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And We Are Still Not Saved: Critical Race Theory in Education Ten Years Later
Abstract
In 1995, Teachers College Record published an article by Gloria Ladson‐Billings and William Tate entitled ‘Toward a critical race theory of education’. In this article, the authors proposed that critical race theory (CRT), a framework developed by legal scholars, could be employed to examine the role of race and racism in education. Within a few years of the publication of the article by Ladson‐Billings and Tate, several scholars in education had begun to describe their work as reflecting a CRT framework. In this article, we review the literature on CRT in education that has been published over the past ten years. We also assess how far we have come with respect to CRT in education and suggest where we might go from here.
... When pointing out that someone has white privilege, they are pointing out that whiteness often has invisible or intangible social and legal benefits that are not afforded to BIPOC individuals and that white individuals must recognise the unearned advantages provided to them so that individuals across groups can begin to dismantle systems of oppression (Crenshaw et al. 1996;Leonardo 2002). Although race is a social construct, it continues to impact access and outcomes related to education, housing and finances (Dixson and Rousseau 2005;Ladson-Billings and Tate 2006). White faculty can consider using Zeus Leonardo's (2002) example of considering whiteness contextually to motivate anti-racism efforts towards social justice. ...
... CRT scholars emphasise that to combat racism we must highlight and centre BIPOC voices and their experiential knowledge to counter narratives of dominant groups (Dixson and Rousseau 2005;Matsuda et al. 1993). In higher education, BIPOC student voices are often ignored unless they are consistent with the institutional culture (Housee 2008). ...
... White faculty should remind themselves that, due to segregation in the public school system, BIPOC and white students may not have had the same resources available to them in the past given that 'white' schools tend to receive more funding through property taxes, hire more experienced teachers, offer smaller class sizes, and have a more expansive curriculum that caters to college-bound high school students (Dixson and Rousseau 2005;Jack 2019;Ladson-Billings and Tate 2006). We highly recommend that faculty read The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack (2019), and perhaps organise a book group with other faculty at their institution to discuss the book, which examines the experiences of lower-socioeconomic-status and BIPOC students in higher education. ...
Racism in higher education continues to harm Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) students, so white faculty need to be good allies in anti-racism by decentring whiteness to better support BIPOC individuals. To increase self-awareness, white faculty should reflect on how they benefit from white privilege and then use this privilege to better support BIPOC students at both the interpersonal and institutional level, to centre BIPOC voices, to advocate for social justice, to condemn racism privately and publicly, to create teachable moments to better inform white students on the harms of prejudice and to intervene if BIPOC students are discriminated against. By being good allies, white faculty can show other white individuals how to use one's privilege to take action in anti-racism.
... 46) Drawing upon Parker's argument, we need to employ CRT in qualitative educational research to ascertain these racialized discourses. One of the main ways to accomplish this goal, along with one of the methodological tenets of CRT, is the use of "voice" (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). With voice, there is "the assertion and acknowledgement of the importance of the personal and community experiences of people of colour as sources of knowledge" (p. ...
... 10). Borrowing from this tradition, critical race theorists believe in and use personal narratives and personal sto- 25 ries as forms of knowledge to document inequity, injustice, and/or discrimination (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). ...
... When using the term voice, it is important not to essentialize 2 or assume that one person's voice speaks for the entire group or culture (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). Delgado (1989) asserts that many who tell stories are those "whose voice and perspective-whose consciousness-has been suppressed, devalued, and abnormalized" (p. ...
... Ideas such as 'colorblindness' or color-evasiveness and meritocracy only exacerbate the marginalization of people of color and further advantages Whites (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017). Color-evasiveness is harmful in that it allows the role of racism and its impact to be circumvented and exempted (Annamma et al., 2018;Dixson and Rousseau, 2005). According to Dixson and Rousseau (2005) CRT: ...
... Color-evasiveness is harmful in that it allows the role of racism and its impact to be circumvented and exempted (Annamma et al., 2018;Dixson and Rousseau, 2005). According to Dixson and Rousseau (2005) CRT: ...
... The absence of discussion about racism leaves educators unable to address their various privileges and how those privileges may affect their ability to educate all students effectively. CRT recognizes that race matters even as some deny its importance and fail to recognize the many manifestations of racism (Dixson and Rousseau, 2005). ...
Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators’ reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to leadership. The four of the most prominent themes that emerged from this qualitative study, including Increased Critical Self Awareness and Reflection, Critical Awareness Influencing Decision Making, Disconnect Between What is Known, What is said, and What is practiced, and Racial Battle Fatigue. Despite the resolute and rampant backlash against Critical Race Theory, the findings from this study underscore its relevance to education. Implications of these findings beseech educational leaders and policymakers to consider implementing professional development and accountability measures that center race in educational equity.
... In this paper, I explore how one recently certified Pre-Kindergarten teacher constructs knowledge about teacher quality and teacher certification in order to re-appropriate her professional status before certification as qualified. The following questions guide the study: In the United States, legal scholars developed Critical Race Theory (CRT), both a theory and movement that generated from Critical Legal Studies, to give race-specific attention to institutional oppression (Cheruvu, 2014;Crenshaw, et al., 1996;Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Neal, et al., 2015). In 1995, Ladson-Billings and Tate presented a specific agenda for educators to use CRT in their scholarship. ...
... In 1995, Ladson-Billings and Tate presented a specific agenda for educators to use CRT in their scholarship. According to the educational research recommendations of Dixson and Rousseau (2005), this study employs aspects of its major tenets in order to draw from the full strength of using CRT. In terms of the centrality of race and racism, this study addresses how racism creates unique experiences for minoritized populations by looking at teachers' multiple minoritizations in teacher testing failure. ...
... In terms of the centrality of race and racism, this study addresses how racism creates unique experiences for minoritized populations by looking at teachers' multiple minoritizations in teacher testing failure. Through its exploration of critical whiteness (DeCuir & Dixson, 2004) this study also contests dominant ideologies that continue to be hidden and perpetuated within institutions of power (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005), such as the certification process of Women of Color teachers. ...
... To analyze our experiences and observations in Tanzania we used critical race theory (Dixson & Rousseau, 2006;Howard & Navarro, 2016;Ladson-Billings, 2004;Lynn & Dixson, 2013;Gillborn & Ladson-Billings, 2010) as a tool to help us make sense of our observations. Critical race theorists argue that race is a significant factor in determining many daily experiences that are subjected to structural inequities founded on racial difference (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017;Taylor, Gillborn & Ladson-Billings, 2016;Tate IV, 1997). ...
... In this article, we are both the research and individual who is being studied, as this is a self-study. Narrative inquiry is well-suited for our inquiry and is consistent also with critical race theory as it reflects the perspectives of those who have experienced and have been victimized by racism firsthand, as it uses first-person accounts (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2016;Dixson & Rousseau, 2006). Both authors have experienced racial discrimination in their lives and their careers. ...
... In addition, we are also interested in the critique of "neutrality, objectivity, colourblindness, and merit" (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2016;Dixson & Rousseau, 2006) as they relate to how those ideas are transposed by Canadians in Tanzania. In other words, as a group we subconsciously brought much of our Canadian sensibilities and ways of thinking to Tanzania. ...
... They sought to understand how the tenets of CRT based on legal literature were used in education. Dixson and Rousseau (2005) concluded that voice, restrictive versus expansive views of equality, and the problem with colorblindness could be traced back to the origins of CRT in law. Lynn and Parker (2006) advanced the discussion of CRT in education by examining studies that used CRT as a theoretical or methodological framework to expose the effects of racism in the K-12 educational environment. ...
... This transdisciplinary movement is arguably most notable in the recent rise of QuantCrit (referred to as explained in the theoretical framework) amongst critical scholars. Finally, Ledesma and Calderon (2015) built upon the foundation earlier scholars provided to examine CRT in K-12 and higher education (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Lynn & Parker, 2006). They found that CRT could be divided into two subgenres in the education literature: K-12 education concerns and higher education concerns. ...
