Still flies in buttermilk: black male faculty,critical race theory,and composite counterstorytelling

Driven by critical race theory, this essay employs composite counterstorytelling to narrate the experiences of black male faculty on traditionally white campuses. Situated at the intersections of race and gender, our composite counterstory is richly informed by 11 interviews with black male faculty alongside critical race scholarship that documents the omnipresence of black misandric ideology. Through our protagonist Dr Timesnow, a black male Assistant Professor, we reflect on how his daily experiences incite racial battle fatigue, feed into imposter syndrome, and circumvent an inclusive campus community.     

Black on black education 2.0: critical race perspectives on personally engaged pedagogy for/by black pre-service teachers

ABSTRACT

Public schools have increasing numbers of its teachers fitting into one demographic, white and female, while the numbers of Black/African American teachers decrease. This trend has not changed since the publication of Black on Black Education: Personally Engaged Pedagogy for/by African American Pre-Service Teachers. Furthermore, African American collegiate students who decide to enter teaching may face a chilly climate because of their cultural and educational experiences as they encounter devaluation in the classroom. This work provides a critical race reflective examination into the teaching and learning experiences and dilemmasI using personally engaged pedagogy as a means of enhancing the quality of the learning experiences for African American pre-service teachers. Critical race theory (CRT) and Critical Race Feminism (CRF) will be used as the theoretical framework for understanding the role of race and gender in teacher education. Critical autoethnography is the methodological approach used to examine the subject phenomenon. Field notes, research journaling, and student memoirs provide data for this critical autoethnography. This work highlights the significance of CRT/CRF’s unique voice of color and CRF’s multidimensionality to engaged pedagogy, creating a personally engaged pedagogy.     

Understanding critical race theory as a framework in higher educational research

This paper reviews the existing literature to discuss how critical race theory has been applied as a theoretical framework to higher educational research in the United States and what its contributions are. To provide necessary context, I will discuss race and racism in the United States, the background of US higher education in relation to race, the emergence of critical race theory and its application in US higher education.     

The potential of critical race theory in decolonizing university curricula

This paper critiques our experiences as non-Indigenous Australian educators of working with numerous embedding Indigenous perspectives curricular projects at an Australian university. Reporting on these project outcomes alone, while useful in identifying limitations, does not illustrate ways in which future embedding and decolonizing projects can persist and evolve. Deeper analysis is required of the ways in which Indigenous knowledge and perspectives are perceived, and what “embedding” Indigenous Knowledge in university curricula truly means to various educational stakeholders. To achieve a deeper analysis and propose ways to invigorate the continuing decolonization of Australian university curricula, this paper critically interrogates the methodology and conceptualization of Indigenous knowledge in embedding Indigenous perspectives (EIP) in the university curriculum using tenets of critical race theory. Accordingly, we conduct this analysis from the standpoint that EIP should not subscribe to the luxury of independence of scholarship from politics and activism. The learning objective is to create a space to legitimize politics in the intellectual/academic realm. We conclude by arguing that critical race theory's emancipatory, future and action-oriented goals for curricula would enhance effective and sustainable embedding initiatives, and ultimately, preventing such initiatives from returning to the status quo.     

Critical race theory in India: theory translation and the analysis of social identities and discrimination in Indian schooling

This article examines ethical and philosophical considerations in theory translation, i.e. translating a theoretical framework from its original place to another national context. Critical race theory (CRT) was developed in the United States through significant struggle in order to analyze everyday racism. Marginalized groups have historically shared postcolonial critiques, conceptualizations of social justice, and methods for mass resistance across national borders. Through an analysis of the literature on CRT and contemporary India, this article explores whether CRT’s principles and methodology can be employed to research discrimination within India’s school system. Can CRT be sensitive to the differences in context and still retain its philosophical center? This analysis reveals that CRT may be particularly helpful in highlighting the educational discrimination experienced by Dalits via use of CRT’s social construction thesis to conceptualize caste and intersectionality to understand caste’s relationship to gender and class.     

The Anti-Black Order of No Child Left Behind: Using Lacanian psychoanalysis and critical race theory to examine NCLB

During a period in which institutions have been refashioned to meet the demands of a complex social and political economy, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has helped to alter the public educational system. As scholars and researchers examine the material effects of NCLB, efforts to improve the educational system and its effects must also explore the relationship between policy and racial ideologies including discursive fantasies. This article examines the relationship between NCLB and racial fantasies of Black youth as problematic others in order to help education reform scholarship and advocacy examine the violence of NCLB.     

