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Black Achievers' Experiences with Racial Spotlighting and Racial Ignoring in a Predominantly White High School
Abstract
Despite a history of racial oppression and degradation in U.S. schools, African Americans have responded to racism and discrimination in ways that promote educational attainment and school success. Many Black adolescents have been empowered to succeed academically partly because of their awareness of racist practices in education and society. This empowerment to succeed in the face of racism is also seen as resiliency. A growing body of research suggests that despite experiencing racism in schools, many African Americans possess an achievement ethos that demands a commitment to excellence; despite experiencing racism as a stressor, these students develop resilient strategies for resisting racism in the school context.
... Instead, CRT in education supports deeper analyses that consider the sociopolitical, historicized, and intersectional factors that affect Hmong American youth and their families. Importantly, these deeper analyses provide Hmong American students with the concepts needed to name and validate their experiences (Carter, 2008;Carter-Andrews, 2012;Graves, 2014;Poon, 2013). In turn, this validation and contextualization of experience supports the development of critical race consciousness -analyses of race and racism that lead to collective social justice activism and increased academic resilience. ...
... Research has identified critical race consciousness as key to the survival and success of many students of color at PWIs and other institutions (Carter-Andrews, 2012;Romero, Arce, & Cammarota, 2009;Stovall, 2006). Surviving and resisting institutional racism and White supremacy require critical race analyses of the ways in which institutional racism and other systems of oppression function, as well as the empowerment to act to dismantle all forms of oppression (Romero, Arce, & Cammarota, 2009;Stovall, 2006). ...
... Hmong language and, in fact, that hostile White students focused on Hmong language as a hypervisible racial marker (Bonilla-Silva, 2006;Carter-Andrews, 2012). ...
Critical race theory (CRT) in education provides important conceptual tools in analyses of Hmong American education. CRT in education centers race and racism in relation to other axes
of oppression, thereby locating educational inequities that Hmong American youth experience within appropriate historical, social, and institutional contexts. These contexts support deeper
analyses that consider the sociopolitical and intersectional factors that affect Hmong American youth and their families. Importantly, these analyses provide Hmong American students with the
concepts needed to name and validate their experiences as part of the development of critical race consciousness.
... Studies (Clark et al., 1999;Henfield, 2011;Spencer, Fegley, & Harpalani, 2003;Lee, Spencer, & Harpalani, 2003;Torres et al., 2010;Sellers, Copeland-Linder, Martin, & Lewis, 2006; have investigated the local impact of these issues across a school system. Carter Andrews (2012) noted: ...
... Currently, what is known is that racial microaggressions cause psychological distress among African Americans (Brown, 2008;Carter Andrews 2012;Clark et al., 1999;Gaylord-Harden, Burrow, & Cunningham, 2012;Graves, 2014;Pierce, 1989;Solórzano et al., 2000;, Tuitt & Carter, 2008. While all members within ethnic groups must learn to develop and cope with sources of stress as part of human development, African American males encounter and internalize these pressures between ethnic identity and academic attainment with varied outcomes (Clark et al., 1999;Lee et al., 2003;Rowley et al., 1998). ...
... Given this relevance, there are still present-day challenges that exist which can interrupt the African American male student's journey to academic success, including: § growing up in poverty; § internalizing racialized messages and racism; § the influence of economically depressed and drug infestation of urban communities; § police brutality and mass incarceration, § little to no contact with biological fathers or role models; and, § the dehumanization of their Black bodies. (Alexander, 2012;Alston & Williams, 1982;Battle & Scott, 2000;Berry & Asamen, 1989;Carter Andrews, 2012;Coates, 2015;Franklin & Starr, 1967;Graham & Anderson, 2008;hooks, 1992;Jackson, 2006;Kozol, 1991;Kunjufu, 1985;López, 1997López, , 2010Marable & Clarke, 2009;Noguera, 2008;Willis et al., 2015). ...
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are America's fruit. The seeds of racism, hatred, bigotry, and deceit were planted in the Nation's soil many decades ago...and today, "the blood on the leaves and blood at the roots" continues to cry for justice and freedom. Can you hear the cry?
Examining the intersectionality of race, microaggressions, and resiliency among African American male students and how these experiences impact their lives in a high school setting can produce understandings that could lead to interventions for greater academic success. Research is clear there is a consistent decline in academic achievement for African American males. Additionally, there has been an increase of African American males dropping out of high schools and entering the perils of a justice system that swings towards an imbalance of hopelessness and the predictability of a shortened lifespan.
... One such transition would be the transition from elementary to middle school which typically takes place in 5 th or 6 th grade. For students of color, Andrews (2012) noted that resilience is seen in the ability to resist and succeed in the face of racism. ...
... Collectively, these data illustrate the powerful impact of the Nativi-tyMiguel experience that transforms urban adolescents of color who had been denied access to a quality educational experience through elementary school into young men of promise, resilience, and competence. As one of the interviewees pointed out eloquently, the NativityMiguel experience that extends beyond the middle school years helps these young men resist the lure of the urban drug trade and the oppression of a racist society and develop the skills and social capital needed for success (Andrews, 2012). In addition, graduates are afforded the opportunity to give back to their alma maters through volunteering and mentoring programs; this completes the circle as these graduates are now able to impact the resiliency of a new generation of students and transform the communities that they grew up in. ...
The persistent inequalities in urban public education in the U. S. that have left far too many Black and Hispanic male students behind with respect to academic skill development, high school graduation, and college success have led Catholic groups to provide alternative secondary school models to advance the academic and career success of urban students. One of these initiatives is the NativityMiguel model school, the first of which opened in New York City in 1971. The present study examines the lived experience, with respect to benefits of this education on the subsequent academic and career successes, of male graduates of two of these schools, one for African American, or Black, students and one for Mexican American students in different parts of the country. Analyses of interviews with 37 graduates showed that they benefitted from the schools’ approach to academic skill development and the building of resilience, leadership, and a commitment to service in the context of a community that continued to support the development of resilience after middle school graduation. Differences in aspects of the two programs are examined along with the implications for making use of the schools’ initiatives on a larger scale.
... Beyond addressing interactions between students' identity negotiations and their experiences of curriculum and academic achievement, as in Nasir et al.'s (2009) and Carter Andrews's (2012) work, this study addresses the impact of discourses of achievement (i.e., the impact of normalized expectations about how to ''be'' a high-achieving student) on students of color. As McCarthy (2013) theorizes, ''without denying that certain stabilities are associated with race . . . ...
... Laura thought that Cassandra doubted her work because she was Hispanic 8 and, therefore, perceived to not be as ''smart'' as other students (Focus Group). This type of racial microaggression is described by Carter Andrews (2012) in her study about the experiences of Black students in a predominantly White school, where a Black participant, Kimmy, shared that when she made a comment in class it was ignored by her peers, but when a White student subsequently made the same comment, the comment was recognized and validated with responses from the group. Like Kimmy, Laura felt that it was not her answer that was in question, but rather the racialized and minoritized body from which it came, that was suspect. ...
Discourses of achievement often overlook the interdependence of classroom contexts, students’ identities, and academic performance. This narrative analysis explores how high-achieving students of color construct identities-in-practice in a diverse urban middle school. By documenting explicit moments in which students construct identities-in-practice such as being “loud,” which are positioned as incompatible with “being smart,” I argue that high-achieving lower income students of color are disproportionately regulated by achievement discourses that position White middle-class norms as neutral. This article documents tensions between what it takes to achieve academically and students’ raced, classed, and gendered identities in order to reframe educational equity based on a theoretical framing of identities and academic achievement as interrelated and highly contextual.
... Racialized people respond in a variety of ways to racism, including active opposition and more passive or hidden reactions (Carter Andrews 2012). A US study reports a broad spectre of emotional responses, most common were feeling disrespected and anger, followed by a feeling of being insulted, disappointment, frustration, outrage, hurt and shock (Carter and Forsyth 2010, 189). ...
Racial discrimination takes many forms and so does opposition to it. In contrast to the dominant emphasis on institutional or state efforts to counter racism, we examine how members of racially minoritized groups resist racism in their everyday lives. Drawing on forty-one qualitative interviews with young, mainly Black, people in Norway, we identify five distinct ways in which they actively counter racism, as opposed to passively accepting or adapting to it. Participants resisted racism by ignoring, confronting, sharing experiences about, reporting and protesting it. Our analysis explicates the characteristics, potential outcomes and social function of such resistance to racism. The study contributes to the literature on everyday racism and antiracism by making it evident how those at the receiving end negotiate and actively oppose racist experiences.
... Racial and ethnic microaggressions have negative impacts on people of color. Students of color who experience racial and ethnic microaggressions at school report a negative school climate that impacts their educational achievement (Carter Andrews, 2012) and a decrease in their sense of belonging and an increase in emotional distress (Clark, Mercer, Zeigler-Hill, & Dufrene, 2012). Racial microaggressions can also negatively impact mental health. ...