This study employed bibliometric analysis to analyze the research on critical race theory (CRT) in education. We employed four approaches: citation analysis, document co-citation analysis, social network analysis, and keyword co-occurrence to examine the scientific structure of CRT research in education based on 1,464 documents and 55,493 cited references. Using VOSviewer, we identified four distinct clusters of CRT research that characterize the intellectual structure of CRT research in education. We examined how specific works influence the field using social network analysis (SNA). The SNA revealed various amounts of overall centrality (i.e., 15.42% degree centrality, 25.24% closeness centrality, and approximately 0% betweenness centrality). These results indicate that the documents’ direct influence on the co-citation network is stronger than the indirect and informal influence. Finally, the keyword co-occurrence analysis results indicate four distinct clusters of CRT research foci. The results provide important considerations for future research while refuting claims that CRT is a tool for indoctrinating America’s youth.
... Principalship and its priorities are primarily viewed and decided through the lens of White males (Dixson and Rousseau, 2005;NCES, 2022;Tarbutton, 2019). The overwhelming majority of principals in the U.S. are White (NCES, 2022). ...
... Furthermore, CRT acknowledges the intersections of race and class (Harris, 1993), gender (Crenshaw, 1990), nativism (Perez-Huber, 2010, and disability (Annamma et al., 2017). Finally, CRT is aimed at dismantling racial oppression (Dixson and Rousseau, 2005). Thus, anti-racism is a product of critical theories such as CRT (Gillborn, 2006). ...
Purpose: This study intends to be a catalyst in preparing school leaders to go beyond the call of social justice, to step into the role of anti-racist school leaders who advocate and actualize systemic changes in the educational landscape. Research Methods: Data were gathered using a mixed method approach, starting with an online survey (ARDSA) of 223 school administrators across Texas followed by in-depth interviews with a representative sample of 19 school administrators. Data analysis techniques included quantitative analysis of surveys to determine school and district administrators’ perceptions of racism in schools and need for professional development followed by qualitative analysis to look for patterns and themes. Findings: Women agreed significantly more than men on Perceptions of Racial Inequities, Perceptions of Equitable Expectations, Addressing Racism, Critical Self-Awareness about Race, and Professional Development on Antiracism. Black and Latinx participants placed higher value on Engaging in Dialogues about Race with close connections more than Whites. Latinx and White participants agreed more with the items on remaining silent when witnessing or hearing about racism. Themes that emerged from the qualitative phase of this study included: Fear of Talking about Race, and Lack of Preparation from Educational Leadership Programs to Address Matters of Race. Implications: School districts and educational leadership preparation programs should be intentional about professional development, curriculum, and experiences that support leaders in developing critical awareness about race, understanding positionality and its role in school leadership, critical policy analysis, and engaging in courageous conversations that center race.
... Given the theory's deep connection to schooling at its inception, it is no wonder why the field of education has embraced the incorporation of CRT as a theoretical framework when discussing race in schools. First introduced into the field by Ladson-Billings and , several educational scholars have tapped into the power of CRT to explain the institution of school and how race is operationalized within it (DeCuir & Dixson, 2004;Delgado & Stefancic, 2001Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Parker & Lynn, 2002;Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). CRT elevates conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion because it has baked within its framework the overarching premise that race and racism are endemic in society and influence, shape, and guide everyday life. ...
... Lastly, CRT values counter-storytelling (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001;Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Incorporating multiple narratives, in particular stories from those historically marginalized, provides an opportunity for a robust discourse to occur. ...
The rise of school sports academies provides a privileged space for young elite athletes whose needs are not met in traditional schools. These academies have a long history of promoting their desire to have homogenous communities to represent national prowess on the world stage at sports events like the Olympics. This chapter will call into question the rise of school sports academies and their place in education, specifically in the Canadian context. We will first explore the history of school sports academies, the types of academies in Canada, and provide critical analysis of how these academies both play off of the hopes of young athletes and their families in the dream of 'making it big' and impact how hierarchical sports have emerged in schooling
... For example, McCoy et al. (2017) apply the concepts of the field of practice, social and cultural capital to compare the experience of STEM students in predominantly white colleges versus historically Black colleges, describing how in the former context, Black students struggle in securing advisors' support for building the needed social and cultural capital to be effective in their aspirational field. In Critical Race Theory, the system of power relations experienced by these students is also shaping systems where "tracking and grouping practices that differentiate curricula and instruction" hamper the opportunities for persisting in STEM (Mensah and Jackson, 2018;Bottia et al., 2021, p. 618), or to become active participants in programs that support students in the STEM pipeline (Dixson and Rousseau, 2005;O'Hara, 2022). This chronic unequal distribution of resources places minoritized students at a disadvantage when interacting with a system that portrays itself as being meritocratic (Carnevale et al., 2020;O'Hara, 2022). ...
Institutions of higher learning are characterized by multiple, often intersecting, social-educational structures aimed at regulating the conditions by which a degree is ultimately granted. The sequence of courses that students must take for a degree is one such structure. Building on the Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) Collaboration’s prior work, we provide a comparative view of students’ pathways through selected curricula at two participating institutions. We apply process analytics to students’ course enrollments as a tool to reveal features of the curricula and the associated impacts on students’ progressions to degree. Given the high enrollment in biology-related degree programs at these institutions, we focus on those and ask two questions: (1) Is the intended progression through the curriculum the one most commonly experienced by the students? and (2) does the maintenance of coherence and socialization into the discipline act in a similar way on individuals of different socio, economic and demographic backgrounds? Curriculum analytics tends to be driven by a reductionist view of its structure. Instead, we view the curriculum as a tool for disciplinary acculturation, revealing aspects of students’ transitions through educational systems not captured by commonly applied course or retention analyses. Curricular structures and the constraints they impose impact the way individual students become members of a scholarly community by acting as a cultural and social homogenizing agent. Across the curricula and institutions in this study, we find that this process results in minoritization, hampering student progression through the curriculum and contributing to disciplinary exclusion in favor of traditionally advantaged socio-demographic groups. We call for curricular restructuring that (1) reduces or alters the depth of the hierarchical course sequences, changing the way progression is established; and (2) encourages adoption of pedagogical approaches in the courses that adapt to the learning community to which they cater; ultimately incorporating an asset-based approach to the acquisition of knowledge inclusive of students’ diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and ways of being.
... Thus, the concept of if the Caucasians lose power in something, the colored skin individuals might get the opportunity to obtain benefits, which causes distress to those Caucasians who are ruling elites (Richard, 2017). This action is also known as the interest convergence where it highlights the effects where the status quo of white supremacy is being threatened (Dixson &Rousseau, 2005). In addition, huge portions of the people have almost no motive to remove racial discourse since it could benefit the ruling white supremacy substantially and cognitively (Richard, 2017). ...
Cinemas are often used as an element of escapism and a representation of reality to the audience. Cinema also plays a crucial part in developing and sustaining racial cultural ideas and attitudes in the United States of America and globally. Since the 1830s, African Americans have appeared in film as either shown unfavorably or as small-minded people in comparison to their white peers. In a famous film in America, “Birth of Nation”, a white actor who acted as African American was portrayed as savagely violent who seized on Caucasian women. Despite the inaccurate portrayal of African Americans in the film, identical tropes have continued to emerge in the film industry since the 1920s. Therefore, this paper studies the representation of African Americans in Hollywood films using Critical Race Theory. Two Hollywood films will be used as a comparative case study namely Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave (2013) and Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s Antebellum (2020) respectively. The result shows the importance of race and racism in society, several common types of racial prejudice have been detected in the films. Pathological stereotypes have also been presented through the films and the white characters show their power and control towards the African Americans who once had equal privilege with them. Keyword : Representation, African-Americans, Hollywood Films, Antebellum.
... Fourth, CRT explores the intersectionality of various identities and constructs such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation to explore how these intersections make for broader understandings of those constructs (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001). Finally, CRT utilizes voice to serve as a counternarrative to the dominant discourse surrounding racial groups and validates voice as experiential knowledge (Dixson and Rousseau, 2005). ...
Black males' collegiate experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are gaining traction in the research literature. In this work, scholars are utilizing asset-based approaches to examine Black males' experiences in STEM. Asset-based orientations are also being extended to work on, for, and with Black families. Of utmost importance with respect to this article, Black fathers play a significant role in their sons' lives. Thus, considerable attention should be paid to the fatherson dyad by practitioners and researchers. This case study examines ten Black male STEM majors' perspectives about their Black fathers. The findings reveal that these Black males described their Black fathers as role models and STEM champions with regard to their STEM pursuits. Recommendations for practice and future research are discussed to advance father-friendly work and ultimately broaden the participation of Black males in STEM.
