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.     

Brown Plus 50 Counter-Storytelling: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of the “Majoritarian Achievement Gap” Story

This essay provides a Critical Race Theory (CRT) analysis of current discussions of the “achievement gap” as the latest incarnation of the “white intellectual superiority/African American intellectual inferiority” notion that is a mainstay of “majoritarian storytelling” in U.S. culture. A critical race counter-story chronicles both the historical development and maintenance of the “achievement gap,” along with efforts of African Americans to secure access to education. The process by which the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision was subverted as a historical intervener in systemic access to equity in educational opportunity for African Americans is discussed. This essay concludes with principles to promote successful academic achievement of African American children.     

Revealing a hidden curriculum of Black women’s erasure in sexual violence prevention policy

This article aims to challenge the framework by which rape and sexual assault prevention in higher education are being constituted by centring Black women’s experiences of sexual violence within a prevention and response policy framework. Numerous research studies exist in the literature regarding the specific experience of sexual violence for Black women within a national context that remains deeply committed to White supremacy [Buchanan, N. T., and A. J. Ormerod. 2002. “Racialized Sexual Harassment in the Lives of African American Women.” Women & Therapy 25 (3/4): 107–124; Crenshaw, K. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167; Donovan, R., and M. Williams. 2002. “Living at the Intersection: The Effects of Racism and Sexism on Black Rape Survivors.” Women & Therapy 25 (3/4): 95–105; McNair, L. D., and H. A. Neville. 1996. “African American Women Survivors of Sexual Assault: The Intersection of Race and Class.” Women & Therapy 18 (3/4): 107–118; Omolade, B. 1989. “Black Women, Black men, and Tawana Brawley – The Shared Condition.” Harvard Women’s Law Journal 12: 11–23; West, C. 2002. “Battered, Black, and Blue: An Overview of Violence in the Lives of Black Women.” Women & Therapy 25 (3/4): 5–27]. Using the critical pedagogy principle of ‘hidden curriculum’ or how what is directly communicated through educational processes also conveys unstated values, judgments, and regulatory norms, the author analyses the first report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault [2014. Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault] for race-neutral language that contributes to the silencing of the sexual violence that Black college women experience. The necessity of race-conscious sexual assault policy is discussed.     

The Marygrove College Griot Program: A Grow Your Own Program for African American Male Teachers

Marygrove College’s mission is to foster Christian values, educating students from diverse backgrounds, and serving the people of Detroit and beyond. This commitment consistently guides its actions, including opening its doors for men in a school originally for women by introducing one of the earlier Grow Your Own programs. Known as the “Griot Program,” it is specifically designed for African American males to increase their representation in the profession. This article describes the Griot Program’s efforts to grow and sustain African American Male Teachers by examining the design and implementation of the program. Describing specific issues of recruitment and retention, the article offers a program portrait for those who would like to replicate this home grown program.     

Partnering with school providers to codesign mental health interventions: An open trial of Act & Adapt in urban public middle schools

Schools are well positioned to provide access to youth mental health services, but implementing effective programs that promote emotional and behavioral functioning in school settings is complicated by the poor fit of interventions developed in research settings to complex school contexts. The current study formed a research–practice partnership with two urban public schools and mental health providers employed by those schools (N = 6, 100% female, 50% Black/African American, 50% White/Caucasian) in the adaptation of a depression prevention intervention, Act & Adapt. The intervention was modified by decreasing meeting time and streamlining session content, increasing flexibility, making intervention materials more similar to academic curriculum, and increasing the focus on managing disruptive behavior within group sessions. In an open trial, sixth-grade students (N = 22; 59% boys, 31% Hispanic, 22% Black/African American, 4% Asian, 30% White/Caucasian) at both schools who were identified as clinically “at risk” reported improvements from baseline to postintervention and at 1-year follow-up on measures of emotional and behavioral difficulties and coping strategies, with parallel results by caregiver report. The providers reported satisfaction with the intervention, and qualitative analyses of provider focus groups suggested both barriers and facilitators to research-practice collaborations to implement mental health interventions in schools.     

