The Relevance of Critical Race Theory to Educational Theory and Practice

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has its origins in legal analysis but increasingly has been used by educational researchers to analyse the continued salience of institutional racism in educational settings. After providing a brief overview of the history of CRT and the educational issues addressed by critical race theorists, I review two books that explicitly engage critical race theory (CRT). Delgado and Stefancic's (2001) primer on the CRT literature provides an important backdrop for situating Guinier and Torres' (2002) ambitious argument for building grassroots social movements around the concept of political race.     

The Race for Class: Reflections on a Critical Raceclass Theory of Education

This article is intended to appraise the insights gained from Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education. It is particularly interested in CRT's relationship with Marxist discourse, which falls under two questions. One, how does CRT understand Marxist concepts, such as capital, which show up in the way CRT appropriates them? The article argues that Marxist concepts, such as historical classes, class-for-itself, are useful for race analysis as it sets parameters around the conceptual use of historical races and a race-for-itself. Two, how does CRT understand the role of capitalism, therefore shedding light on its position regarding the class problem? It is no doubt attentive to class power, but this is not the same as performing an immanent critique of capitalism. As a result, within CRT class achieves a color whereby class becomes a variant of race, better known as classism. Race becomes the theory with class vocabulary superimposed on it. Last, I suggest areas where CRT could combine with Marxism in order to forge a Critical Raceclass Theory of Education.     

Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education

In this article, I outline the central tenets of an emerging theory that I call Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) to more completely address the issues of Indigenous Peoples in the United States. TribalCrit has it roots in Critical Race Theory, Anthropology, Political/Legal Theory, Political Science, American Indian Literatures, Education, and American Indian Studies. This theoretical framework provides a way to address the complicated relationship between American Indians and the United States federal government and begin to make sense of American Indians’ liminality as both racial and legal/political groups and individuals. Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy is an Assistant Professor in the University of Utah.     

Critical Race Theory and the Transfer Function: Introducing a Transfer Receptive Culture

In California, the majority of students of color who enter postsecondary education do so in the community colleges. However large numbers of them leave and do not transfer to four-year institutions; in particular to highly selective public four-year colleges and universities. By using the theoretical perspective of critical race theory, transfer can be seen as a dual commitment between both the sending and receiving institution as we put forth the conceptual framework of a “transfer receptive culture.” We define a transfer receptive culture as an institutional commitment by a four-year college or university to provide the support needed for students to transfer successfully—that is, to navigate the community college, take the appropriate coursework, apply, enroll, and successfully earn a baccalaureate degree in a timely manner. We outline five elements, informed by critical race theory, that are necessary to establish a transfer receptive culture and outline specific strategies within each element that practioners can employ on their home campuses.     

Critical Race Theory and Counselor Education Pedagogy: Creating Equitable Training

Infusing critical race theory, the authors discuss specific pedagogical strategies to enhance educational experiences of counselor trainees. The authors then provide an evaluative checklist to facilitate and evaluate curricular integration of critical race theory.     

种族批判法学的后现代性分析

美国的种族批判法学是20世纪80年代后期从批判法律研究运动中分离出来的一股新的法学思潮。种族批判法学的后现代性主要体现在其法律实体观和法学方法论两个方面。具体说来，体现在种族批判法学概念的多元性、种族批判法学对法律中立性的质疑以及种族批判法学的方法论等几个方面。     

Negotiating the Contested Terrain of Equity-Focused Change Efforts in Schools: Critical Race Theory as a Leadership Framework for Creating More Equitable Schools

Educational leaders attempting to enact equity-focused change in their schools are frequently met with fierce opposition by politically powerful parents whose children are well served by the status quo. The purpose of this conceptual article is to: (a) explore the utility of Critical Race Theory as a framework for helping K-12 school leaders anticipate and make sense of resistance to change efforts aimed at creating greater educational equity for underserved students, and (b) suggest ways that school leaders can more effectively engage in equity reforms in their schools. To do this, we examine a highly contested public debate over a recent equity-focused change effort at Berkeley High School (BHS)—a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse public school in Northern California. Using the events at BHS as an example, we argue that change efforts could be undertaken more effectively by: (a) identifying and addressing the underlying property interests up front, (b) anticipating how majoritarian narratives rooted in “colorblindness” and deficit thinking would be employed as a means for obscuring and maintaining unequal access to scarce resources, and (c) focusing on specific areas of interest convergence.     

美国教育批判种族理论的研究综述

20世纪90年代,美国阶级斗争相对缓和,种族问题日渐显现出来.在此背景下,美国教育理论界应运而生出教育批判种族理论.本文通过文献分析,从概念、起源与发展历程、主要观点等角度对这一理论进行深入探讨与评价.     

Critical Race Theory and Education: Racism and anti-racism in educational theory and praxis

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what does it offer educational researchers and practitioners outside the US? This paper addresses these questions by examining the recent history of anti-racist research and policy in the UK. In particular, the paper argues that conventional forms of anti-racism have proven unable to keep pace with the development of increasingly racist and exclusionary education polices that operate beneath a veneer of professed tolerance and diversity. In particular, contemporary anti-racism lacks clear statements of principle and theory that risk reinventing the wheel with each new study; it is increasingly reduced to a meaningless slogan; and it risks appropriation within a reformist “can do” perspective dominated by the de-politicized and managerialist language of school effectiveness and improvement. In contrast, CRT offers a genuinely radical and coherent set of approaches that could revitalize critical research in education across a range of inquiries, not only in self-consciously “multicultural” studies. The paper reviews the developing terrain of CRT in education, identifying its key defining elements and the conceptual tools that characterize the work. CRT in education is a fast-changing and incomplete project but it can no longer be ignored by the academy beyond North America.     