... In particular, our approach to understanding the educational conditions in Fayette County, and subsequently Memphis City Schools, was shaped by Critical Race Theory (CRT). Critical race theory originated in legal studies in the 1970s and has come to influence the work of many scholars of education since its first introduction to the field in 1995 (Dixson & Rousseau, 2006;Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Although critical race theory in legal studies is an eclectic movement, there are several key characteristics of scholarship within this perspective: ...
In this article, the authors examine the historical and contemporary conditions of two school districts—one urban and the other rural. Despite the surface differences between the districts, this comparison reveals several historical and contemporary similarities and connections between the two settings. The authors describe the implications of these relationships for future directions of urban mathematics education scholarship. Specifically, they posit the need for a “metropolitan” perspective that would take into account the interrelationships between cities and their suburban or rural neighbors.
... Critical race theory was founded in the 1980s by Derrick Bell, who revealed the law's failure to deliver racial justice following Brown v. Board of Education and provided a lens for studying inequality in legal studies (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). In 1995, Ladson-Billings and Tate applied CRT to education as a framing tool designed to challenge racial inequalities, but it was first used in American law schools to address critical legal studies' failures to account for the experiences of the racially-oppressed (Gasman, Abiola, & Travers, 2015;Patton, 2016;Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015;Yosso, Parker, Solorzano, & Lynn, 2004). ...
The professional experiences and career advancement perceptions of Black, female, higher education professionals were examined in an effort to obtain qualitative and quantitative data that could positively impact practice and policy in higher education leadership. Data were collected using a mixed questionnaire that included survey items, open-ended questions, and demographic inquiries. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVAs) was conducted to assess the difference in mean perception career advancement scores based on participants’ professional classification, highest level of education, and years of professional experience. No statistically significant differences (p > .05) were found. The lack of differences across demographics indicates that Black, female, higher education professionals have similar perceptions of career advancement, regardless of professional classification, education achieved, or years of experience.
... According to Dixson and Rousseau (2005) CRT provides a context for understanding institutionalized racism that explains why racial disparities still exist in many institutions including education. Political backlash against CRT has conflated the theoretical framework with concepts such as diversity, equity, inclusion, White privilege, White supremacy, anti-racism, and others. ...
This research explores how educational leaders in Texas navigate issues of anti-Black racism. In this Grounded Theory study, 19 participants engaged in a 90-min interview. They offer firsthand accounts of their experiences in navigating issues of anti-Black racism as well as strategies that they perceive to be necessary in interrogating and rooting out deeply entrenched anti-Blackness even in the face of salient opposition and demand to maintain the status quo. The participants also discuss relevant challenges and benefits to taking such an approach. The themes resulting from this study include: Name it and call it out, Facilitating courageous conversations with faculty, students, and community, Racial equity focused problem solving, and Challenges and benefits of anti-racist school leadership.
... Counter stories enable the teachers and students in underdeveloped areas to 'question the foundations' (Andrews 2004, 6) of the meganarrative, redefine themselves and pave new ways of living their own lives. Similarly, Solórzano and Yosso (2002) employed 'counter narrative' as an approach to unearth the experiences of marginalised people and bring their voices, which are usually distorted, homogenised or silenced (Solórzano and Yosso 2002), into scholarly discourse as valuable sources of knowledge (Dixson and Rousseau 2005). Our study focuses on the experiences of teachers and students in a high poverty school of rural China. ...
... Thusly, our study utilizes Critical Race Theory (CRT) as its theoretical framework. Developed by Bell (1980aBell ( , 1980bBell ( , 1987Bell ( , 1992Bell ( , 2004, CRT critically examines American institutions as fundamentally racialized and inequitable and has been expansively used in the field of education since its inception (Brown, 2014;Delgado & Stefancic, 2001Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Dixon & Rousseau Anderson, 2018;Howard & Navarro, 2016;Ladson-Billings, 2005;Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995;Ledesma & Calderon, 2015;Lynn & Dixson, 2013;Solorzano, 1998;Tate, 1997;Vaught & Castagno, 2008 We find that CRT aligns well with the examination of perceptions of teacher expectations. Indeed, it is Bell (1980a) himself that recognized the dangerous role teacher expectations can factor into Black achievement, ...
Building upon literature that has shown that Black students hold definitive beliefs about their teachers’ expectations and knowing these notions have impact on Black student achievement, we explore the experiences within a school district where diversity and inclusion efforts have been ongoing. The participants of this study were high-achieving students and their parents, a nuance that provides depth to understanding Black families’ perceptions of teacher expectations. Critical Race Theory (CRT) served as the theoretical framework and the tenets of permanence of racism, interest convergence, critique of liberalism, and whiteness as property, were employed as categorical themes to centralize the focus on how the families made meaning of their educational experiences through a CRT lens. Findings revealed that the participants were subject to unjust, low expectations that created and maintained a racial hierarchy and an anti-Black ideation on the part of teachers and school authorities. Implications include the need for teachers to raise their awareness of how their actions are interpreted, their role in creating a culture of mistrust, and the need to counter individual level and institutional racialized structures.
... In this study, we used counternarratives as a critical race methodology to foreground race and racism and center the experiences of faculty of color whose voices are traditionally overlooked in the study of multicultural education (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). Counterstories challenge dominant ideology by revealing various forms of subordination while validating the experiences of the racially marginalized (Quaye & Chang, 2012). ...
The espoused values of multiculturalism and social justice often depict counseling and psychology programs as exceptions in the systematically racist context of academia, where faculty of color often experience marginalization, alienation, isolation, and othering. As part of a larger study, the purpose of this article was to highlight the lived experiences of faculty of color teaching multicultural classes in graduate counseling and psychology programs in a deliberate attempt to challenge dominant scholarship that has minimized their voices. Emerging from the critical–ideological paradigm and guided by critical race theory (CRT), we conducted 40–120 min semistructured interviews with 19 Asian and Black American faculty with various gender, sexuality, rank, and career developmental stage backgrounds and used a thematic analysis design and approach. Our results from thematic analysis told a counterstory of host programs’ overstated commitment to justice and equity in two overarching themes: (1) problematic structure and implementation of the multicultural class, and (2) racialized experiences of teaching multicultural classes. In our discussions, we problematize the harm that faculty of color endured, which reflected the personal cost of sacrificing their emotional well-being, safety, and career development in order to advance the multicultural and social justice movements in their home programs.
... Many Critical Race Theorists call for activism that links academic work to the Race Ethnicity and Education 17 community. This avoids sterile ideas being handed down from the ivory tower without practical application as well as 'studying the natives' wherein people who know nothing about the community suggest ways to fix it based on deficit perspectives (Dixson and Rousseau 2005;Stovall 2006). DisCrit acknowledges the need for activism and the reasons behind it, but recognizes that some of the activities traditionally thought of as activism (e.g. ...
... My labour was not acknowledged and I was positioned as being the person that should lead this without any resource, time or support. (P15, Black Female, US Higher Education) This comment subtly illuminates an entrenched pattern of white fragility (DiAngelo, 2018), which sits on the other side of the proverbial coin to the notions of Black strength, invulnerability and invincibility described earlier (e.g. Wilson et al., 2017). ...
The permanence of systemic racism in the UK and USA means that Black people are disadvantaged in myriad ways, including within the Academy. While the disproportionate impact of COVID-19, alongside the Black Lives Matter movement, has increased awareness of the challenges faced by Black communities, these issues remain, both in and beyond higher education. Furthermore, there is still a paucity of research individualising the experiences of Black people, who are often homogenised with other ethnic minority groups. This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on UK and US Black students and academic staff, utilising a critical race theory (CRT) framework. Analysis revealed that Black students and staff experienced COVID-19 against the backdrop of racism as a “pandemic within a pandemic” (Laurencin and Walker, Cell Systems 11:9–10, 2020), including racial (re)traumatisation, loneliness and isolation. Other themes included precarious employment and exploitation. Recommendations are offered for penetrative interventions that can support Black students and staff in the wake of strained race relations neglecting their adverse experiences and a global pandemic.
... I juxtapose these discussions with my own personal, legitimate experiences with systems of oppression to demonstrate how being in a constant state of critical reflexivity has informed my current teaching practices and influenced the curricular decisions I made within my math teacher education courses. Notably, engaging in this form of personal story-sharing of my personal experiences is a conceptual tool of Critical Race Theory (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Dixson et al., 2016), which according to Ladson-Billings (1998), speaks to the notion that racism is a normal part of American society, "Because [racism] is so enmeshed in the fabric of our social order, it appears both normal and natural to people in this culture" (p. 11). ...