A loophole of retreat? Predominately White institutions as paradoxical spaces for high achieving African American women

Abstract

High achieving Black female students attending predominately-White institutions (PWIs) are stereotyped as being strong willed and celebrated for their resilience. On the surface, these narratives seem to compliment African American students for doing well. However, strong-Black-woman depictions trivialize the racism and sexism these women experience. Utilizing Black feminist geographic theory, I argue that colleges and universities can be “paradoxical spaces” for academically successful Black women: The sense of accomplishment that comes from performing at peak levels often gets undercut by the marginalization these women face on campus. Qualitative, open-ended interviews of 20 participants attending a large Midwestern PWI demonstrate that high achieving African American women relish the intellectual challenges of their academic pursuits, yet they also deal with intense feelings of isolation and frustration.     

The HBCU Experience: Liberating or Not?

While African American women routinely outnumber African American men on the historically Black college and university (HBCU) campus, the African American woman??s voice is usually relegated to the margins within social and academic frameworks. The author seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the actual liberation of African American women on HBCU campuses. Drawing from undergraduate and graduate experiences as an African American female on campus, the author uses Collins??s (Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge, New York, 2009) Black feminist epistemology as a lens through which to examine her own decision to attend an HBCU while giving specific attention to the implications and intersections of race and gender. Using Black feminist epistemology and autoethnography, the author provides a critical analysis of her education at an HBCU in relationship to the experiences of other African American women. The author concludes the article explaining the intersections of education, liberation, and resistance with implications for HBCU administrators and staff in preparing African American women as campus and community leaders.     

Teaching boys: towards a theory of gender-relevant pedagogy

This article calls attention to the social and educational challenges facing boys and men around the world. Next, it highlights how the outcomes for males of African descent across the Americas, in particular the USA, are especially troubling. Moreover, a critique is presented about the recruitment campaigns that see increasing the number of Black male teachers as an elixir for improving the crisis facing Black boys. Then, the article focuses on the intersection of race and gender and reframes the discussion around improving the deleterious school outcomes facing Black boys by shifting the conversation to exploring how educators' socialised views around gender influence the ways in which they teach boys. Finally, the article provides practical applications for designing a curriculum that is gender relevant.     

Parent Involvement,African American Mothers,and the Politics of Educational Care

This paper explores the relationship between notions of parent involvement and conceptions of care as they relate to educators’ deficit perceptions of African American mothers. Black feminist and womanist interpretations of the ethic of care are used to reframe the biased discourse on parent involvement in schools. Specific consideration is given to how educational scholarship can better acknowledge African American mothers’ race-based, gendered, and class-related contexts. Data from an in-depth, qualitative study of the educational experiences, values, and choices of low-income and working-class African American mothers inform the discussion. The study offers insight about the care and justice-seeking efforts of African American women. Implications for revising parent involvement typologies and strengthening school-family relationships according to a culturally relevant framework are emphasized.     

“《资本论》选读”课程思政教学改革探索

立德树人是新时代教育改革的根本任务,全员、全方位、全过程育人体现了高等教育立德树人的内在要求,"《资本论》选读"课程思政教学改革体现了新时代教育改革的要求。"《资本论》选读"课程本身蕴含着丰富的育人元素,同时还可以从理论与现实层面拓展性地融入育人元素。为了更加深入地提升"《资本论》选读"课程的育人功能,可以从完善的教学设计、新的教学模式、多元的教学方法等方面采取措施。     

Making moral migrants? Exploring the educational aspirations of Black African and Caribbean boys in a New York City public school

ABSTRACT

Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews with Black immigrant and second-generation boys at Bridgewood secondary school in New York City, this article points out how the high educational aspirations expressed by Black African and Caribbean boys are strategically deployed as features of an ethnic project to counter anti-immigrant sentiments and anti-Black racism in US society. The findings indicate that in a context of rising xenophobia along with the historical and continual stereotypes of Black people in the US, participants’ aspirations for elite higher education function as strategies to enhance their individual and ethnic reputations. High educational aspirations were also used to justify emigration to and worth within the US. At its core, this article illustrates how participants mobilized aspirations to represent themselves as moral migrants and ‘worthy’ ethnic minorities. Moral claims and ethnicity-based campaigns associated with aspirations are problematized because they reinforce the hierarchical racial order that informs US society.     