On the utility of Asian critical (AsianCrit) theory in the field of education

Abstract

Despite the powerful influence of race and racism on the experiences and outcomes of Asian Americans in US education, coherent conceptual frameworks specifically focused on delineating how White supremacy shapes the lives of this population are difficult to find. The AsianCrit framework, grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the experiences and voices of Asian Americans, can begin filling this gap. In this article, we review an AsianCrit framework and examine Asian American issues in education through seven AsianCrit tenets to demonstrate their utility in the analysis of and advocacy for Asian Americans in U.S. education. We end by discussing implications of how AsianCrit can provide a framework to guide future research, policy and practice, as well as a foundation for discourse around the racialized experiences of Asians Americans and other racially marginalized groups in education.     

On the elephant in the room: toward a generative politics of place on race in academic discourse

Abstract

In our conceptual essay, we draw on an exchange between a White scholar and a group of panelists on Critical Race Theory at an international conference. Taking up this exchange as our point of departure, we work in dialectical and multidimensional ways between the essentialized politics of place on race and critical anti-essentializing foundations in recent Critical Race Feminism and Critical White Studies’ literatures. Working the dialectics and multidimensionality of the place that race makes in academic discourse, we recognize and ethically work through the essentialized politics of place in advancing anti-essentializing understandings of race. In articulating these anti-essentializing understandings, our conceptual essay drives at the notion of a generative politics of place on race in academic discourse. A generative politics of place holds essentialized realities and anti-essentializing foundations of race in dialectical and multidimensional tension for teaching, learning, and discussing race in local, national, and international contexts.     

Black male teachers,white education spaces: Troubling school practices of othering and surveillance

The absence of male teachers in primary schools has been an ongoing concern for policymakers and schools in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, and as schools have become more ethnically diverse so have concerns that the teacher workforce should reflect the communities it serves. Pre-service teacher training plays a critical role in this aim, by identifying, recruiting, retaining and training those who demonstrate potential to become teachers in English primary schools. As one of a few studies to explore the racialised and gendered experiences of black male teachers in England, I adopt the use of critical race theory (CRT) to examine how black male teachers are characterised and constructed in white education spaces. Drawing on a larger study, this paper utilises counternarrative, a key precept of CRT, to draw attention to processes of exclusion, othering and surveillance through the experience of David (the main character). Interview and documentary data illuminate institutional processes of overt and covert racism, as well as racialised and gendered stereotyping. David’s story reveals how his voice is muted as it is woven into processes of othering, hyper-surveillance and disciplinary power.     

A snapchat story: how black girls develop strategies for critical resistance in school

ABSTRACT

Drawing from Black, feminist epistemologies as well as theories of critical consciousness, and adolescent digital literacies, this paper analyzes the narratives of 7 Black, female high school students who experience oppressive practices, including racial microaggressions, silencing, harsh discipline, and marginalization within a predominately White school environment. At this juncture in which race, politics, and activism intersect with school, media, and identity, this study discusses how Black, female students resist oppression and use digital and social media as well as other available tools to speak out against injustice and heighten the racial awareness of their school community. This qualitative case study uses individual and focus group interviews to examine the ways in which Black female students develop critical resistance strategies, working individually and collectively within existing structures to fight for their humanity and liberation.     

Critical race theory in education,Marxism and abstract racial domination

In the context of the ongoing debate between critical race theory (CRT) and Marxism, I begin in this paper by examining the origins of CRT in Critical Legal Studies (CLS) in the United States. I go on to describe CRT's entry into education, first in that country, and then in the United Kingdom. I move on to a discussion of current debates between critical race theorists and Marxists, focusing on an analysis of arguments for the existence of abstract racial domination.     

Enact,discard, and transform: a critical race feminist perspective on professional socialization among tenured Black female faculty

Through an analysis informed by critical race feminism, this paper examines the intersection of professional socialization and agency among tenured Black female faculty at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Professional socialization entails the transmission and reproduction of professional norms. However, within PWIs, professional socialization emanates from a legacy of race and gender exclusion. Thus, normative conceptualizations of professional development may not adequately address how Black women negotiate institutional cues to define their professorial role. The findings show that a three-prong model of engagement: enacting, discarding, and transforming institutional norms, comprised the participants’ socialization process; agency played an important role in their career success. Implications for facilitating agency among Black female faculty and similarly situated groups are discussed.     