Asian Pacific Americans and Critical Race Theory: An Examination of School Racial Climate

We attempt to answer where the social justice is in service-learning by probing what it is, how it looks in the process of being institutionalized at a Jesuit university, and why it is important. We develop themes about institutionalizing service-learning from a social justice perspective. Our themes were developed through an analysis of service-learning research focused on institutionalization and social justice, and a case study of a Jesuit university attempting to institutionalize it, including five faculty action research service-learning projects. From these themes, we share lessons that we learned from this experience.     

Gentlemanly Orthodoxy: Critical Race Feminism, Whiteness Theory, and the APA Manual

Although often viewed as burdensome, academic writing guidelines are rarely treated as actively problematic. Even progressive scholars are unlikely to challenge the cultural assumptions or political investments of academic style guides. Yet standards regarding clarity, precision, appropriateness, sensitivity, and objectivity are not politically innocent. In codifying formal guidelines for the presentation of research, academic style manuals reflect and reinscribe the racialized and gendered (among other) power relations characteristic of the academy. Drawing on critical race feminism and whiteness theories, this paper considers how scholarly investments in whiteness and patriarchy organize the influential APA writing guidelines. The present analysis refers specifically to the APA Manual , but similar analyses might apply to aspects of the Chicago and MLA manuals and the Bluebook , among other style guides.     

Interrogating Positive Youth Development Through Sport Using Critical Race Theory

ABSTRACT

Sport has the potential to serve as a context in which youth can develop as players and people. Positive youth development (PYD) through sport is a prevalent strength-based approach that aims to promote life skills acquisition in youth participants. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the utility of critically interrogating PYD through sport using critical race theory (CRT). Select key tenets of CRT serve as analytical tools that can highlight potentially problematic assumptions that underline current approaches to PYD through sport. Interrogation of PYD through sport using CRT exposes its limitations in theory, research, and practice. This race-centered perspective can help to reimagine sport coaching for positive development from a more socially responsible, critical praxis.     

Increasing the Depth of Field: Critical Race Theory and Photovoice as Counter Storytelling Praxis

Thru the Lenz was a youth participatory action project in which a group of urban high school students explored their lives and communities through art, photography, and narrative. Drawing on data from Thru the Lenz, I deploy CRT to reimagine the research space as a place for counter storytelling. Majoritarian stories are stories that invoke and perpetuate white privilege, are based on racist ideology, are pervasive and are told by whites as well as people of color (Solórzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Counter stories are a method and a tool that enable a deeper understanding of the stories the youth co-constructed though their photos and narratives and also challenge the majoritarian stories told about them, their school, and community (Solórzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Specifically, I present the research praxis organized in the form of an emerging counter story based on two key themes: good community and successful school. When constructed using a CRT framework, the students’ stories about their educational experiences provide a strong critique of neoliberal education reform. I conclude with a discussion of the tensions and challenges of engaging in counter story as critical, emancipatory praxis that elucidates the linkages of personal experiences and macro policies (Stovall in Race Ethn Educ 9:243–259, 2006).     

The one-in-ten: quantitative Critical Race Theory and the education of the ‘new (white) oppressed’

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges the notion that quantitative data – as a numeric truth – exist independent of a nation’s political and racial landscape. Utilising large-scale national attainment data, the analysis challenges the belief that ‘White working class’ children in England, especially boys, are ‘the new oppressed’ – as a former equality adviser has publicly claimed. The analysis applies Quantitative Critical Race Theory, or ‘QuantCrit’, an emerging quantitative sub-field of Critical Race Theory in education. The paper argues that far from being ‘oppressed’, White boys continue to enjoy achievement advantages over numerous minoritised groups; especially their peers of Black Caribbean ethnic origin. Additionally, the analysis uniquely exposes racialised trends of ‘equivalency’ in core subject qualifications, whereby minority ethnic children are over-represented in certain lower-status qualifications that are counted as equivalent in education statistics but not in the real world labour market. The analysis concludes that knowing misrepresentations of quantitative data are at the heart of an institutional process through which race and racism are produced, legitimised and perpetuated in education.     

An Author as a Counter-Storyteller: Applying Critical Race Theory to a Coretta Scott King Award Book

This article analyzes the 2002 Coretta Scott King Award book by Mildred Taylor entitled The Land. The novel and its author are situated within a tradition of historical fiction written by and about African Americans. I then offer an analysis that utilizes Critical Race Theory as an interpretive tool for examining the ways Taylor embeds meanings of land ownership into the novel. In particular the following themes emerged: (1) inspiration and adoration, (2) entitlement and privilege, and (3) freedom and security. The conclusion addresses the importance of applying Critical Race Theory to literary studies as well as identifying ways to purposefully incorporate African American young adult historical fiction within today’s classrooms. In this article, the ownership of land as property is foregrounded although the term “property” is both literally and metaphorically understood in Critical Race scholarship (Harris 1993).