Bridging the Legacy of Activism Across Generations: Life Stories of African American Educators in Post-Civil Rights Birmingham

This qualitative study takes account of the salience of activism in informing the worldviews and professional practices of a multigenerational sample of 42 African American educators in Birmingham, Alabama. Framed by life course, Black feminist thought, and hip-hop educational research perspectives, the study highlights how the participants grapple with: generational misunderstandings; re-visioning traditional notions of activism; and forging intergenerational alliances. Birmingham, forever bound by its haunted yet sacred civil rights history, is presented as a prototypical space for examining this inquiry and sparking a resurgent activism among African American educators. The author concludes with implications for the capacity of contemporary African American educators in the U.S. South to forge intergenerational alliances to advance the aims of African American education.     

图像时代教科书“以图育人”:机遇、挑战与应对

人类初始的图像追求、社会的图像化存在、数字技术赋能图像设计与传播,以及图像符号本身蕴含的教育功能,给图像繁盛时代的教科书“以图育人”提供了机遇。同时,教科书“以图育人”也面临图像陷阱、师生图像素养欠缺以及图像“解码”方法单一的挑战。应对策略在于:正确把握教科书图像的价值赋意,增强“以图育人”的自觉性;加强师生图像素养培育,为“以图育人”提供能力保障;采用灵活多样的图像解读方法,丰富“以图育人”效能以及利用好教科书的多维图像,拓展“以图育人”的多元路径。     

The cult of order: in search of underlying patterns of the colonial and neo-colonial “grammar of educationalisation” in the Belgian Congo. Exported school rituals and routines?

Abstract

An analysis of the history of primary education in Belgium by Depaepe et al. in 2000 has demonstrated how the idea of “order” structured classroom reality in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This “order” is not only visible in the internal organisation of schooling (e.g. division into year classes, a structured timetable, the use of the didactics of teacher-centred instruction), but also in the design of the curriculum. Good behaviour and moral decency were consistently prioritised over “intellectual knowledge”. Very similar paternalising practices – including the cult of order – were transported to the Belgian colony. The implementation of these practices, however, did not go smoothly, because the African context of missionary education was totally different from the Belgian educational context. Precisely as a result of these difficulties, the core characteristics and likewise mistakes of the transported “grammar of educationalisation” become even more apparent. On the basis of a variety of sources, this paper demonstrates that secondary education for boys in the Belgian colony of Congo was founded on the same educational norms and values that characterised nineteenth-century Belgian education. In this respect, order was considered the conditio sine qua non for discipline and self-discipline. But, in contrast to what Nikolas Rose has argued, the Foucaultian paradigm – although attractive and interesting – is not imperative in explaining the educational strategy of order. On the contrary, the development of the history of education as a science could benefit from a theoretical framework coming “from within” the discipline. Until today, the history of educational practice has been explained from a history of education perspective only to a limited extent. By exploring the duality of a didactic grammar of schooling, on the one hand, and an educational semantics of moralisation, on the other hand, this paper contributes to the development of a theoretical framework from within the history of education.     

Wanting and Liking: Components of Situated Motivation Constructs?

Brain studies have revealed that 2 neurological systems, one for “wanting” and one for “liking,” are responsible for many instances of motivated behavior. If wanting and liking are fundamental elements of motivation, then we should also expect to see them represented in educational models of motivation for learning. However, it has not yet been established whether this is the case. Situated instances of motivation, such as when a student feels motivated to immediately engage in learning, can potentially be informed by education constructs such as curiosity, situational interest, intrinsic motivation, achievement emotions, and flow. The purpose of this article is to investigate whether the two elements, wanting and liking, can be identified in each of these constructs. The analysis revealed that the education constructs could be inferred to include wanting and liking. It is proposed that a focus on these fundamental elements might aid our understanding of motivation in educational settings.     