... In thinking about the role of idealized behaviors, we draw on education literature which surfaces the issue of racial spotlighting and racial ignoring. This refers to when children of color are spotlighted-either idealized or disparaged-or they go unnoticed in school settings (Carter, 2012). ...
The promotion of speedy, permanent adoption outcomes for children in foster care whose parental rights have been terminated is a central child welfare policy goal. However, while both children of color and children with disabilities are at greater risk for child welfare involvement, little is known about influence of these intersecting identities on adoption rates. This cross-sectional national study draws on the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) to explore the between and within group foster care outcomes of adoption. While we expected to see advantages in outcomes based on identification with privileged social identities, our findings were much more varied. Implications relate to the need for intersectional approaches to equity assessments of child welfare systems and practice.
... Being singled out on the basis of an aspect of one's social identity, otherwise known as being spotlighted (Carter, 2007;Carter Andrews, 2012;McLoughlin, 2005), can exacerbate stereotype threat for WOC. This is especially so if spotlighting is initiated by an authority figure, such as a professor calling on a single African American woman to be the voice for all African Americans. ...
Background
To address social disparities and generate an innovative workforce, engineering higher education should provide learning environments that benefit students from all backgrounds. However, because engineering programs are not enrolling or retaining women of color at demographic parity, a better understanding of these students' experiences is needed to develop effective interventions.
Purpose
This study analyzes research on women of color in undergraduate engineering education to determine what influences their experiences, participation, and advancement. We identify challenges to and strategies for persistence and present recommendations for engineering institutions to create interventions that support women of color and mitigate institutional inequities.
Scope/Method
Using the snowballing method, we identified 65 empirical studies published between 1999 and 2015 that met the criteria for this review. These studies represented qualitative, mixed‐methods, and quantitative methodologies from various fields. We conducted a systematic thematic synthesis, informed by frames of intersectionality, critical race theory, and community cultural wealth.
Conclusions
Women of color use navigational strategies to address the social pain of race and gender inequity in engineering education. Institutions should take responsibility for generating a sense of belonging for women of color and provide social and structural supports that increase self‐efficacy, address social pain, and improve retention.
... "In its long history, the schooling process for American Indians has been based on a hierarchy of knowledge wherein Indigenous Knowledges (IK) are framed as deficient" (p.3). In addition to Indigenous and First Nations communities, the ways of knowing, being, valuing, teaching, and learning in most communities of color within the United States-including Hmong Americanshave been framed as invalid or as inferior to dominant (i.e., White mainstream) knowledge systems (Valenzuela, 1999;Carter-Andrews, 2012;DePouw, 2012). ...
This conceptual paper draws upon critical race theory (CRT) in education and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) to reflect on the need for critical Hmong studies to include the development of critical race consciousness as an important goal of the field. The paper focuses on the racism within community and campus contexts in Wisconsin and how critical Hmong studies could empower students to successfully navigate race and power within their personal and professional lives. Wisconsin's racial context includes anti-Hmong hostility, deficit and exotic framings of Hmong culture (DePouw, 2012), and racial triangulation (Kim, 1999) of Hmong Americans as "model minorities" in relation to other minoritized groups such as African Americans, Latinx Americans, or Somali Americans (Ngo & Lee, 2007; Lee, et al., 2017). The common thread is deploying white supremacy through an essentialized and racialized version of Hmong "culture" (DePouw, 2012), not only in mainstream society but also in educational spaces such as the University of Wisconsin System (UW System). To many educational institutions such as the UW System, a focus on culture or identity may appear less threatening because "culture" allows white supremacy and institutional racism to remain unnamed and therefore uncontested. One of the challenges for critical Hmong studies is to try to maintain institutional support while also educating its students to develop critical consciousness around race and other forms of oppression, and to foster student agency to address issues relevant to Hmong American communities. Critical race studies in education and the analytical tool of whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) are necessary to support critical Hmong studies in advancing the goals of critical thinking and agency within institutional and social context.
... Over 80% of African American parents use racial socialization, with two modes being especially prominent: cultural socialization-promoting knowledge of positive racial histories and feelings of racial pride-and bias socializationteaching awareness and coping strategies related to racial discrimination experiences (Hughes et al., 2006;Huguley et al., 2019). Studies in educational contexts specifically have noted that discrimination experiences are common in schools (Allen, 2012;Carter Andrews & Gutwein, 2017;Howard & Reynolds, 2008;Wang & Huguley, 2012) and that in response, African American parents use racialized educational messages to promote resistance, resilience, and overall achievement in the face of these encounters (Allen & White-Smith, 2018;Carter Andrews, 2012;Scott et al., 2019;Yosso, 2005). Considered in tandem, racial socialization and the integrative developmental model elucidate both how and why families of color in inhibiting environments work to mitigate the psychological and material costs of racial subordination on their children's educational prospects. ...
Research on parental educational involvement has been organized into three overarching domains—home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and academic socialization. Conventional empirical work in these domains typically centers involvement strategies around White, middle-class experiences rather than examining how optimal parenting approaches vary by race and context. Even fewer studies have explored the manifestations of involvement across these categories in underresourced urban educational settings. In response, the current study draws on the voices of African American parents and their children attending urban public schools to describe the distinct approaches to home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and academic socialization that parents use to ensure a quality education for their children. Findings demonstrate how African American parents engage in racially infused and contextually tailored navigational involvement approaches as they seek to offset the effects of inhibiting educational contexts. Results add ecological nuance and new typologies to how parental involvement in education is conceptualized across the settings.
... Racial/ethnic microaggressions in education impact academic achievement and students' sense of belonging negatively (Carter Andrews, 2012). In PWIs, microaggressions contribute to social conflicts and affect interracial relationships and interactions (Milem, Chang, & Antonio, 2005). ...
Yearly, thousands of international students seek the United States to further their education, bringing cultural and financial capital into the country. Though previous studies have examined international students' experiences adapting to the receiving country, research is needed to investigate their lived experiences in a predominantly White institution (PWI). Thus, a narrative inquiry was applied to explore international students' life stories at a PWI in Southwest Florida. Data collection comprised in-depth individual interviews with 12 participants that resulted in four themes: multiracial identities, otherness, self-representation in the dominant society, and perceptions of the dominant culture. The narratives revealed challenges related to isolation, segregation, and feelings of inferiority, contributing to understanding the value of diversity and global education in higher education. Recommendations are included to better serve international students in higher education institutions.
... On average, Black Americans obtain fewer years of education compared to Whites, which contributes to limited 1 3 life chances including income inequality (9.65 vs. 10.35;Hoover and Yaya 2010). For decades, researchers have studied the influence of marginalization and discrimination as an explanatory variable for the gaps in academic outcomes between Black and White Americans (Carter Andrews 2012;Garibaldi 1997). Perceived lifetime discrimination has been associated with negative educational outcomes including less academic identification (Smalls et al. 2007) and poorer academic achievement (Thomas et al. 2009). ...
Few studies have examined the role of Black racial identity as a moderator of the relation between perceived discrimination and educational attainment among Black U.S. adults. We explored this question in a sample of 370 self-identified Black adults from the Northeastern U.S. Due to the existing literature demonstrating the benefits of a positive Black racial identity, we hypothesized that centrality and private regard, components of racial identity, would moderate the relation between perceived discrimination frequency/stress and educational attainment. As expected, centrality moderated the relationship although private regard did not. Specifically, Black centrality served as a coping strategy that has a positive influence on educational attainment when individuals perceive high levels of discrimination frequency. Males reported higher levels of discrimination frequency and stress compared to females, though gender did not contribute moderation effects. The finding that younger individuals perceived higher levels of discrimination frequency and stress and lower centrality and private regard compared to their older counterparts, has important implications which are discussed.
... Okul dışı öğrenmeyi içeren eğitsel programlar sayesinde çocuklar ve gençler şehir yaşamının gerektirdiği yaşam becerilerini geliştirerek şehir stresiyle başa çıkabilme yeteneklerine sahip olabilirler. Ayrıca okul dışı öğrenme, okul-çevre, öğrenci-toplum ve aile-okul ilişkilerinin gelişmesine yardımcı olmaktadır (CarterAndrews, 2012;Fenzel ve Richardson, 2018;Williams ve Bryan, 2013).Okul dışı öğrenme, eğitim müfredatın zenginleştirilmesi için sınıf dışında yapılan tüm etkinliklerdir. Okul dışı öğrenme, sosyo-kültürel alan içerisinde öğrenenin kendi çabası ve aldığı kararlarla ilerleyen öğrenme yaşantı ve ürünlerini ifade etmektedir. ...