The new one-drop rule: challenging the persistence of white supremacy with in-service teachers

ABSTRACT

The one-drop rule refers to the process of being racialized Black when someone contains any amount of Black ancestry, i.e. one drop of Black blood. In this article, I use what I call ‘the new one-drop rule’ to explain how even the smallest presence of white discourse can disrupt racial equity work in schools. Based on a critical race study in a racially desegregated elementary school, I illustrate how one drop of white discourse from even one less racially literate white teacher can cause usually more racially literate white teachers to support white supremacy. I also share how collaborative research utilizing critical race theory (CRT) can help schools build greater racial literacy and resist white discourse. I argue that critical research on race with in-service teachers should not forefront the consciousness-raising of resistant white teachers but rather center the wants, needs, and racial knowledge of racially literate teachers and especially teachers of color.     

Racism as Policy: A Critical Race Analysis of Education Reforms in the United States and England

Abstract

Critical race theory (CRT) views education as one of the principal means by which white supremacy is maintained and presented as normal in society. The article applies CRT to two real-world case studies: changes to education statutes in the state of Arizona (USA) and the introduction of a new measure of educational success in England, the English baccalaureate. The analysis highlights the globalized nature of neoliberal education reform and its fundamentally raced and racist character.     

Taking the risk to engage in race talk: professional development in elementary schools

Developing public education where every child has the right to learn requires that teachers pay attention to and engage in race talk – open discussion about race, social construction of race, and racism. While it is clear that children engage and reflect critically about these aspects of race even at a young age, teachers rarely engage in race talk with them. In this study, an African-American preservice teacher and a White teacher educator explore how African-American, Polynesian, and White in-service teachers, participating in Courageous Conversations professional development, address or avoid race talk in their elementary schools through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what risks they take when they do. Findings, through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, demonstrate that (1) racism was observed and/or experienced by all teachers in elementary schools; (2) lived racial experiences impacted teachers’ approach to conversations about race; (3) creating an open space was crucial for race conversations; (4) Courageous Conversations provided a ‘new language’ to talk about race; and (5) administrative support facilitated more attention to race. Findings indicate the road to greater equity in schools requires more professional development about race talk in elementary schools.     

Curriculum as colour and curves: a synthesis of Black theory,design and creativity realised as critical curriculum writing

This article looks to three inspirational Black women, bell hooks, Stacey McBride-Irby and Patricia Williams, in the pursuit of radical curriculum. While today curriculum is critiqued as racialised, gendered, sexualised and classed, the formats of curriculum documents such as text books, units of work and lesson plans have changed little. These documents are often conceived as linear sequences of steps leading to outcomes, and their voices are distanced and ‘neutral’. Drawing on a doctoral study of curriculum design in Australia, this article embraces a different approach by opening up a unit of work on girls’ popular culture to hooks’ invocations to teach to transgress, so that curriculum might be experienced as colour and curves, rather than a monochrome route to a pre-determined end point. Through this, along with hooks, I invite teachers to live pedagogy, rather than to deliver it.     

The changing work of teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand: a view through activity theory

The study of recruitment practices for teacher educators (TEs) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) universities reveals the academic category of TE constituted along three related trajectories: a professional expert (not required to research), a traditional academic (not required to hold a teaching qualification or teacher’s practicing certificate), and one who is dually qualified, to teach (as a registered NZ teacher) and to research. It is the dually qualified type of TE who can service the full scope of university-based initial teacher education (UBITE). Recent recruitment practices have, however, focused on employment of professional experts and traditional academics. Drawing from document analyses and interviews, we present a picture of changing work for TEs. Our study argues that policy environments and universities’ responses are changing the objects, rules, and divisions of labour in UBITE. We comment on the evolution of initial teacher education in NZ, its likely trajectory, and its potential for development.     

Audience Matters: Teaching issues of race and racism for a predominantly minority student body

Some of the literature about teaching issues of race and racism in classrooms has addressed matters of audience. Zeus Leonardo, for example, has argued that teachers should use the language of white domination, rather than white privilege, when teaching about race and racism because the former language presupposes a minority audience, while the latter addresses an imaginary or presupposed white one. However, there seems to be little discussion in the literature about teaching these issues to an audience that is in fact predominantly minority. Leonardo assumes that minority students need little convincing about the reality of white domination, but students of color are not a monolithic group. The paper addresses some specific challenges the author has faced teaching theories of white domination to a predominantly minority student audience in New York City. Leonardo is right that audience matters, but audience turns out to matter in ways that defy common assumptions.