales. Through a qualitative case study approach, employing participant voice, it gives participants a platform to articulate their experiences. Sixty-eight semi-structured interviews took place and participants were a mixture of 14+ learners and serving teachers/leaders, all from diverse backgrounds. As a multi-ethnic research team ourselves, we were aware of issues that participants faced within the Welsh school system, either as pupils or teachers, and were committed to carrying out the research, employing an empathetic lens. This was especially relevant as participants were… [Direct]