Decolonizing posthumanism: Indigenous material agency in generative STEM

This paper describes a decolonial perspective on material agency in the context of STEM education and application. Using the framework of generative STEM, we engaged in case studies with African, African American, South American, and Native American educational communities. This research shows that understanding material agency based on Indigenous knowledge systems can open a rich source of research and education content. Using a suite of simulations, Culturally Situated Design Tools, we apply this body of research to the classroom. One important theoretical conclusion is the contrast to a “content agnostic” position. A generative framework instead offers a robust blend of user agency and instructional guidance. The outcomes indicate statistically significant and notable improvement for STEM skills and interests. We conclude with a contrast to the quantum epistemology approach to posthumanism. We show that the Indigenous material agency framework in generative STEM is a better fit to decolonial aspirations, and that it offers a more transformative vision for the potential role of STEM in transitioning from an extractive to a generative economy.     

African Americans in Urban Catholic Schools: Faith, Leadership and Persistence in Pursuit of Educational Opportunity

A review of research on US Catholic education reveals that race is not treated as an important area of analysis like class and gender. Black Catholics are rarely studied in education let alone mainstream writings. This article examines the social and educational history of blacks in the US Catholic Church and the dual reality of inclusion and exclusion within a Church and its schools. This paper focuses on the intersection of the Church and Black Catholic schools as enduring institutions of opportunity for Black families and their communities. This paper unearths the shared values, assumptions and beliefs about African American Catholics quest for literacy. The article uses Black Theology as a frame to explain how the intersections of culture, history and religion influence meaning and educational decision-making. African Americans pursued Catholic education for two reasons. First, they sought to be educated which both advanced their individual freedom but vastly improved their community’s economic, social, and political standing. Second, they inserted their own unique cultural and social experiences into Catholic schools which espoused service and academic excellence. Black Catholic schools well-defined values and academic excellence is still viewed by African Americans as places of hope and opportunity for students of color.     

Moving Away from “Failing Boys” and “Passive Girls”: Gender meta-narratives in gender equity policies for Australian schools and why micro-narratives provide a better policy model

In this paper I argue that the move towards devolved modes of educational governance provides significant opportunities for feminist and pro-feminist constructionist research to impact on the types of “gender work” used by schools. Research-based understandings of gender in schools have been on the defensive in Australia and elsewhere for a decade, as demands for performative social justice policies coalesce with popular and governmental attention on the educational problems of boys. However, feminist and pro-feminist researchers can re-attain legitimacy in the policy field by marketing localized understandings of gender micro-narratives as improvements on the negative “failing boy” meta-narratives pursued by mainstream gender equity policy interventionists. While the popular, media-driven understanding frames gender as a constraint on educational access and participation, constructionist research identifies masculinity and femininity as changing constructs that produce highly specific and localized power relations. In the final part of the paper I consider the positioning of constructionist gender research in the federal government commissioned report Meeting the challenge: Final report on the boys’ lighthouse project, which demonstrated that feminist and pro-feminist readings of gender can attain legitimacy at the local level.     

I Know Who My Friends Are,but Do You? Predictors of Self‐Reported and Peer‐Inferred Relationships

Using social network data, this study examines which features of social and spatial proximity predict self‐reported, or “real,” and peer‐reported, or “inferred,” relationships among 2,695 pairwise combinations of African American second‐ through fourth‐grade students (aged 7–11). Relationships were more likely to exist, and more likely to be inferred to exist by peers, between pairs of children who were the same sex, sat near one another, shared a positive academic orientation, or shared athletic ability. Sex similarity had a dramatically larger effect on peers' inferences about relationships than on self‐reported real relationships, suggesting that children overestimate the importance of gender in their inferences about relationships. Results were stable across different grade levels in middle childhood and for boys and girls.