Racial literacy is critical pedagogy that seeks to end racism. Developing racial literacy in math teacher education programs (MTEP) is a crucial step in preparing preservice teachers to acknowledge and resist prejudiced and racist math teaching policies and practices before they enter the K–12 classroom. In this essay, I unpack and share how I engaged in critical reflexivity and an Archaeology of Self to promote racial literacy and antiracist pedagogy in my MTEP courses
... Engaged pedagogy aims at creating interactive spaces of learning by recognising and including students' perspectives and experiences. This is also prioritised by scholars within the field of critical pedagogy (e.g., Habib, 2019) and critical race theory (e.g., Dixon & Rousseau, 2005), pointing towards the importance of recognising the experiential knowledge of people from different racialised positions -specifically the voices that historically have not been heard -the minoritised and Othered subjects. This entails listening to and making space for minoritised voices, but an overfocus on the Others might, on the other hand, entail a blindness to the majoritised position of power and privilege. ...
... While positionality refers to our socially-constructed membership and relationship to systems of power, intersectionalities such as our race, gender, linguistic and cultural backgrounds are the levers on which power structures operate to oppress. Dixson and Rousseau (2005), Kendi (2019), and other scholars have documented the systemic ways that educational systems in the US reproduce inequality and call to those interested in antiracist work to actively engage in disrupting systems. However, before we can move towards disrupting systems, Baker-Bell (2017) urges teachers to first recognize their complicity "in the reproduction of linguistic and racial inequality in schools and society" (p. ...
The powerful undercurrents and rooted presence of coloniality continue to influence the field of English language teaching today (Kubota, 2016). Motha (2014) argues that our field in its historicity and embedded colonial lineage is inherently intertwined with notions of race and power. The language of the colonized is considered by the colonizers to be inferior to the colonial language "associated with the word and people of God, of territory and ownership" (Kalyanpur et al., forthcoming). This essay engages the reader in consciousness-raising practices that require deep introspection on our own positionality, intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), and histories with the English language and suggests ways to transform the self and system that dismisses the linguistic and cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) of our students.
... A number of educational researchers note the importance of a CRT analysis in educational research (see Dixson & Rousseau, 2005;Ladson-Billings, 1998;Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995;Lynn, 1999;Parker, 1998;Tate, 1997). A key tenet of CRT is the interest-convergence dilemma, which states that Whites rather than Blacks become the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation. ...
... In this article, I illustrate how white rage and antiblackness surfaced at Pride Elementary, a school in a small southeastern U.S. city, where I have conducted a 5-year collaborative research project utilizing critical race theory (CRT). CRT is a scholarly tradition and framework that employs several key tenets-e.g., racial realism (Bell 1992;2008), centering the perspectives of people of color (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005), and counterstory and revisionist narrative (Cook & Dixson, 2013)-to examine how racism is a foundational, embedded cultural system in U.S. society and institutions like schools (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017;Vaught & Castagno, 2008). I specifically highlight the insights from my work with the principal, Sandra, a Black woman. ...
This article reveals how white rage and antiblackness-often in the form of disdain for Black joy-surfaced at Pride Elementary, a racially integrated school in the urban center of a small city in the southeastern United States. Based on a 5-year ethnographic study, it analyzes the perceived threat some white teachers and parents felt by the mere presence of Black students, teachers, and administrators. It highlights the insights of the Black principal, whose experiences most clearly illustrate how school-based racism is rooted not only in white supremacy but also antiblackness, thus supporting Dumas' (2016) assertion that school-based research on race must better address antiblackness.
... The present study integrates the co-authors' experiential knowledge as Black fathers who are researching Black father-son dynamics. Centering the experiential knowledge and voices of people of color is a key tenant of critical race theory and should be used throughout the research process (Bernal, 2002;Dixon & Rousseau, 2005;Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995;Matsuda et al., 1993). Furthermore, communities of color offer counterstories that challenge deficit narratives common within the dominant culture (Rodriguez & Greer, 2017;Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). ...
ABSTRAC
This QuantCrit analysis considers Black fathers’ influence on their sons’ engagement and sense of belonging in urban intensive and emergent high schools. Canonical correlations show a significant relationship between Black fathers’ paternal influence and their sons’ engagement and sense of belonging in school. We discuss two QuantCrit interpretation strategies to contextualize and recenter race via Black fathers’ experiential knowledge. Within the proper social-cultural context, these results illuminate a unique paternal educational habitus among Black fathers, which focuses on high levels of academic engagement with a family-centric locus of influence on their sons’ sense of belonging.
This systematic review includes 125 peer-reviewed education-research articles that employ a LatCrit framework (from a search including articles published from 1995 to 2020). The author examines how the literature utilizes LatCrit and advances ideas about race, Latinxs, and Latinidad in education. The author presents significant patterns and divergences in the literature’s strengths, challenges, and tensions. Some strengths include detailing Latinxs’ experiences and valuing experiential knowledge. The author problematizes four research practices: (1) describing LatCrit with select tenets of CRT; (2) not defining race or other relevant concepts (language, culture, etc.); (3) claiming Latinxs are unique because of their multidimensionality; and (4) exceeding LatCrit’s scope by rationalizing the study’s use of LatCrit because its participants are Latinxs. The author argues that these complications lead to a paradox: even though LatCrit emerges from critical race theory and is described as for Latinxs, the literature largely undertheorizes race and lacks clarity about conceptualizing Latinxs as a racialized group. The author recommends four framing ideas that are particular to LatCrit and that help advance the specificity of Latinidad in education.
This chapter is about introducing critical race design (CRD), a research methodology that centers race and equity at the center of educational opportunities by design. First, the authors define design-based implementation research (DBIR) as an equity-oriented education research methodology where teaching and learning is informed by robust, iterative, evidence-based research conducted by multiple stakeholders. Next, they provide a brief overview of critical race theory in education (CRT) as a theoretical and methodological approach that aims to unpack and disrupt the structural inequities experienced by disenfranchised racial groups. The authors then describe how both education methodologies inform CRD, their emerging anti-racist critical design methodology. Finally, they provide an example where they used CRD to design an online service-learning course that aims to situate the narratives of underrepresented STEM professionals as a curricular resource for nondominant adolescents.
A growing body of literature has demonstrated that when schools suspend students, the suspension acts not as a deterrent but as an amplifier of future punishment. Labeling theory has emerged as the predominant explanation for this phenomenon, suggesting that the symbolic label conferred along with a suspension shapes how other people perceive and respond to labeled students. Few studies, however, have attended to racial/ethnic differences in this process even though critical race theory suggests the consequences of suspension likely differ across racial/ethnic groups due to prevailing racial/ethnic stereotypes. This study uses six waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (N = 8,634) to examine how the relationship between suspension and subsequent arrest differs for White, Black, and Hispanic students. Using a series of within‐person analyses that control for time‐stable personal characteristics, this study finds that suspension amplifies Black and Hispanic students’ risk of arrest relative to that of White students. White students’ risk of arrest was not amplified by suspension and, in some models, was diminished. This study's findings underscore the importance of understanding the labeling process as different by race/ethnicity and indicate that suspension is particularly harmful for Black and Hispanic relative to White students.
Writing studies scholars have long examined how race- and class-based hierarchies shape teachers’ and students’ experiences of writing in US universities. But universities are also workplaces that profit from a racialized writing economy in which laborers of color () underpin writing production. Drawing from a yearlong qualitative case study that examines the writing practices of university custodial workers, this article addresses the following research questions: What kinds of writing do university custodial workers use and practice? What are the conditions for their writing? And what do these practices and conditions tell us about writing in race- and class-stratified workplaces, including educational institutions? Using critical race (; ; ; ; ; ; ) approaches to literacy sponsorship (), and observations and interviews with university custodians, this article discusses two main findings: (1) labor conditions restrict participants’ writing as a part of race and class hierarchies; and (2) the participants employ writing practices that run under the radar of institutional restrictions to serve their own purposes. This study’s findings have implications for workplace writing scholarship and higher education policy, because they expand definitions of and purposes for workplace writing in institutions of education.