Out-of-school learning activities have started to diversify in all areas of learning at an increasing rate. Out-of-school learning diversifies the one-dimensional structure of the classroom and school environment, enabling learning that leaves a lasting impact for the learner. This research aims to develop the Out-of-School Learning Regulation Scale (OOSLRS) which can be used in this field while providing basic information about out-of-school learning. The study group consists of 340 teachers working in different branches. In this study, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient, Barlett's Sphericity test, Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA), Cronbach's Alpha, substance total correlation, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) operations were performed to improve the out-of-school learning regulation scale. An Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed on the scale structure of the 29 substances that make up the final form of the OOSLRS and it was determined that the scale was in a four-factor structure. Cronbach's Alpha intrinsic coefficient of OOSLRS was calculated as 0.87 and the sub-factors of the scale were Information, Planning, Application, and Evaluation dimensions, respectively. Cronbach's Alpha values for these sub-dimensions of the OOSLRS are Information dimension 0.86, Planning dimension 0.81, Application dimension 0.73, and Evaluation dimension 0.77. Given these relevant values and controlled by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), it was concluded that the structure of the OOSLRS consists of four sub-factors.
... In thinking about the role of idealized behaviors, we draw on education literature which surfaces the issue of racial spotlighting and racial ignoring. This refers to when children of color are spotlighted-either idealized or disparaged-or they go unnoticed in school settings (Carter, 2012). ...
Abstract: The promotion of speedy, permanent adoption outcomes for children in foster care whose parental rights have been terminated is a central child welfare policy goal. However, while both children of color and children with disabilities are at greater risk for child welfare involvement, little is known about influence of these intersecting identities on adoption rates. This cross-sectional national study draws on the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) to explore the between and within group foster care outcomes of adoption. While we expected to see advantages in outcomes based on identification with privileged social identities, our findings were much more varied. Implications relate to the need for the conduct of multi-systemic equity assessment of child welfare systems and practices.
... I embrace humanizing students of color by striving to not engage them in racial spotlighting. That is avoiding and deflecting peer engagement with students of color that can cause students of color to be hypervisablized by Whites (Carter Andrews, 2008Andrews, , 2012. Hypervisibility is when one's race makes them seen in ways that causes "situational pressure" as they may be viewed as the "race representative" (Carter Andrews, 2012, p. 14). ...
Purpose
In this reflective essay, the authors, four educators of color, explore the relevance of humanizing practices of community in teaching and learning, school leadership and the potential challenges for equity work in education, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
This reflective essay draws on lessons learned from the pedagogical practices of women of color, literature on teachers of color, as well as our experiences as educators of teachers and school leaders, as the authors think about new possibilities and challenges for anti-racist practice and living during the pandemic.
Findings
This essay describes community-oriented practice of women of color educators to be important in orienting teaching and learning toward more humanizing practice. The reflections highlight both possibilities and challenges that can be helpful reimagining the practice in teacher and leadership education, as the authors prepare educators for an uncertain future.
Originality/value
This essay offers valuable lessons from women of color educator practice that can offer humanizing approaches to teaching and learning as well as school leadership education.
... For high-performing Black girls, the idea of having to choose between academic and social acceptance presented identity-shaping dilemmas. Being smart or prioritizing academics meant that they could have their academic ability and competence questioned by adults and White peers and to face social isolation from Black peers (Carter Andrews, 2012;Fordham, 1988;Galletta & Cross, 2007). Not enrolling in challenging courses reinforced the racial stereotype that Black students belong in lower level courses, yet it secured relationships and connections with Black peers (Galletta & Cross, 2007). ...
The African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies states, “The risks that Black and other girls of color confront rarely receive the full attention of researchers, advocates, policymakers, and funders.” The limited awareness of the challenges that Black girls face perpetuates the mischaracterization of their attitudes, abilities, and achievement. Thus, school becomes an inhospitable place where Black girls receive mixed messages about femininity and goodness and are held to unreasonable standards. This study explores how Black girls describe and understand their school experiences as racialized and gendered and the ways a conversation space allows Black girls’ meaning making about and critical examination of individual and collective schooling experiences.
... 21). SCALE's declared commitment to social justice while avoiding a discussion about the racial inequities within the data demonstrates an institutional form of racial spotlighting and ignoring (Carter Andrews, 2012). What is not mentioned in the report are considerations of why racial inequities emerged from the data. ...
In less than a decade, Pearson’s distribution of the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) has expanded to hundreds of teacher education preparation programs in the United States. Used in more than forty states, the edTPA has become one of the most prevalent forms of high-stakes evaluation for student teachers, with several states requiring candidates to pass edTPA to gain teacher certification. This article examines the history and policies associated with edTPA in arts education. To do this, I examined emerging literature concerning edTPA, with a particular focus on the policy documents released by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity in conjunction with Pearson. Findings from the study include inconsistencies within the evaluation of fine arts teacher candidates, the absence of arts educators from the development of edTPA, and marginalization by means of forced compliance.
... Some teachers and students appraise these racial interactions as overwhelming, which results in maladaptive coping (e.g., teacher abuse of power or increased implicit bias; or student academic disengagement and classroom noncompliance), while others appraise these situations as manageable and cope adaptively. Adaptive coping strategies enable individuals to regulate their emotions and respond by asking intentional questions or going into deeper discussions about racially contentious topics (Carter Andrews 2012). These appraisals are influenced by previous experiences as well as the emotional and tangible resources available to address situations as benign, awkward or onerous (Folkman and Moskowitz 2000). ...
This paper reports on a curriculum designed for Black students whose school teachers and administrators sought to address concerns about students’ academic underachievement and behavioral challenges. In order to design the curriculum, we examined Black students’ reactions to race- and academic-related stress as a result of their interactions with mostly White teachers and peers in an increasingly diversifying predominantly White, middle-class community. Grounded in principles of Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization Theory (RECAST), a paradigm for understanding the racial coping strategies utilized by individuals to contend with racial stress and well-being, the study sought to elucidate racial tensions found in schooling relationships that foster racial disparities in classrooms. Specifically, our team conducted focus group sessions with Black parents and students which were guided by our use of the Cultural and Racial Experiences of Socialization Survey (CARES), a racial and ethnic socialization measure that elicits responses from students about the kinds of messages students receive about race and ethnicity from people parents and teachers. Data from the sessions subsequently informed the design of Let’s Talk? (LT), a racial conflict resolution curriculum for Black adolescents. In this paper, we share what we learned about students’ school experiences and coping mechanism through their participation in LT.
... Other studies on Black student achievement (c.f. Carter, 2008Carter, , 2012Griffin & Allen, 2006;Williams & Bryan, 2013;Williams & Portman, 2014) have used similar criteria for their student participants. Referrers (school guidance counselors and program coordinators) were able to confirm that participants met the study's academic requirements (i.e., GPA, school activity, ACT/SAT) requirements. ...
Much of the research on African American students tend to focus on the causes and consequences of academic failure. This fixation on negative outcomes continues to perpetuate deficit views of African American student achievement. As a consequence, far less is known about the successful academic outcomes of African American students, generally, and those from single-mother homes, specifically. Social workers can learn a lot about how to support and celebrate African American student achievement by allowing them and their families to give voice to their own lived experiences. Centering and honoring the unique taken-for-granted knowledges of African American students and their families offers social workers a more authentic understanding of students and families, insights that can inform both micro and macro level practice approaches. The purpose of this study was to explore academic success as perceived and experienced by African American high school students and their single mothers. This qualitative study utilized a narrative inquiry approach that used in-depth, semistructured interviews for data collection. The sample of seven African American high school seniors (four girls, three boys) and their single mothers were selected using purposeful sampling methods. Data analysis revealed that students’ inherent drive toward success, a deeply invested mother, and assistance from social-relational supports were key factors to academic success. Implications for social work practice are included.
... Black students' experiences with institutional, interpersonal, and internalized racism within schools continue to be important topics of research (Grace & Nelson, 2019;Skiba et al., 2002). The impact of and response to these chronic racist experiences are inextricably linked to students' academic outcomes (Carter Andrews, 2012;Reynolds et al., 2010). ...
... An additional form of self-protection involves desensitizing, avoiding, and disengaging. Several studies found support for the behavioral strategies of intentional avoidance and disengagement (e.g., Carter Andrews, 2012;Gomez et al., 2011;Yu et al., 2016). Lewis et al. (2013) identified desensitizing and escaping as deliberate strategies Black women used to minimize the stress associated with their experiences with gendered racial microaggressions. ...
In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature on racial microaggressions from 2007 to 2020 ( N = 138 articles). First, we refine racial microaggressions theory and update the definition to address mischaracterizations in the literature and clarify the term (i.e., “micro” refers to microlevel interactions rather than degree of harm). Next, we used four superordinate categories (i.e., pathologizing differences, denigrating and pigeonholing, excluding or rendering invisible, and perpetuating color-blind racial attitudes) in which to situate racial microaggression themes from the extant literature. Moreover, we consolidated and renamed existing themes to privilege targets’ perspectives (e.g., facing assumptions of inferior status and enduring exoticization). We then synthesized qualitative and quantitative research that shows harmful sequelae of racial microaggressions (i.e., psychological and physiological symptoms). Extending prior research on coping with gendered racial microaggressions, we describe empirical findings on collective, resistance, and self-protective strategies to mitigate the harmful impact of racial microaggressions. We conclude with directions for future research.