There has been much controversy surrounding critical race theory (CRT) and the discussion of race and racism in education. The national emergence of racial injustices such as state-sanctioned violence, police killings of people of color, schools’ pipeline to prison, and COVID-19 racial disparities, in addition to racial justice movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackAndMissing has ignited the need for the social work profession to bring awareness to the pervasiveness of race and to fully acknowledge the role of white supremacy on education, social systems, institutions, legal systems, and culture. This article highlights the need for social work education to develop anti-racist education and practice and increase awareness of white supremacy in the United States. In addition, this article suggests the value of infusing CRT as an anti-racist pedagogy and tool to teach race, actively oppose racism, and organize social change.
Background/Context
Scholars have identified how antiblackness operates as a specific organizational culture across the educational enterprise by examining Black students in various schooling contexts. However, there remains limited empirical research exploring Black students’ unique experiences in predominantly Latinx educational settings. The presence of Black bodies in institutions like schools from which they have been historically or conceptually excluded, marginalized, or “othered” presents an intriguing context to investigate the intersection of race, place, and the politics of visibility.
Research Design
Drawing from an extensive ethnographic project on antiblackness in borderland contexts, this article interrogates Black students’ narratives of in/visibility—stories detailing moments when they felt seen and unseen. I used purposive sampling and recruited 20 Black students to participate in focus groups and individual interviews. Focus groups and interviews were semi-structured, using open-ended questions but centered on circumstances related to in/visibility. I also conducted observations in classrooms, hallways, the cafeteria, and other locations across the school campus.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data analysis for this study included coding and recoding transcripts and field notes, and writing analytic memos. The analytic memos served as a site of conversation about the data where I could think deeply about the experiences that my participants shared. Coding and writing analytic memos were concurrent data analytic activities. During analysis, I paid close attention to how students described moments of invisibility, visibility, and hypervisibility. I conducted thematic coding and analysis of the data, which generated key themes. Finally, I reorganized emerging themes several times in relation to the extant literature and theoretical framework.
Findings
Building on prior research on antiblackness in education, I use the notions of seen and unseen to describe Black students’ experiences with antiblack structures, practices, and encounters with their non-Black peers and adults. Black youth narratives reveal that their Blackness is simultaneously rendered hypervisible and invisible through the everydayness of antiblackness. The data also reveal that their racialized experiences with in/visibility were concurrently spatial and had implications for how Black students navigated the physical geographies of schools. I found that unseeing is an active process of not acknowledging the bias accompanying explicit practices that enable different people to exist differently in the same space. To unsee is a rejection of the specificity of Black that encodes how Black students navigate spaces where they are not the somatic norm. Further, this posture impacts Black bodies by making them feel simultaneously like outsiders and insiders. As a result, some bodies are deemed as having the right to belong, while others are marked as trespassers.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Racial moments have material, emotional, and educational consequences for Black students. Being “different” from the somatic norm renders Black bodies simultaneously highly visible and invisible. Research tends to collapse Black and Latinx students into a broader category of “students of color” without disaggregating the distinctive ways in which racialized school systems impact these groups differently. Further, the data presented here demonstrate how antiblack racism shapes the experiences of Black students and draws attention to the urgency of dismantling the people of color colorblindness in research analysis.
The St. Louis Voluntary Desegregation program, and its corollary, the Interdistrict Transfer Plan, have existed in some form since 1983. At its height, approximately 13,000 Black students from the city of St. Louis transferred into predominantly White and suburban school districts, representing the largest voluntary desegregation plan in the United States. County and school district leaders responsible for the plan have slowly reduced the number of Black transfer students, and a November 2016 agreement extended the plan for a five-year period to allow about 1,000 new students to enroll through the 2023–2024 school year. Emanating from qualitative interviews with 37 Black former students who participated in the plan between 1983 and 2018 (Waves 1–4), this article captures participants’ experiences, agency, their struggles, and solidarity efforts to ensure their chances of surviving and succeeding in schooling contexts that drastically differed from their home and community environments. Given the impending ending of this plan at the end of the 2023–2024 school year, findings provide implications for research, educational policy and reform, and schooling practices that create and sustain culturally affirming and educationally enriching environments for Black students.
Background
Women and people of color continue to be underrepresented in many STEM fields and careers. Many studies have linked societal biases against the mathematical abilities of women and people of color to this underrepresentation, as well as to earlier measures of mathematical confidence and performance. Recent studies have shown that teachers may unintentionally have biases that reflect those in broader society. Yet, many studies on teachers’ reports of students’ abilities use data in the field—not experimental data—and thus often cannot say if the findings reflect bias or actual differences. The few experimental studies conducted suggest bias against the abilities of girls and students of color, but the prior work has limitations, which we seek to address (e.g., local samples, no exploration of moderators, no preregistration).
Methods
In this preregistered experiment of 458 teachers across the U.S., we randomly assigned gender- and race-specific names to solutions to math problems, then asked teachers to rate the correctness of the solution, as well as the student’s math ability and effort. Teachers also completed scales reflecting their own beliefs and dispositions, which we then assessed how those beliefs/dispositions moderated their biases. We used multilevel modeling to account for the nested data structure.
Results
Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, when the solution was not fully correct, findings suggest teachers thought boys had higher ability, even though the same teachers did not report differences in the correctness of the solution or perceived effort. Moreover, teachers who reported that gender disparities no longer exist in society were particularly likely to underestimate girls’ abilities. Although findings revealed no evidence of racial bias on average, teachers’ math anxiety moderated their ability judgments of students from different races, albeit with only marginal significance; teachers with high math anxiety tended to assume that White students had higher math ability than students of color.
Conclusions
The present research identifies teachers’ beliefs and dispositions that moderate their gender and racial biases. This experimental evidence sheds new light on why even low-performing boys consistently report higher math confidence and pursue STEM—namely, their teachers believe they have higher mathematical ability.
The underrepresentation of African Americans in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree programs and professional spaces has been a national concern for years. This phenomenon has prompted the development and implementation of various programs and initiatives to increase access to and sustain their participation in STEM. Of considerable importance, African American men only represent three percent of the scientists and engineers working in the field. However, there are few studies that have explored the academic and professional experiences of African American men through critical, holistic perspectives. This project utilizes critical race theory (CRT) and phenomenological variant ecological systems theory (PVEST) to magnify the experiences of Black men in STEM across academic and professional ranks. Through this combined CRT and PVEST lens, analyzing the challenges and navigational strategies of Black men in STEM, we reveal that Black men in STEM minimize their vulnerability to stereotypes and biases through resistance and resilience. Moreover, the utilization of a virtual counterspace as the research context for conversation between the participants provided a unique interventional approach that fostered rich intergenerational dialogue that enhanced both navigational and resistance capital for the participants. Implications for research and praxis are provided.
This qualitative study examines the experiences of Latinx youth and mainly white staff of the Academic Scholars Program, a college access program that operated in an affluent suburban high school. Guided by Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies, the findings highlight the constraints Latinx youth and staff faced and how they resisted assimilative practices.
In the face of COVID-19, our educational institutions shuttered their doors, moved curricula online, loosened regulations, and reimagined student engagement. Almost as quickly, society reverted to an eagerness for normality as we devolved into anti-Critical Race Theory rallies, anti-mask board meetings, and protests. In this essay, we situate education with a merry-go-round motif, and we situate the efforts we have taken toward true change on a continuum converging toward, or moving against, the “hard reset.”
This article presents the institutional and historical context, methods, findings, and action-consequences of ‘Our HMoob American College Paj Ntaub,’ a qualitative, student-led Participatory Action Research (PAR) project documenting the sociocultural and institutional factors that influence HMoob American college students’ experiences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Drawing on concepts from Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit), we identify sociocultural and institutional processes that misrepresent and erase HMoob American experiences, producing a profound and troubling experience of institutional invisibility which has serious consequences for students’ wellbeing and educational attainment. However, we also document that student-led PAR research can be an effective means of enacting what we term ‘counter-invisibility work,’ by producing compelling counter-narratives that expand social networks for activism, outreach, and policy enactment.
This article explores leadership education, leadership scholarship, and leadership practices with a focus on the continued growth in thought, paradigm development, research and practices that address societal problems in relation to human existence. We respond to the question “how can the integration of counter narratives into leadership education – all while integrating diverse perspectives into our leadership education conversation so the complexity we now understand to be true can be revealed?” The exploration creates opportunities to deepen the diversity, equity, and inclusion discourse incorporated into graduate leadership education programs.
In 2021, former President Donald Trump issued a presidential memo halting and prohibiting “divisive” and “anti-American propaganda” in federal contracting--described as “any training on ‘critical race theory,’ ‘white privilege,’ or any other training and propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil”. Unsurprisingly, the concerted attack against CRT grossly misunderstands what CRT is and often equates teaching about individual racism, privilege, unconscious bias, systemic racism, and U.S. history with the teaching of CRT. As of October 2021, 28 states have restricted education on racism, bias, and the teaching of CRT.
Changes to state and federal aid have presented unprecedented challenges to college affordability across the United States. With fewer financial resources to offset college costs, students and their families have taken on a tide of debt to finance undergraduate degrees. As the student loan debt in the United States has topped $1.7 trillion, the sheer enormity of this debt reflects an education system complicit in the processes eroding the benefits of a college degree. Degree-seekers most reliant on a college degree to advance their social and economic positions ironically receive little training to develop the financial knowledge, tools, and resources necessary to navigate the financial challenges of higher education. Rooted in democratic idealism, colleges and universities are responsible for making college affordability and economic success more attainable for a diverse student body. This chapter shifts the scholarly analysis from whether colleges should provide opportunities for navigating financing higher education to a question about how they can engage in the processes that develop students’ financial savviness with an intersectional lens. Evidence from a financial literacy undergraduate course elucidates the possibilities of a multifaceted approach to financial education aimed at a diverse student body. Recommendations in this chapter disrupt race-neutral, deficit-based, and universal paradigms evident in existing financial education programs and provide curricular support that is more sensitive to today’s degree-seekers’ needs.
Background/Context
Unconscious racial bias (URB) can be a pernicious form of racism. In light of increased awareness of and research on the subject, URB work has become a key focus of equity work in health care, education, and corporate contexts as part of broader calls for racial justice. In Canada, targeting URB in education has become a policy priority at the national, provincial, and school board levels. The role of individual and organizational URB is now widely recognized in policy as central to equitable outcomes in schooling; however, research is limited on how to engage these forms of racism in educational contexts. Prevailing approaches to URB work in schools often include truncated one-off workshops, which leave unaddressed the connections between the individual racial biases, and the operations of white supremacy and racism at the institutional, systemic, and structural levels.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study
While URB is increasingly well-understood by social psychologists, there has been limited engagement from critical scholars working in areas such as critical race theory (CRT), anti-colonialism, and critical whiteness studies—despite the popularity of interrogating URB as an anti-racism strategy in education. CRT in education has laid bare and problematized the central function of schooling in the safeguarding and management of white supremacy. This project emerged from a dual recognition of URB as a productive entry point for racial awareness and anti-racism work, alongside a significant concern about the failure of mainstream URB discourse to address structural racism and white supremacy—masking at times the deeper ways that Euro-colonial racism underpins social relations in contemporary U.S., Canadian, European, and other contexts. This work seeks to address these limitations in the design of the study through deep work with participants. Specifically, the study sought to understand better the impacts of reading critical texts focusing on systemic, structural, and institutional racism on teachers’ understandings of their own racial biases, as well as teachers’ perspectives on the impacts of reading critical texts in terms of their professional practices.
Research Design
This article reports on the findings of a 10-month study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, focusing on critical approaches to racial bias mitigation in education. In addition to asking participants to enact a series of URB mitigation strategies developed in the field of social psychology, this study also required participants to read and reflect on one of the following critical anti-racism nonfiction texts: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (2018); Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard (2017); Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School, edited by Mica Pollock (2008); Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada by Paulette Regan (2014); and Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects by Christina Sharpe (2010). The project was designed using multiple data sources from participants, including electronic survey responses, ongoing journaling/reflection, a midpoint check-in questionnaire, and a final interview. These multiple entry points, as well as the duration of the project, aimed to go beyond the taken-for-granted and toward deeper understanding over time.
Conclusions/Recommendations
Findings suggest that reading these works impacted teachers’ understandings of race and racism in terms of their teaching, as well as in terms of their personal relationships to race and racism, increasing their inclination and ability to address race and anti-racism. This work allowed for critical reflection to seep into the most intimate and invisible moments of operationalized whiteness in the professional and personal spheres of participants. This suggests an important complementarity between teacher intervention practices emerging from social psychology, and the introduction and engagement of critical anti-racist and anti-colonial texts in terms of teachers’ work for racial justice.
Experiences with racism and other emotionally laden encounters are intricately entangled with parents’ motivations to take direct action that can lead to voluntary separation from school or homeschooling. Using the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (HDS) model, this article expands parental involvement by including homeschooling and examines the usefulness of including emotion as a discernible motivator of parental involvement. Research on Black homeschooling is used as an example to explore the psychological and socio-emotional dilemmas parents face when preparing their children to become self-sufficient in an anti-Black lived context. Particular focus is given to parental role construction and efficacy beliefs to describe the intersection of emotions leading to parental actions toward involvement. Marchand et al.’s process of critical action is detailed to further illustrate the complexities of Black parents who actively engage in activities to combat discrimination. New insights on theory adaptation and pathways to inform practice, and recommendations for future research on parental involvement and Black homeschooling are also provided.
This article reports on a study that investigated the relationship between three dimensions of campus racial climate and faculty satisfaction with a large, nationally representative faculty sample (N = 29,169), using a multilevel structural equation model. Results indicate that campus racial climate has a large and highly significant effect upon faculty satisfaction at the individual level.
This study is an ethnographic content analysis of the Virginia US History Standards of Learning, grades 4–12. We used Yosso’s (2002 Yosso, T. J. (2002). Toward a critical race curriculum. Equity & Excellence in Education, 35(2), 93–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/713845283[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) framework of a critical race curriculum (CRC) to better understand how white supremacy and anti-Black racism are portrayed in the standards. Results indicate that racialized representation is highly skewed in favour of white men, who comprise 70% of the individuals in the curriculum. White people are mostly portrayed as individuals and almost never as a racialized group, whereas Black people are mostly portrayed as a monolithic group and less often as individuals. Our close reading of the standards identified several tactics that promote white supremacy, including: avoiding accountability, playing the victim, and Confederate lost cause propaganda. We also identified tactics that sustain anti-Black racism, including: Black messiahs, illusions of inclusion, and silos of Black victimhood. There are many units that portray Black people as the victims of anti-Black racism, but white people and their social institutions are never portrayed as the creators, enforcers, or beneficiaries of a racist society. This reckoning is a step towards new standards that are centred on social justice, diverse perspectives, and full humanity for all groups.
This article explores notions of spatiality, race, and productive disruptions of whiteness; focusing on two dinners which were one component of a mixed method study on racism, teaching, and implicit race bias with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada. The dinners were focused on cross race dialogue. White teachers experienced the dinners as uncomfortable, motivating, and in one case upsetting. The dinners offer a unique look at White experiences of racial spatial disruption. Drawing on reflections, interviews, and dinner transcripts, this article sketches a messy typology of these experiences to flesh out connections between White teachers’ racial (dis)engagements with/in race dialogue, and related (dis)engagements with antiracism. The paper theorises three distinct but related postures of White self-location, and takes up the implications of each for teacher self-identity and engagement with antiracism. Critically engaging the notion of spatiality, this work is guided by critical race theory, and critical phenomenological approaches.
Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators’ reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to leadership. The four of the most prominent themes that emerged from this qualitative study, including Increased Critical Self Awareness and Reflection, Critical Awareness Influencing Decision Making, Disconnect Between What is Known, What is said, and What is practiced, and Racial Battle Fatigue. Despite the resolute and rampant backlash against Critical Race Theory, the findings from this study underscore its relevance to education. Implications of these findings beseech educational leaders and policymakers to consider implementing professional development and accountability measures that center race in educational equity.
Family engagement in children’s learning is an evidence-based approach supporting student learning. This study examines four primary school teachers’ family engagement practice, within a non-dominant community. Utilising the framework of Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), the teachers examined their partnerships with families, identifying barriers to family engagement. The teachers began to act as cultural workers as they changed their homework practice to strengthen non-dominant families’ connection to their children’s school learning. Through the theory of practice architectures, the teachers’ language (sayings), activities and resources (doings) and relationships (relatings) with families were considered. Data were collected through transcripts from reflective practice meetings, reflective practice tools and semi-structured interviews undertaken throughout the CPAR process. The theory of practice architectures underpinned data analysis, identifying practice conditions which support teachers to (re)frame family engagement as cultural work. The resulting practice framework scaffolds how schools can critically examine their own family engagement practices.