... We propose that Black people living in the United States are bound together through the cultural experience of racial oppression, and that this oppression takes on many forms (e.g., political, economic, criminal justice). Since Black people share this cultural experience, they have developed cultural resistance strategies (Andrews, 2012) to cope with the racial oppression they have been subjugated to for centuries. One of the most strengthsbased and asset-focused cultural resistance strategies Black people have used is racial literacy-the ability to use cultural resistance strategies to cope with racial stress. ...
Racial literacy as defined by Stevenson (2014) is an important cultural resistance strategy (e.g., positive coping strategy) for Black children and youth because it provides them with the skills needed to survive in a racist society. Stevenson’s work along with his colleague’s (Anderson et al., 2019) focuses on adolescents and those in middle childhood, yet it has inspired us to postulate how racial literacy might be fostered in young children (age 3-8). We propose a theoretical model for how racial literary can be fostered within shared-reading contexts using racially-affirming storybooks coupled with conversations grounded in the principles of ethnic- racial socialization. We posit that these conversations result in both direct influence on racial literacy and indirect influence via positive ethnic-racial identity and emotion regulation and understanding.
... Black students' experiences with institutional, interpersonal, and internalized racism within schools continue to be important topics of research (Grace & Nelson, 2019;Skiba et al., 2002). The impact of and response to these chronic racist experiences are inextricably linked to students' academic outcomes (Carter Andrews, 2012;Reynolds et al., 2010). ...
Studies show that effective partnerships between schools and families improve students’ academic outcomes. Schools often struggle to implement effective strategies with low-income families, however. This multiple case study examines family-school partnership activities at eight demographically diverse schools in the state of Hawaiʻi and examines successful family outreach strategies that cut across SES. Drawing from interview transcripts, which were selectively coded, the study identified successful modes of communication as identified by participants. Overall, participants reported that personalized, informal, and face-to-face communications were the most effective modes of communication. These findings have implications for K-12 teachers’ online communication with families.
... Similar findings were found in a study conducted by Carter Andrews (2012) that followed a group of high achieving Black students who strongly embraced their identity as a Black high academic achiever. Their strong association with their academic achievement allowed them to cope well with the microaggressions they experienced (Carter Andrews, 2012). Given the contradictory evidence about the effects of academic achievement on psychological well-being, the literature suggests that academic achievement alone may not be enough to buffer the effects of racial microaggressions, with other variables such as perceived social support also playing a role by allowing high-achieving students to feel confident in their abilities. ...
Objectives:
Several studies have documented the negative impact of microaggressions on anxiety among Black individuals. However, few investigations have examined the impact of microaggressions on Black college students' worries about their future employment and potential moderating factors. We examined whether there would be an association between microaggressions and worries about future employment. Furthermore, both social support and academic achievement (measured by grade point average) were purported to moderate this association.
Method:
Secondary data analysis was used, with the study sample consisting of Black college students (n = 225) from a predominately White institution. Participants had a mean age of 20.43 years (SD = 1.79), with females comprising 74.80% of the sample.
Results:
Results revealed that social support buffered the effect of microaggressions for low-achieving students, while a buffering effect of social support was not found for high-achieving students.
Conclusions:
Perceived social support offers some protection against the exposure of racial microaggressions, although high-achieving Black college students (the most vulnerable to potential isolation and academic pressure) may not benefit from overall social support. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Racial microaggressions can unduly tax people of color. To combat their impact, people need an increased awareness and ability to detect microaggressions when they occur. The present study examined White individuals’ ability to accurately detect microaggressions across 3 conditions with varied exposure to knowledge about microaggressions (control, low-exposure, high-exposure) at pre- to postintervention. Undergraduate university students (N = 103) were recruited from 2 predominantly White universities. At pre- and postintervention, participants watched a set of video clips, some of which contained racial microaggressions, answered a series of questions regarding the content of the videos, and completed the Colorblind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS). Participants watched a 1 hr video on racial microaggressions, read an article on microaggressions, or read an article on positive psychology. CoBRAS total score from pre- (M = 62.23, SD = 15.39) to postintervention (M = 61.67, SD = 15.66), t(102) = 3.26, p = .002, d = .32, indicated a significant decrease in overall colorblindness and a significant increase in awareness of racial privilege scores from pre- (M = 26.67, SD = 7.51) to postintervention (M = 25.51, SD = 7.87), t(102) = 3.28, p = .001, d = .32. Awareness of institutional discrimination and blatant racial discrimination did not shift significantly. Results suggest that repeated exposures to videos of microaggressions had a significant effect in increasing awareness of participants’ racial privilege and decreasing colorblind attitudes. This has implications for interventions and future research.
Predominantly White Educational Institutions often fail to meet the needs of gifted African American students. Racial discrimination, lack of teacher cultural competence, and deficit ideologies create barriers impacting student academic success, emotional well-being, and sense of belonging. School counselors are in optimal positions to assist African American youth using targeted cultural strategies. This article offers a background on the issues many gifted African American children face and details a group approach utilizing solution focused brief therapy, family involvement, conflict resolution, and anger management, in an attempt to influence positive racial identity, resilience, and student achievement.
Series: Routledge Studies on Asia in the World Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's reflexive sociology on relative and relational sociocultural positions, Mu and Pang assess how historical, contemporary, and ongoing changes across social spaces of family, school, and community come to shape the intergenerational educational, cultural, and social reproduction of Chinese diasporic populations. The two authors engage in an in-depth analysis of the identity work, educational socialisation, and resilience building of young Chinese Australians and Chinese Canadians in the ever-changing lived world.
Racial microaggressions in school have gained increasing attention in recent years. However, scholars often neglect students’ experiences of racial microaggressions in rural schools. To fill this gap, this study employs in-depth interviews with 26 students to examine two forms of racial microaggressions – microinsults and microinvalidations. While racial microinsults are slights to students’ belonging, ability, and innocence, microinvalidations negate racially marginalized students’ experiences through meritocratic and colorblind ideology, or treatment as an outsider. This study finds that black and mixed-race students interpreted racial microinsults using microinvalidations, minimizing the salience of race and asserting meritocratic ideology. White students both elucidated the prevalence of racial microinsults and espoused them during the interviews. These findings underscore the impact of incorporating white and multiracial students’ perceptions of racial microaggressions in school, and they suggest the power of meritocracy and colorblindness to mask mistreatment of black and mixed-race students.
Resumo: Esta pesquisa destaca aspectos da equidade que surgem diante das dificuldades encontradas nas aulas de Matemática. As vivências e oportunidades adquiridas pelo aluno de intercâmbio são ilimitadas. Assim, optamos por apresentar o estudo preliminar de uma pesquisa de verão, realizada na Michigan StateUniversity (MSU), no estado de Michigan, EUA, que consiste no desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta, Equity Quantified In Participation (EQUIP), capaz de quantificar a participação dos alunos nas aulas de Matemática.O tratamento metodológico adotado compreende uma tipologia de abordagem qualitativa e exploratória que contribuiu para o esclarecimento de questões ligadas a equidade nas aulas de Matemática, tendo por base a observação participante a partir de um intercâmbio internacional.Contudo, contribuiu para a elaboração de uma proposição de ações metodológicas através das dimensões de equidade nas aulas de Matemática, que tem o intuito de auxiliar nas pesquisas e práticas matemáticas.Palavras-chave: Acesso; Realização; Identidade; Poder. Proposition of methodological actions for inserting equity dimensions in MathematicsAbstract: This research highlights aspects of equity that arise in the face of difficulties encountered in Mathematics classes. The experiences and opportunities acquired by the exchange student are unlimited. Thus, we chose to present the preliminary study of a summer survey, conducted at Michigan State University (MSU), Michigan, USA, which consists of the development of a tool, Equity Quantified In Participation (EQUIP), able to quantify the participation in mathematics classes. The methodological approach adopted includes a typology of a qualitative and exploratory approach that contributed to the clarification of issues related to equity in Mathematics classes, based on participant observation from an international exchange.However, he contributed to the elaboration of a proposition of methodological actions through the dimensions of equity in Mathematics classes, which aims to assist in mathematical research and practice.Keywords: Access; Achievement; Identity; Power.
This study examined the associations among racial identity beliefs (centrality and public regard), racial discrimination, and academic engagement outcomes among 1,659 African American adolescents across two demographically distinct school districts, one predominantly Black, working class (n = 1,100) and one predominantly White, middle class (n = 559). Across these districts, the youths reported that race was a central aspect of their identity and demonstrated varying levels of public regard. Racial discrimination was negatively associated with academic curiosity and persistence, but this effect was moderated by gender and racial identity. Our findings demonstrate the harmful influence of discrimination on the academic engagement of African American adolescents and the protective roles of racial identity beliefs across gender and school racial contexts.
This chapter reviews the phenomena of microaggressions, racial battle fatigue (RBF), stereotype threat, and imposter phenomenon. All of which can be caused by a lack of knowledge, sensitivity, empathy, and respect for identity characteristics/social identities deviating from the dominant norm such as race, class, gender, sexuality, language, citizenship status, disability status, and religious affiliation. Some teachers, ill‐prepared to work with students different from them, do real harm to many of their students by perpetrating microaggressions, which can lead to the related phenomena of racial battle fatigue, stereotype threat, and imposter phenomenon—causing a reduction in academic success for nonhegemonic students. Teachers are at risk of creating RBF, stereotype threat, and imposter phenomenon within their students if they do not actively cultivate cultural competence and culturally responsive teaching practices, and continually reflect upon the impact they have on students.