This methodological brief introduces researchers to QuantCrit, a set of tenets complementary to critical race theory, to specifically reexamine how race and racism are analyzed through quantitative methodologies. We outline the tenets of QuantCrit, review recent quantitative research in gifted education for examples aligned with QuantCrit tenets, and provide recommendations for researchers.
This article asserts that despite the salience of race in U.S. society, as a topic of scholarly inquiry, it remains untheorized. The article argues for a critical race theoretical perspective in education analogous to that of critical race theory in legal scholarship by developing three propositions: (1) race continues to be significant in the United States; (2) U.S. society is based on property rights rather than human rights; and (3) the intersection of race and property creates an analytical tool for understanding inequity. The article concludes with a look at the limitations of the current multicultural paradigm.
This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies of people of color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective” research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about people of color. For the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling. Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of color. As they describe how they compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice.
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North American critical race theorists maintain race is a central feature in the social and economic organization of the United States. Rather than describing an objective reality or a psychological operation, according to these theorists, race is best understood as power relationships that define dominant and subjugated positions in society. In this article, the author situates a discussion of the theoretical and practical applications of critical race theory in ethnographic methodology within an analysis of its usefulness in rendering visible racialized relationships that researchers take for granted. Specifically, he analyzes data, generated during a 3-year period, to explicate how these relationships play out in a qualitative methods course at a large Midwest research university with an urban elementary educational facility field site. This analysis renders the mechanisms of race explicit in ways to subject them to critique and to lay foundations for alternative ways to imagine and do qualitative research.
This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies of people of color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective” research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about people of color. For the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling. Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of color. As they describe how they compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice.
The author draws on principles of critical race theory to reflect on his elementary education at a successful urban Catholic school. He contends that his education was built on the integration of two epistemological pillars: centric and conflict theories. The implementation of this matrix of theories served as the necessary ingredients to foster his movement from the inner city to the ivory tower and a career in mathematics education research. The article concludes with a discussion of the tension created by his "voice" within traditional academic discourse.
When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, would become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent. Here, Derrick Bell shatters the shining image of this celebrated ruling. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. He maintains that, given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined instead to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions. In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.
In this article, Audrey Thompson offers a critique of the "colorblindness"folnn both in the psychological literature on caring and in theories of caring in education, Thompson argues that, insofar as theories of care fail to acknowledge and address the Whiteness of their political and cultural assumptions, they are in effect colorblind. She calls for a reexamination of the Whiteness embedded in these colorblind theories, which have been universally framed and have thus sidestepped the issues of racial imbalance implicit in colorblindness. She adds to the critique of these theories by showing how differently some of the themes have proved generative for theories of care might have been interpreted if a Black feminist perspective rather than a liberal White feminist perspective had been assumed. Following her critique of four key themes - the moral relevance of the situation, the primacy of survival, the significance of the standpoint from which values are understood, and the moral power of narrative - Thompson calls our attention to how we think about, develop, and implement an anti-racist curriculum and practice in classrooms. Her point is that colorblindness in teaching and learning situations limits us from benefiting from other perspectives that may inform educational practice. To overcome these limitations, Thompson suggests that theorists and teachers reexamine their approaches and ideologies, and include perspectives of caring that are based in non-White and/or poor cultures in their work.
After Brown v. Board of Education was decided, Professor Herbert Wechsler questioned whether the Supreme Court's decision could be justified on the basis of "neutral" principles. To him Brown arbitrarily traded the rights of whites not to associate with blacks in favor of the rights of blacks to associate with whites. In this Comment, Prof. Derrick Bell suggests that no conflict of interest actually existed; for a brief period, the interests of the races converged to make the Brown decision inevitable. More recent Supreme Court decisions, however, suggest to Professor Bell a growing divergence of interests that makes integration less feasible. He suggests the interest of blacks in quality education might now be better served by concentration on improving the quality of existing schools, whether desegregated or all-black.
"Michael Vavrus provides theoretical perspectives and practical considerations to guide teacher education programs in transforming how they educate teachers. In these pages, multicultural education becomes a lived experience rather than simply an unrealized ideal."
—Sonia Nieto, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
"This is theory with heart and broad social vision. Teacher educators who care about equity and justice should pay close attention to Vavrus's important insights."
—Bill Bigelow, co-editor of Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World
"Michael Vavrus has created an essential guide for any educator or policymaker seeking to transform traditional paradigms for teacher preparation and multicultural education."
—Diana Lam, Superintendent, Providence (RI) Public School District
"Vavrus not only knows what is necessary to make multicultural education a reality in our schools, but he offers insights into ways of deepening multicultural education’s project of social justice . . . an indispensable book"
—Peter McLaren, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Recognizing the responsibility institutions have to prepare teachers for today’s diverse classrooms, Vavrus shows us how to incorporate transformative multicultural education into teacher education curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Placing race, racism, anti-racism, and democracy at the center of his analyses and recommendations, this volume provides:
Concrete structural suggestions for including transformative multicultural education in higher education and K–12 in-service programs.
A multicultural critique of new NCATE accreditation standards for teacher education programs that offers re-conceptualized assessment procedures.
Recognizing the responsibility institutions have to prepare teachers for today’s diverse classrooms, Vavrus shows us how to incorporate transformative multicultural education into teacher education curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Places race, racism, anti-racism, and democracy at the center of his analyses and recommendations
Recent works by neoconservatives and by Critical legal scholars have suggested that civil rights reforms have been an unsuccessful means of achieving racial equality in America. In this Article, Professor Crenshaw considers these critiques and analyzes the continuing role of racism in the subordination of Black Americans. The neoconservative emphasis on formal colorblindness, she argues, fails to recognize the indeterminacy of civil rights laws and the force of lingering racial disparities. The Critical scholars, who emphasize the legitimating role of legal ideology and legal rights rhetoric, are substantially correct, according to Professor Crenshaw, but they fail to appreciate the choices and possibilities available to an oppressed group such as Blacks. The Critics, she suggests, ignore the singular power of racism as a hegemonic force in American society. Blacks have been created as a subordinated "other," and formal reform has merely repackaged racism. Antidiscrimination law, she argues, has largely succeeded in eliminating the symbolic manifestations of racial oppression, but has allowed the perpetuation of material subordination of Blacks. Professor Crenshaw concludes by demonstrating the importance of exposing the racist nature of ostensibly neutral norms, and of devising strategies for change that include the pragmatic use of legal rights.
The conceptualization and implementation of desegregation educational policies are incomplete when they ignore the voices of Black educators. Through in-depth interviews with 21 African American educators in St. Louis, this article highlights how elements of what is being defined today as critical race theory were embedded in these educators' analyses of a 1983 court settlement that resulted in a 16-year desegregation plan. Through rich and detailed accounts, these educators illustrate how the desegregation plan ultimately protected the overall interests of Whites. Their analyses of the plan-seemingly pessimistic-were realistic. The ending of the plan in 1999 continued to place the onus on Black people to rectify the inequitable education in the city. Suggested is the need for courts and policy makers to begin listening to the voices of African American educators when framing educational policies' intent on improving the education of African American students.
Analyzes and responds to an article criticizing the idea that some scholars of color write in a distinctive "voice" by virtue of their experience and background. Summarizes how conventional liberal discourse views the issue of voice. Contrasts that view with outsider perspectives and illuminates the paradigmatic gap between critical race theory and mainstream scholarship.
Almost 40 years after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, African-Americans are still attempting to understand its meaning and significance in their daily lives. Unaware of the potential for divergent constructions of equality, citizens who were barred from equal access to schooling continue to struggle with poor-quality schooling. This article argues that a restrictive form of equality, rather than an expansive one, limits the ability of African-Americans to benefit equally from schooling in the nation `public schools. The article also suggests that the Brown decision represents the Supreme Court's attempt to apply a largely mathematical solution to a social problem. The failure of the court to provide a verbal interpretation of the mathematical model it constructed left individual school districts free to develop educational responses that failed to address the needs of African-American students. The article concludes with an expansive vision of a desegregated/integrated school that reconsiders student diversity, curriculum, instruction, and parent-community involvement.
The backlash against affirmative action is gaining political momentum as liberalism's defenses are overwhelmed. This article utilizes critical race theory (CRT) to present a counter-argument to both conservative calls for color blindness and the incrementalism of traditional liberalism. Using Washington State's Initiative 200 as a case study, it argues that CRT not only can inform the debate over affirmitive action, but has the potential to reinvigorate multiculturalism's social activist roots.
The University as an institution is a key arena where "legitimate" knowledge is established. While discourses of power may have qualities of constraint and repression, they are not, nor have they ever been, uncontested. Indeed, the process of determining what is "legitimate knowledge" and for what purpose that knowledge should be produced is a political debate that rages in the University. Our presence, as working-class people of color (especially women of color), in an institution which values itself on its elitist criteria for admission, forces the debates and challenges previously sacred canons of objective truth.
It is probably for this reason that our presence here is so complex--and so important (Córdova, 1998, p. 18).
This article will provide the theoretical and conceptual grounding for forthcoming discussions regarding how critical race theory (CRT), as a discourse of liberation, can be used as a methodological and epistemological tool to expose the ways race and racism affect the education and lives of racial minorities in the United States. To that extent, the goal is threefold. First, the authors seek to adequately define CRT by situating it within a specific socio-historical context. Second, they seek to present an argument for why there is a need for CRT in educational and qualitative research. In doing so, they discuss the ways concerns regarding race and racism have or have not been addressed previously in educational research. Finally, they speculate about what lies ahead. In doing so, they fully assess the possible points of agreement and conflicts between CRT and qualitative research in education.
Education researchers have increasingly begun to use critical race theory (CRT) and Latino critical theory (LatCrit) in their qualitative studies. This article draws on those methodological and theoretical frameworks to examine the educational experience of a Latino student in a public high school in Chicago, Illinois. By exploring this student’s narrative, the author gained insight into how the student understood his own personal educational experience as well as that of his fellow Latina/Latino classmates. Moreover, this narrative highlights how he and his classmates resisted inadequate schooling by sometimes choosing alternative activities or practices over attending school. The author argues that it is of critical importance to use Latina/Latino students’ stories, not as accessories to our research but as the centerpiece of qualitative studies that aim for a better understanding of the issues these students face in contemporary schooling.
Mathematics education has traditionally paid little
attention to teacher reflection about equity. In this article, we argue
that the time has come to move equity from the margins to the mainstream
in mathematics education and make it a focus of teacher reflection. To
illustrate the need for a focus on equity, we describe the beliefs of a
group of high school mathematics teachers. We argue that the teachers'
views of equity and race blocked substantive reflection about the nature
of their instructional practices and the impact of those practices on
students of color in their classes. We submit that this case is important
because it highlights some of the assumptions that must be challenged in
an effort to promote the kind of reflective practice that can contribute
to the realization of opportunity to learn school mathematics.
Using critical race theory as a framework, this article provides an examination of how racial and gender microaggressions affect the career paths of Chicana and Chicano scholars. This paper reports on open-ended survey and interview data of a purposive sample of six Chicana and six Chicano Ford Foundation Predoctoral, Dissertation, and Postdoctoral Minority Fellows. There are three objectives for this study: (a) to extend and apply a critical race theory to the field of education, (b) to ''recognize,'' ''document,'' and analyze racial and gender microaggressions of Chicana and Chicano scholars, and (c) to ''hear'' the voice of ''discrimination's victims'' by examining the effect of race and gender microaggressions on the lives of Chicana and Chicano scholars. Three patterns of racial and gender microaggressions were found: (a) scholars who felt out of place in the academy because of their race and or gender, (b) scholars who felt their teachers professors had lower expectations for them, and (c) scholars' accounts of subtle and not so subtle racial and gender incidents. The article ends with possible directions for continued critical race theory research with scholars of color.
This is one of the earliest pieces to address legal storytelling or narrative analysis. It explains why it is helpful both to tell and analyze legal stories. A middle section tells a story of a single event – a black lawyer interviews for a position at a top school and is rejected – from several points of view. The article thus is both an exemplar of legal storytelling as well as an effort to analyze and defend the genre.
Issues regarding race and racial identity as well as questions pertaining to property rights and ownership have been prominent in much public discourse in the United States. In this article, Professor Harris contributes to this discussion by positing that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated concepts. Professor Harris examines how whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law. Professor Harris traces the origins of whiteness as property in the parallel systems of domination of Black and Native American peoples out of which were created racially contingent forms of property and property rights. Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege - a type of status in which white racial identity provided the basis for allocating societal benefits both private and public in character. These arrangements were ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property. Even as legal segregation was overturned, whiteness as property continued to serve as a barrier to effective change as the system of racial classification operated to protect entrenched power. Next, Professor Harris examines how the concept of whiteness as property persists in current perceptions of racial identity, in the law's misperception of group identity and in the Court's reasoning and decisions in the arena of affirmative action. Professor Harris concludes by arguing that distortions in affirmative action doctrine can only be addressed by confronting and exposing the property interest in whiteness and by acknowledging the distributive justification and function of affirmative action as central to that task.
Words that wound: critical race theory, assualtive speech and the first amendment
- M Matsuda
- C Lawrence
- R Delgado
- K Crenshaw
Matsuda, M., Lawrence, C., Delgado, R. & Crenshaw, K. (Eds) (1993) Words that wound: critical race theory, assualtive speech and the first amendment (Boulder, CO, Westview Press).
Conclusion Race is … race isn't: critical race theory and qualitative studies in education
- W Tate
Tate, W. (1999) Conclusion, in: L. Parker, D. Deyhle & S. Villenas (Eds) Race is … race isn't: critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (Boulder, CO, Westview Press), 251–271.
The word and the river: pedagogy as scholarship as struggle Critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement
- C Lawrence
Lawrence, C. (1995) The word and the river: pedagogy as scholarship as struggle, in: K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller & K. Thomas (Eds) Critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement (New York, The New Press), 336–351.
A critical race theory analysis of barriers that impede the success of faculty of color The racial crisis in American higher education
- O Villalpando
- D Delgado Bernal
Villalpando, O. & Delgado Bernal, D. (2002) A critical race theory analysis of barriers that impede the success of faculty of color, in: W. Smith, P. Altbach & K. Lomotey (Eds) The racial crisis in American higher education (New York, SUNY Press), 243–270.
The word and the river: pedagogy as scholarship as struggle
- C Lawrence
Lawrence, C. (1992) The word and the river: pedagogy as scholarship as struggle, Southern California Law Review, 65, 2231–2298.
And we are not saved: the elusive quest for racial justice
- A D Dixson
- C K Rousseau Bell
A. D. Dixson and C. K. Rousseau Bell, D. (1987) And we are not saved: the elusive quest for racial justice (New York, Basic Books).
Looking to the bottom: critical legal studies and reparations Critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement
- M Matsuda
Matsuda, M. (1995) Looking to the bottom: critical legal studies and reparations, in: K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller & K. Thomas (Eds) Critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement (New York, The New Press), 63–79.
Coursetaking and achievement in mathematics and science: Inequalities that endure and change
- J Oakes
- K Muir
- R Joseph
Oakes, J., Muir, K. & Joseph, R. (2000) Coursetaking and achievement in mathematics and science: Inequalities that endure and change (Madison, WI, National Institute of Science Education).
Schools emerge worlds apart, seeking an ideal, The Commercial Appeal Forgotten voices of black educations: critical race perspectives on the implemen-tation of a desegregation plan
- K Mckenzie
- A19 A
- J Morris
McKenzie, K. (2004) Schools emerge worlds apart, seeking an ideal, The Commercial Appeal, 16 May, A1, A19. Morris, J. (2001) Forgotten voices of black educations: critical race perspectives on the implemen-tation of a desegregation plan, Educational Policy, 15(4), 575–600.
Access and opportunity: the political and social context of mathematics education Handbook of international research in mathematics education
- W Tate
- C Rousseau
Tate, W. & Rousseau, C. (2002) Access and opportunity: the political and social context of mathematics education, in: L. English (Ed.) Handbook of international research in mathematics education (Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum), 271–299.