Using a framework of critical race theory (CRT), this chapter emphasizes that racial microaggressions in K‐12 schools are mechanisms of institutionalized racism. It explores the dynamic relationship between macro‐ and microracism and offers strategies for researchers and practitioners of K‐12 schools to better reflect upon and transform the way Students of Color experience their education. A step in addressing racial microaggressions on an individualized level is articulating that racism to the perpetrator as naming racism can—at times—facilitate a climate of reflection. Despite the intent of the perpetrator, a seeming compliment or joke can have detrimental impact on People of Color if it embodies racialized stereotypes. Eliminating the existence of racial microaggressions in K‐12 education requires strong racial literacies and positive racial climates where equity, community cultural wealth, and racial justice are constantly reflected in the everyday structures, practices, and interactions of schools.
This article presents a preliminary study of an urban school district, and its use of a scripted middle-school language arts and literacy curriculum. The majority of students served by this district are African American. By interviewing a small sample of four teachers and one literacy coach, gathering preliminary data, and observing students within language arts classrooms, we analyze the impact of the district’s move to non-skill-based Reading and Writing Workshop Models curricula. This curriculum is neither aligned with the Common Core Standards, nor does it allow for teacher autonomy based upon student need. District mandates direct teachers to “follow the script” of a curriculum that was not intended to have a script—in effect, the students have less guidance than the teachers within this scenario. In this article, we highlight specific literacy practices, policies that disempower teachers and students, and strategies for abolitionist resistance within urban schools.
What do Black parents say about the curriculum in a predominantly White independent elementary school in a large urban area? This study explores tensions around topics such as slavery and immigration. While parents did not say they wanted a critical multicultural curriculum, many valued attention to racial diversity. Because parents did not want their children to be hurt or marginalized, however, they used racial realism to navigate the dangers of the environment. There were some differences among parents based on their families’ identity. This article uses critical race theory to analyze the parents’ perceptions and explores implications for schools.
In this article, we focus on how anti-Black logics operate within various domains of power in ways that deny Black children, including our own, their right to a just and antiracist education. We begin by describing how socialization contributes to the development and deployment of anti-Black logics by teachers and school leaders. We then discuss how antiblackness has manifested in K–12 schools and share examples of our own children’s pandemic virtual learning experiences, highlighting how such logics are at play. We conclude with ways that educators can become aware of anti-Black logics and work to eradicate them by considering antiracist education for all Black children and transgressive education as socially just.
This study examined thematic patterns of parents’ engaged coping messages in response to their adolescents’ negative race‐based experiences. Ten focus groups were conducted with 73 Black parents from a Southeastern city (73% female). Using modified grounded theory, narratives that supported adolescent engaged coping were coded for three ethnic‐racial socialization messages, the perpetrator, and the setting, followed by inductive (open) coding. The majority of experiences were school‐related. Themes were informed by parents’ critical engagement, ethnic‐racial socialization, and engaged racial coping. Findings revealed that parents advised a repertoire of engaged coping strategies, from actively confronting interpersonal perpetrators (e.g., peers), to critically engaging with institutional perpetrators. Strategies to develop adolescents’ critical reflection and anti‐racism actions to dismantle racism across contexts are discussed.
Zusammenfassung. Leistungsstarke Kinder und Jugendliche sind in den letzten Jahren zunehmend in den Fokus der Bildungspolitik und der Bildungsforschung gerückt. Allerdings gibt es in der Forschung bislang kein geteiltes Verständnis darüber, was genau unter akademischer Leistungsstärke zu verstehen ist. Die vorliegende Arbeit gibt einen systematischen Überblick darüber, wie Forschende, die seit dem Jahr 2000 die Gruppe der leistungsstarken Schülerinnen und Schüler erforschten, Leistungsstärke in ihren Studien operationalisiert haben. Dabei wurde insbesondere untersucht, welche Leistungsindikatoren genutzt wurden, ob ein spezifischer Fachbezug hergestellt wurde und welche Cut-off-Werte und Vergleichsmaßstäbe angelegt wurden. Die systematische Datenbanksuche lieferte insgesamt N = 309 Artikel, von denen n = 55 die Einschlusskriterien erfüllten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass eine große Vielfalt in der Operationalisierung von Leistungsstärke vorliegt. Die meistgenutzten Leistungsindikatoren waren Noten und Testwerte, wobei fächerübergreifende und fachspezifische Definitionen beide häufig waren. Die Cut-off-Werte der Studien waren zum Teil schwierig vergleichbar, aber dort, wo ein Populationsbezug hergestellt werden konnte, lag der Median des Populationsanteils Leistungsstarker bei 10 Prozent. Die Studie diskutiert methodische und inhaltliche Rahmenbedingungen, welche sich auf die Operationalisierung von Leistungsstärke und ihre Vergleichbarkeit über Studien hinweg auswirken. Die vorliegende Arbeit schließt mit Empfehlungen zur Operationalisierung von Leistungsstärke.
Black students’ experiences in math and science courses in urban high schools were investigated. A critical race theoretical framing of qualitative data revealed teacher characteristics that encouraged and discouraged students. Teacher characteristics that encouraged students’ interests included (1) shared racial/cultural background with students, (2) passion for students and subject matter, and (3) a caring and understanding approach to student engagement. Characteristics that discouraged student engagement included (1) lack of racial representation, (2) differential treatment of students based on race, (3) condescension and assumed incompetence, and (4) technology as a replacement for instruction. We offer recommendations to improve Black students’ experience and increase interest in pursuing future STEM careers.
This study explored the adaptive behaviors used by African American college students attending a predominantly White university. In-depth individual interviews were conducted and used as the primary method of data collection for this study. In addition, a focus group session provided member checking opportunity to strengthen the study. The analysis revealed participants utilized multiple adaptive behaviors to combat negative racialized experiences while attending a university where they were underrepresented. These adaptive behaviors were used as resistance strategies by African American students navigating a racially charged university context.
Social integration is a critical component of adolescents' positive school adjustment. Although prior scholars have highlighted how Black women and girls' social identities (e.g., race, gender, social class) influence their academic and social experiences in school, very little work has focused on how school racial diversity shapes Black girls' peer networks throughout K–12 education. To address this gap in the literature, the present qualitative study explored the narratives of 44 Black undergraduate women (Mage = 20 years) who reflected on their friendship choices in high school. We used consensual qualitative research methods to examine how Black women navigated friendships during their time attending predominantly White (less than 20% Black), racially diverse (21%–60% Black), and predominantly Black (61%–100% Black) high schools. Coding analyses revealed five friendship themes: (a) Black female friends, (b) mostly Black friends, (c) mostly interracial friends, (d) mostly White friends, and (e) White friends in academic settings and Black friends in social settings. Our findings highlight how the young women's ongoing negotiation of racialized and gendered school norms influenced their sense of closeness with same-race and interracial peers. Black girls may have challenges with forming lasting and meaningful friendships when they cannot find peers who are affirming and supportive, particularly in predominantly White school contexts. This study underscores the need to look at how racial diversity in the student population offers school psychologists and educators insight into how to better support the social and emotional development of Black girls.
Ever-increasing numbers of teachers are expressing commitments to social justice education today, but few experienced critical or democratic education in their own schooling or in their teaching practicum. Thus, teachers’ critical democratic commitments can be difficult to put into practice, especially in classrooms where students with diverse and unequal positionalities are engaged in learning together – what I call “heterogeneous” classrooms. Education that is “democratic” (that includes a range of warranted perspectives) can seem to come into conflict with education that is “critical” (that elevates and centers marginalized perspectives). We have little research depicting how educators meet such challenges.
This paper depicts an experienced and committed social justice educator wrestling with difficult problems in the enactment of critical democratic education. Mr. Crane regularly engaged his racially and linguistically heterogeneous students in discussions of social issues, and during these discussions regularly encountered practical facilitation challenges posed by inequality among students. He wrestled with how to elevate students of color's views without spotlighting them, and how to challenge dominant perspectives without shaming the students who voiced them. Drawing on qualitative data from classroom observations and interviews, I depict Mr. Crane making sense of and mobilizing emergent instructional responses to these challenges – with, by his own reckoning, mixed results. One instructional routine, an impromptu version of a critical inquiry, was flagged by Mr. Crane as a promising method for navigating some of the trickiest problems of critical democratic education practice.
This paper's findings demonstrate that enacting critical democratic education is not easy. Even experienced and committed social justice educators struggle with how to put their critical values into practice. By making visible one experienced critical democratic educator's recurring problems of practice, my research acknowledges the difficulties of this work and contributes to problem-framing. Furthermore, by deconstructing a promising routine for impromptu critical inquiry during classroom discussions of social issues, this research contributes a model of effective critical democratic education in practice.
Although many scholars and practitioners continue to emphasize the benefits of a diverse workforce, discrimination remains an impediment to diversity and inclusion. For African Americans, who are uniquely stigmatized in the United States as descendants of enslaved people, merely having a “black name” or Afro-centric hairstyle can result in employment discrimination. Despite these outcomes, many African Americans remain resilient while facing discrimination. Utilizing positive organizational scholarship and the positive work-related identity typology as a framework, we propose a conceptual model that examines how African Americans' experiences enable them to shape a positive identity and serve as protective buffers against discrimination. Importantly, we suggest this identity process empowers African Americans to overcome discrimination, still perform well, and not voluntarily quit. We conclude with a discussion of our model's impact on African Americans and other stigmatized minorities and suggestions for future human resource management research and practice.
This study provides a novel contribution by connecting two sets of literature, school engagement and multicultural university centers, in relation to late adolescent development. The aims of this mixed-method study were to: (a) quantitatively explore the relationship between student perceived cultural leadership experience and support within a multicultural center in relation to school engagement and (b) qualitatively address additional facilitators and barriers. Participants consisted of 134 college students, predominantly identifying as Latino/Hispanic (35.1%), Black/African American (34.3%), or Asian-Pacific Islander (23.9%), and first-generation (60.4%). Qualitative focus groups and a photovoice project engaged a subset of participants ( n = 57, n = 7, respectively). Regression analysis indicated youth voice, supportive staff relationships, and peer support were significant positive predictors of students’ perceived engagement within the multicultural center, however, some but not all of these predictors transferred toward sentiments of school engagement. Qualitative sources elucidated additional factors bolstering student engagement. Social, cultural, and resistance capitals were identified as key protective factors in relation to student perseverance. Findings also indicated institutional barriers against student engagement including a lack of cultural and ethnic representation throughout multiple levels of the university. Implications for expanding conceptions of social capital within late adolescent identity development theory are discussed.
This study examines a sample of African American students attending urban middle schools in a Southern city, and considers their perceptions of learning environments within mathematics classrooms. This study concluded that variables like Academic Self-Concept, Mathematics Anxiety, Satisfaction, Involvement, and Academic Aspiration varied significantly among higher and lower performing students. These variables are informed by the classic resilience literature on learning environment that tends to be less culturally affirming. In an effort to move resilience theory away from racial ideologies, we reconceptualize resilience as a cultural trait common among African American learners that should not be conceptualized dichotomously nor hierarchically
Teaching Students of Color is a concern of current and future K-12 educators mainly due to lack of exposure to students of this demographic. Using a critical race lens, this papers aims to unpack the word "urban," delving into various connotative interpretations of the term. Finally, anti-racist solutions will be proposed to defy negative stereotypes about urban students and schools.
This timely volume presents powerful stories told by Black families and students who have successfully negotiated a racially fraught, affluent, and diverse suburban school district in America, to illustrate how they have successfully overcome and strategically contested sanctioned racist practices in order to forge a path for students to achieve a high-quality education.
Drawing on rich qualitative data collected through interviews and interactions with parents and kin, students, community activists, and educators, Family Engagement in Black Students’ Academic Success chronicles how pride in Black American family history and values, students’ personal capabilities, and their often collective, pro-active challenges to systemic and personal racism shape students’ academic engagement. Familial and collective cultural wealth of the Black community emerges as a central driver in students’ successful achievement. Finally, the text puts forward key recommendations to demonstrate how incorporating the knowledge and voices of Black families in school decision making, remaining critically conscious of race and racial history in every-day actions and longer term policy, and pursuing collective strategies for social justice in education, will eliminate current opportunity gaps, and counteract the master-narrative of underachievement ever-present in America.
This volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and academics with an interest in matters of social justice, equity, and equality of opportunity in education for Black Americans. In addition, the text offers key insights for school authorities in building effective working relationships with Black American families to support the high achievement of Black students in K-12 education.
https://www.routledge.com/Family-Engagement-in-Black-Students-Academic-Success-Achievement-and/Seeberg/p/book/9780367721770
Reviews:
Returning to the research site of Shaker Heights High School and District, Vilma Seeberg inverts John Ogbu’s questions about Black underperformance to inquire into Black resilience despite formidable challenges. Armed with Critical Race Theory as their chosen lens, Seeberg and the Shaker Research and Parent Team draw our attention to Black folks’ discourses of defiance against despair and deficit orientations. Educational success for their children is precisely a form of acting Black while navigating a social system, including its schools, that does not have their best interests at heart. Family Engagement is a counter-story about education as an arc of hope for everyday people who refuse the long shadow of injustice. One can’t help rooting for them after reading the book.
Zeus Leonardo
Professor and Associate Dean of Education
University of California, Berkeley
Author of Edward Said and Education
This volume offers powerful counter narratives to prevailing deficit assumptions about Black students’ school achievement and levels of parental engagement, with nuanced stories of ways Black families used cultural funds of knowledge and demonstrated agency in actively challenging systemic racism while supporting students’ academic success. Seeberg and collaborators provide rich examples of ways Black students contested racist practices in an affluent and diverse suburban district and how community organizing for educational justice was persistent and in part successful over the long term. Blending sociology and anthropology of education in accessible and compelling ways, this book is a must read for all who are committed to building strong school-community relations with families of color and addressing persistent opportunity gaps in US educational contexts.
- Beth Blue Swadener, Professor, Justice & Social Inquiry and Social & Cultural Pedagogy, Arizona State University
Most students in the United States attend suburban schools. However, most education research focuses on urban school districts. This may be in part because many of the core issues that currently drive education research—issues of race and class inequities, social mobility, immigration, English learning—are believed to be “urban” challenges. In this article, we argue that the changing nature of suburban schools and communities, and the history of their creation as education spaces, make them advantageous locations for education researchers to study many pressing issues and expand the ways we understand the intersections of race, place and inequality. We argue that education scholarship across multiple disciplinary orientations, theoretical foci, and substantive concerns can benefit from a deeper engagement with suburban education spaces and the issues and opportunities associated with them.
Racial minority students who attend predominately white schools in the United States and England face unique challenges in their learning environments that are connected to their status as non-white students. Scholars have documented the experiences of racial and ethnic minority students in mixed-raced schools in the United States and the UK for over four decades. However, the authors explore new research territory by employing critical race analysis to further articulate the similar experiences shared by African American and black Caribbean students’ in mixed-race schools. Using data two different studies, one in the United States and one in England, the authors highlight the resemblances between the experiences of African American and black Caribbean students in predominantly white suburban and rural secondary schools. To increase racial equity in education, we must accurately understand the structural and societal barriers that racial minority students face as they continue to access education resources and quality schools.
In this article, Tara Yosso, William Smith, Miguel Ceja, and Daniel Solórzano expand on their previous work by employing critical race theory to explore and understand incidents of racial microaggressions as experienced by Latina/o students at three selective universities. The authors explore three types of racial microaggressions-interpersonal microaggressions, racial jokes, and institutional microaggressions-and consider the effects of these racist affronts on Latina/o students. Challenging the applicability of Vincent Tinto's three stages of passage for college students, the authors explore the processes by which Latinas/os respond to racial microaggressions and confront hostile campus racial climates. The authors find that, through building community and developing critical navigation skills, Latina/o students claim empowerment from the margins.
Previous studies have suggested that in response to occupational and educational discrimination based on race, many African American students have mentally withdrawn from the schooling process, as indicated by low levels of achievement and high levels of school dropout. By contrast, the present study's analysis of interview data collected from 28 African American urban eighth-graders indicates that some African American students with a high awareness of racial discrimination respond to this discrimination in ways that are conducive rather than detrimental to academic success. For these students, positive racial socialization was a primary factor influencing and promoting academic success. Implications for future research on the academic performance of African American students are discussed.
Many studies provide evidence for the strong influences of same-race peer networks on Black student achievement and racial identity in private and elite schools; however, research is lacking regarding these influences for Black achievers in predominantly White public schools. In this article, the author examines how nine high-achieving Black students in a predominantly White public high school created and used informal and formal same-race peer networks in their school to buffer experiences with racism and affirm their racial identity. Drawing on data ftom a yearlong qualitative investigation, the author discusses how the use of these identity-affirming counter-spaces serve as a positive resistance strategy for these students and allows them to maintain a strong racial sense of self in their maintenance of school success. Findings from this study reinforce the importance of having safe spaces in predominantly White learning environments for Black students to escape psychological, emotional, and physical stress stemming from experiences with racism.
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In this article, Dorinda Carter examines the embodiment of a critical race achievement ideology in high-achieving black students. She conducted a yearlong qualitative investigation of the adaptive behaviors that nine high-achieving black students developed and employed to navigate the process of schooling at an upper-class, predominantly white, suburban public high school while maintaining school success and a positive racial self-definition. Based on an analysis of interview data, participant observations, and field notes, Carter argues that these students’ conceptions of race and how race operates in their daily lives informs their constructions of achievement beliefs, attitudes, and self-definitions and informs their racialization and deracialization of the task of achieving at various times in the school context. Findings from this study indicate that students with strong racial and achievement identities may develop a critical race achievement ideology and enact resilient, adaptive behaviors in racially challenging contexts.
This study purposed to explore whether the strategies used by African American adolescents to cope with perceived discriminatory experiences were related to their racial identity and racial socialization. Results indicated that the degree to which race was central to participant's self-conceptions and identities was unrelated to both approach and avoidance coping strategies. In contrast, the frequency to which participants received socialization messages concerning racism from their parents and/or guardians was related to the use of approach coping strategies but unrelated to avoidance coping strategies. The importance of a more systematic focus on African American adolescent stress and coping is discussed.
James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order-supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials-conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and their descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires. © 1988 The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.
Many studies have shown that academic achievement is highly correlated with social class. Few, however, have attempted to explain exactly how the school helps to reinforce the class structure of the society. In this article Dr. Rist reports the results of an observational study of one class of ghetto children during their kindergarten, first- and second-grade years. He shows how the kindergarten teacher placed the children in reading groups which reflected the social class composition of the class, and how these groups persisted throughout the first several years of elementary school. The way in which the teacher behaved toward the different groups became an important influence on the children's achievement. Dr. Rist concludes by examining the relationship between the "caste" system of the classroom and the class system of the larger society.
Analysis of qualitative data reveals that the formal and informal peer networks of African American students in predominantly White elite independent schools support these students' academic success, create opportunities for them to reaffirm their racial identities, and facilitate their adjustment to settings that are otherwise difficult for Blacks to fit into. Contrasted to research showing that adopting academically successful behaviors leads Black students to being labeled as "acting White," the sampled students made social gains within school when they were academically successful. However, this success did not result in full acceptance by African American peers outside the school. The authors conclude that the dynamics and ideologies of African American peer groups are more complex than prior research has suggested.
The lower rates of college enrollment for Black students make it important to understand both how different high school environments affect college preparation and matriculation and how some students are able to succeed despite the environmental barriers faced in school. This multi-site case study explores the college preparatory processes of nine Black high achievers attending a well-resourced, suburban high school and eight academically successful Black students attending a low-resourced urban school. Findings indicate students at both schools encounter barriers (i.e., racial climate and a lack of resources) that inhibit their college preparation. Despite these obstacles, participants demonstrated resiliency, which kept them focused on their educational goals and desire to attend college.
This book considers in unprecedented detail one of the most confounding questions in American racial practice: when to speak about people in racial terms. Viewing "race talk" through the lens of a California high school and district, Colormute draws on three years of ethnographic research on everyday race labeling in education. Based on the author's experiences as a teacher as well as an anthropologist, it discusses the role race plays in everyday and policy talk about such familiar topics as discipline, achievement, curriculum reform, and educational inequality. Pollock illustrates the wide variations in the way speakers use race labels. Sometimes people use them without thinking twice; at other moments they avoid them at all costs or use them only in the description of particular situations. While a major concern of everyday race talk in schools is that racial descriptions will be inaccurate or inappropriate, Pollock demonstrates that anxiously suppressing race words (being what she terms "colormute") can also cause educators to reproduce the very racial inequities they abhor. The book assists readers in cultivating a greater understanding of the pitfalls and possibilities of everyday race talk and clarifies previously murky discussions of "colorblindness." By bridging the gap between theory and practice, Colormute will be enormously helpful in fostering ongoing conversations about dismantling racial inequality in America.
Background/Context
Despite recent gains from a number of students in U.S. schools, African American males continue to underachieve on most academic indices. Despite various interventions that have attempted to transform the perennial disenfranchisement, their school failure has persisted. Conversely, their failure in schools frequently results in poor quality of life options.
Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study
The objective of this study was to use critical race theory as a paradigmatic lens to examine the schooling experiences of African American males in PreK-12 schools. The focus of the study was to shed light on how African American males believe race and racism play as factors in their schooling experiences.
Research Design
The article includes qualitative data from a case study of African American males who offer counterstorytelling accounts of their schooling experiences. This article also explores the utility and appropriateness of critical race theory as a methodological tool to examine and disrupt the disenfranchisement of African American males in U.S. public schools.
Findings/Results
The results from this study revealed that the participants were keenly aware of how race shaped the manner in which they were viewed by their teachers and school administrators. The data also revealed how the participants explicitly fought to eradicate negative racial stereotypes held about African American males. Finally, the use of counter-storytelling within a critical race theory framework seemed to provide the participants a platform to discuss race-related issues in a manner that many of the participants felt was lacking in their school environments.
Conclusion/Recommendations
The findings from this study reveal some of the difficult obstacles that many African American males seek to overcome in order to become academically successful. Moreover, the findings suggest that educators must become more conscious of the role that race and racism plays in their schooling environments. Furthermore, educational researchers who are concerned with disrupting school failures of students of color and from low-income backgrounds should consider conceptual and methodological frames that place race, class, and gender at the center of their analysis.
In this article, Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy explores how the experiences of Tom, Debbie, and Heather, three Native American students attending Ivy League universities in the 1990s, reflect larger societal beliefs and statements about the perceived place of Native Americans in higher education and U.S. society. Brayboy posits that Native Americans are visible in these institutions in ways that contribute to their marginalization, surveillance, and oppression. In response, the three Native American students exercise strategies that make them invisible to the largely White communities in which they attend school. These strategies help to preserve the students' sense of cultural integrity, but further serve to marginalize them on campus. At times, the students in the study make themselves visible to emphasize that they are a voice in the campus community. Brayboy argues that these strategies, while possibly confusing to the layperson, make sense if viewed from the perspective of the students preserving their cultural integrity.
For more than 20 years, researchers have shown that the recognition of a limited opportunity structure on the part of marginal youth circumscribes their optimism toward the future and hence increases their likelihood of disengaging from school. This article, however, focuses on six, low-income, African-American adolescents who expected to realize their ambitions and were high achieving, all the while articulating an acute recognition of how race and class (and, in two cases, gender) operated to constrain the life chances of people like themselves. These students’ familiarity with struggle, including collective struggle, was the only biographical factor which distinguished them from the other respondents in the larger project of which they were a part. Thus, in contrast to the findings of some, their knowledge of struggle did not curtail their academic success but may have contributed to their sense of human agency and facilitated their academic motivation. Because this knowledge derived from their interaction with significant others, this article also maintains that the meanings that arise from immediate experiences and discourses are essential for understanding the diverse ways by which marginal people interpret and respond to their subjugation.
An overview of racial climate issues at four-year institutions indicates that one in four students perceived considerable racial conflict on campuses in 1989. Black, Chicano, and white students' perceptions reveal common and distinct views in the types of environments that are associated with racial tension. Developing efforts that create an environment of support for all students is an emerging principle for improving the campus racial climate.
Previous literature has failed to empirically demonstrate the conceptual distinction that social scientists make between "dominant" and "non-dominant" cultural capital. This article provides evidence of the coexistence of these two forms of capital within the social and academic lives of poor ethnic minority students. Using in-depth interviews with 44 low-income African American youth, I illustrate how these students negotiate their perceptions of the differential values placed by educators on these two forms of capital. Often, scholars research the effects of (dominant) cultural capital in social reproduction across various social classes, but not the influence of (non-dominant) cultural capital on status relations within socially marginalized communities. By taking into account the interplay between these two forms of capital in the lives of low-income minority students, researchers might develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of how culture ultimately affects the prospects of mobility for lower status social groups.
Analysis of qualitative data reveals that the formal and informal peer networks of African American students in predominantly White elite independent schools support these students' academic success, create opportunities for them to reaffirm their racial identities, and facilitate their adjustment to settings that are otherwise difficult for Blacks to fit into. Contrasted to research showing that adopting academically successful behaviors leads Black students to being labeled as "acting White," the sampled students made social gains within school when they were academically successful. However, this success did not result in full acceptance by African American peers outside the school. The authors conclude that the dynamics and ideologies of African American peer groups are more complex than prior research has suggested.
In this revision of her best-selling text, author Sonia Nieto explores the meaning, necessity, and benefits of multicultural education for students of all backgrounds. The text looks at how personal, social, political, cultural, and educational factors affect the success or failure of students in today's classroom. Expanding upon the popular case-study approach, the fourth edition examines the lives of 18 real students who are affected by multicultural education, or a lack of it. Social justice is firmly embedded in this view of multicultural education, and teachers are encouraged to work for social change in their classrooms, schools, and communities.
Through students’ own voices and perspectives, this book reveals how and why some racial minorities achieve academic success, despite limited opportunity. Based on the experiences of Black, Latino, and Vietnamese urban high school students, the author provides a revealing comparative analysis that offers insight into how schools can create opportunities and safe learning environments where youth acquire real goals, expectations, and tangible pathways for success. Offering alternatives to current practices and structures of inequality that plague educational systems throughout the nation, this sociologically informed book:
* Takes a rare look at urban school success stories, instead of those depicting failure.
* Explores the social processes that enable racial minority youth to escape the unequal structures of urban schooling to perform well in school.
* Focuses on youth’s interpretations and reactions to the schooling process to determine how schools can empower youth and promote the social mobility of low-income urban populations.
In this article we describe the results of a comparative case study of two inner-city high schools located in the southeastern United States. One school, a citywide school with high admission standards, enrolls an all-African American lower-to-middle-class population. The other school enrolls a more ethnically and racially diverse population of students from a single lower-class neighborhood. Using Grossberg's notion of identity politics, we describe how students' racial/ ethnic identity to a greater or lesser degree becomes both a means of resistance and accommodation to white hegemony.
James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order--supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials--conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and their descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires. |James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters.
This book examines and confronts the passive and often unconscious racism of white teacher education students, offering a critical tool in the effort to make education more equitable. Sherry Marx provides a consciousness-raising account of how white teachers must come to recognize their own positions of privilege and work actively to create anti-racist teaching techniques and learning environments for children of color and children learning English as a second language.
This article reviews data-based research studies on preservice teacher preparation for multicultural schools, particularly schools that serve historically underserved communities. In this article, the author reviews 80 studies of effects of various preservice teacher education strategies, including recruiting and selecting students, cross-cultural immersion experiences, multicultural education coursework, and program restructuring. Although there is a large quantity of research, very little of it actually examines which strategies prepare strong teachers. Most of the research focuses on addressing the attitudes and lack of knowledge of White preservice students. This review argues that although this is a very important problem that does need to be addressed, it is not the same as figuring out how to populate the teaching profession with excellent multicultural and culturally responsive teachers.
This research examines the impact of gender on the association between sport participation and students' educational opportunities and outcomes by comparing African American male and female eighth graders, including student background and school demographic and organization characteristics. Unlike previous studies it also investigates the link between interscholastic and intramural athletic participation and “academic resilience” for African American eight-grade females and males using educational plans, peer status, and academic investments as indicators of academic attachment. Data for these analyses are drawn from the base year of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS, 99) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. These data offer evidence that athletic participation can and often does have a positive impact on student motivation and engagement, and that these positive benefits accrue to both male and female athletes.
We examine how race and class influenced the lives of six African American high school seniors who attended a predominantly white, elite, independent secondary school. Race and class contributed to an organizational habitus of the school characterized by white and wealthy privilege. Interaction of that dominant habitus with the dissimilar individual habitus of the students resulted in a form of symbolic violence—symbolic violence the black students knowingly endured in exchange for the social mobility afforded by attending the elite school.
The author contends that marginalization is a major issue for graduate students of color in their doctoral studies. She explains three forms of marginalization, and suggests some strategies for how each can be counteracted. These are physical, cultural and intellectual isolation, benign neglect and problematic popularity. Her analyses are informed by insights gleaned from her personal experiences as a student and professor of color in predominantly White institutions (PWIs), her observations and interactions with graduate students of color as an instructor and doctoral studies advisor, and from the research and scholarship of other scholars. The author makes an appeal for professors of color and their European American colleagues to make their curriculum, instruction advising, mentoring and relationships more culturally responsive to ethnically, racially and linguistically diverse students. By doing so they can teach these students more effectively how to navigate the marginality they encounter en route to the professoriate, and how to be more successful in executing their roles and responsibilities as professors of color.
This study utilized critical race theory (CRT) as an epistemological framework and theoretical tool for understanding African American male student‐athletes' perceptions of racism and the potential impact racism might have on their educational experiences and overall development. This qualitative case study included a single focus group and in‐depth interviews with four African American male football players in a big‐time college sport program at a predominantly White institution (PWI) in the Midwestern United States. These males felt that racism manifested itself in terms of African Americans (1) being denied access to leadership and major decision‐making opportunities in college and professional sport, and (2) being treated differently than their White counterparts. These findings point to the need for further studies that are inclusive of the voices of this particular group and other groups of African American student‐athletes. Further, these results have implications for administrators, coaches, academic support personnel, and other educators at American universities and colleges with big‐time college sport programs.
In this article, the author argues that pre-service teachers may need to reflect about race and pursue racial competence as they are prepared to teach in multiracial schools. The question is how do teacher educators prepare pre-service teachers to pose tough questions about issues of race? Several matters are considered in the discussion, such as teacher reflection, race reflection, and some complexities of race in the teaching and learning process. The author concludes the article with an extensive discussion of critical pedagogy. In particular, the author advances two possible teaching methods (critically engaged dialogue, and race reflective journaling) that teacher educators may find useful as they attempt to facilitate reflections on race and assist pre-service teachers in pursuing racial competence through posing tough questions. In the final section, the author shares a chart that he developed and suggests that the chart be used in critically engaged dialogue and race reflective journaling as pre-service teachers pursue racial competence. Finally, the author encourages teacher educators to continue developing instructional methods and tools that allow pre-service teachers to pose tough questions about issues of race.
While much research that explores the role of race in education focuses on children of color, this article explores an aspect of the predominately White teaching force that educates them. This article explores findings from a qualitative study that posed questions about the ways in which White pre‐service teachers’ life‐experiences influenced understandings of race and difference, and how these pre‐service teachers negotiated the challenges a critical multicultural education course offered those beliefs. In keeping with the tenet of critical race theory that racism is an inherent and normalized aspect of American society, the author found that through previous life‐experiences, the participants gained hegemonic understandings about race and difference. Participants responded to challenges to these understandings by relying on a set of ‘tools of Whiteness’ designed to protect and maintain dominant and stereotypical understandings of race – tools that were emotional, ideological, and performative. This phenomenon is typically referred to as resistance in the literature on White teachers and multicultural education. The author contends, however, that these tools are not simply a passive resistance to but much more of an active protection of the incoming hegemonic stories and White supremacy and therefore require analysis to better understand when and how these tools are strategically used. Understanding how these tools of Whiteness protect dominant and stereotypical understandings of race can advise teacher education programs how to better organize to transform the ideologies of White teachers.
This study of 138 urban subjects examined the role of self-concept and motivation in aiding resilient African American high school sophomores to obtain academic competence. In this study, high school sophomoresfrom an impoverished, stressful background with grade point averages of 2.75 or above were considered academically resilient. To determine resiliency status, socioeconomic status was determined by the Hollingshead Two Factor Index and stress by a self-report measure. Self-concept and motivation were measured by the High School Assessment of Academic Self-Concept and the Assessment of Personal Agency Beliefs. Findings suggest that resilient African American high school students differedfrom their nonresilient peers in the cognitive domain: cognitive ability, cognitive environmental support, cognitive control, and cognitive importance. They also placed more emphasis on extracurricular activities and material gain.
Success in counseling African American men is discussed in terms of an invisibility syndrome and the role played by their racial identity development. Invisibility is considered a psychological experience wherein the person feels that his or her personal identity and ability are undermined by racism in a myriad of interpersonal circumstances. A therapy case is used to explain how this experience helps determine Black men’s perspective on cross-racial interpersonal encounters and supports racial identity development as fundamental to their personal identity and as a buffer against racism. Awareness of the dynamic interface between racism, invisibility, and racial identity development can help the counseling process and effectiveness of our interventions with African American men. Discussion of a therapeutic support group is used as an example.
In this study, we used cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine the personal, situational, and contextual correlates of coping in a sample of 315 adolescents. Participants completed questionnaires at two points in time (1 year apart) that assessed approach and avoidance coping in response to the mast important focal stressor experienced in the previous year. We also assessed temperament, perceived characteristics of the focal stressor, chronic stressors, ongoing resources, and negative life events. The extent to which particular coping responses were used depended on age and sex, temperament, characteristics of the problem being managed, and conditions of adolescents' social ecology. Moreover, approach- and avoidance-coping efforts were associated with different sets of personal, situational, and contextual factors. Youth who used more approach-coping responses were older, were more active, appraised the focal stressor as controllable and as a challenge, and had more ongoing social resources. Yout...
Based on data from qualitative interviews with 50 high-achieving low-socioeconomic students of color, two clusters of important and symbiotic protective factors are identified and explored. Each cluster consists of a series of interrelated protective factors identified by the participants as crucial to their statistically exceptional academic achievement. Using resilience theory, a detailed examination of how these groups of protective factors mitigated the potential effects of risk factors, thus contributing to the process of academic resilience, is presented. Practical uses of protective factor clusters also are presented and explored.
Presents initial findings regarding the reliability and validity of a newly developed self-report coping measure for children. The study also addresses several conceptual issues (e.g., stressor appraisals, cross-situational consistency in coping). As per Roth and Cohen (1986), coping items were conceptualized as comprising approach strategies (i. e., Seeking Social Support, Problem Solving) and avoidance strategies (i. e., Distancing, Internalizing, Externalizing). Fourth through sixth graders (N = 481) rated their use of 34 strategies in response to both an academic and a social stressor. Factor analyses supported this conceptualization of the five coping strategies for each stressor. Internal consistencies and test-retest reliabilities of the coping subscales were in the .6 to .8 range, initial evidence of validity included significant correlations with peer ratings of coping and other indices.