The afrocentric praxis of teaching for freedom: Connecting culture to learning
Abstract
The Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom explains and illustrates how an African worldview, as a platform for culture-based teaching and learning, helps educators to retrieve African heritage and cultural knowledge which have been historically discounted and decoupled from teaching and learning. The book has three objectives: To exemplify how each of the emancipatory pedagogies it delineates and demonstrates is supported by African worldview concepts and parallel knowledge, general understandings, values, and claims that are produced by that worldview To make African Diasporan cultural connections visible in the curriculum through numerous examples of cultural continuitiesseen in the actions of Diasporan groups and individualsthat consistently exhibit an African worldview or cultural framework To provide teachers with content drawn from Africas legacy to humanity as a model for locating all studentsand the cultures and groups they representas subjects in the curriculum and pedagogy of schooling This book expands the Afrocentric praxis presented in the authors "Re-membering" History in Teacher and Student Learning by combining "re-membered" (democratized) historical content with emancipatory pedagogies that are connected to an African cultural platform.
... It is reflective of collective consciousness and responsibility, self-determination, and agency. As an emancipatory pedagogy, communalism is a philosophy of freedom continued through the development of knowledge (King & Swartz, 2016), critical thinking, and an understanding that individual actions reflect in the communities (Lewis et al., 2006) and contribute to the social justice, equality, and the empowerment of others (McLaren, 2015). It extends beyond ethnic messages, values of in-group connectedness, and racial messages of coping in group interactions to intersect with other ways in which individuals are socialized into marginalized positions in society (i.e., gender and low wealth). ...
... I propose an equity-focused dimension of communal socialization to convey the transmission of explicit and implicit messages that prioritize equality and justice. This dimension aligns with the concepts of universalism, referring to the "understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature" and collective humanity, the idea that all people equally belong to the human collective (King & Swartz, 2016;Schwartz, 1992). It is also reflective of an equity ethic, concern for others that extends beyond individuals that share a group membership, to more globally benefit marginalized people and promote fairness in situations such as digital and high-speed internet access in poor and rural areas, environmental racism, and health disparities (McGee & Bentley, 2017). ...
... Exploratory factor analysis supported the multidimensional nature of the scale including four factors with distinct indicators of communalism: PR, CU, EA, and GR. Each dimension is reflective of or congruent with Afrocentric theoretical concepts identified by King and Swartz (2016). The PR dimension is reflective of self-determination, the ability to maintain control of one's life within the context of considering the needs of others. ...
Studies have primarily identified the positive associations between students’ communal values and teachers’ culturally relevant practice in separate investigations. The current study examined African American students’ perceptions of their mathematics teachers’ practice specifically related to the transmission of communal values, communal socialization. It also explores associations between these perceptions and students’ academic engagement and performance in mathematics. Communal socialization is the transmission of implicit and explicit messages, models, and experiences that teach, honor, and reinforce students’ values of social connectedness, interdependence, and common purpose. African American high school students (N = 308, 81% 14–17 years old, 74% female, 71% subsidized lunch status) participated in this study. Exploratory factor analyses were used to examine the dimensionality of communal socialization. Latent profile analyses yielded profiles to explore the varied experiences of students in secondary mathematics. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to examine the associations between communal socialization and students’ academic (i.e., academic engagement and performance), achievement motivation (i.e., attainment value), and social responsibility outcomes. Results were in support of the multidimensional nature of the Communal Socialization Scale including four factors: personal responsibility, community utility, equitable actions, and global responsibility. In addition, four latent profiles emerged, each with distinct levels in these factors: highly communal, moderately communal, least critical, and least communal. Students in the highly communal socialization profile reported significantly more value for mathematics, academic engagement, and perceived higher social responsibility. As a culturally sustaining practice, communal socialization has the potential to shape mathematics instruction toward fostering and sustaining social and community connections for the benefit of students’ value, engagement, and persistence in mathematics.
... 255). With an emphasis on Afrocentric praxis (King & Swartz, 2016), Flint and Jaggers "share insights from elementary classrooms where teachers take up culturally informed principles to foster inquiries of identity, neighborhoods, and activism" (p. 257). ...
... Valenzuela's (1999Valenzuela's ( , 2005 conceived a framework of pedagogical care which includes concepts of subtractive and additive schooling and is wellaligned with asset-based pedagogy. King and Swartz (2016) detailed seven culturally informed pedagogical principles as part of their curriculum based on Afrocentric praxis and knowledges, including locating students, culturally authentic assessment, and communal responsibility, among others. Flint and Jaggers (2021) explored "the impact of asset-based pedagogies in elementary classrooms" (p. ...
... Flint and Jaggers (2021) explored "the impact of asset-based pedagogies in elementary classrooms" (p. 254) and found teachers' use of three of King and Swartz's (2016) culturally informed pedagogical principles helpful in "disrupt [ing] commonplace and pervasive assumptions about urban and diverse classroom spaces" (p. 254). ...
The findings of this inquiry emerged from a research study conducted over two years in two schools investigating how teachers support learners from populations who have been historically underserved by a provincial education system in Canada. Emerging from a focus on how teachers in four rural middle school classrooms supported literacy acquisition through teaching in the content areas, this work revealed asset-based pedagogies made visible by teaching and learning routines that provided learners supportive spaces to grow. Each of these routines was developed by teacher participants to enable students to think, ask questions, make choices, assess their learning, and take risks as learners. The results of this study affirm what is known about how to support learners in culturally and economically diverse classroom contexts and afford new understanding about asset-based informed learning routines that can encourage students to take risks academically. As learning routines have not often been studied in relation to culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, or additive schooling theories, this study suggests a novel intersection with these asset-based pedagogies. This intersection offers fresh possibilities for understanding their enactment in classrooms.
... Our third theme addresses both our first and second research questions. Together we built communal responsibility, a term coined by King & Swartz (2016) describing a deep seated commitment to the success of all group members. While we each taught different courses at various institutions, we held a shared intentionality of expanding our practice as culturally sustaining and activist teacher educators. ...
... While we each taught different courses at various institutions, we held a shared intentionality of expanding our practice as culturally sustaining and activist teacher educators. This intentionality fostered a communal responsibility, in which there was equity in the presentation and thinking of our pedagogy (King & Swartz, 2016). As evidenced in our field notes and recorded discussions, we found air-time equally distributed among group members. ...
... Through collective and individual reflections, we built communal responsibility (King & Swartz, 2016). Analysis of our experiences reveals that the groups' interdependence was central to us expanding both our conceptualizations of theory and practice of CSP and activism, regardless of our varying contexts and experience. ...
Rooted in critical pedagogy and situated learning theory, this collaborative self-study examined how six teacher educators from different institutions worked to improve their culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and activism practice. Data sources included participants' weekly journals, critical friends' feedback, and field notes and audio-video recordings of virtual meetings. Through constant-comparative analysis, three major themes emerged: we engaged in recursive cycles of (re)conceptualizations of CSP and activism, our evolving conceptualizations (re)shaped our practice, and we built a communal responsibility-a deep seated commitment to the success of all group members. This study suggests collaborative critical reflection on CSP and activism is beneficial to practitioners, including teacher educators.
... We acknowledge the importance of psychological research on individual communal orientations, but we elevate this discussion to a collective or structural level to unpack different approaches and perspectives that also exist under the umbrella of we-ness. Our intent in proposing this construct is to strengthen linkages between educational psychology and the broader, richer, practical, authentic, complex, dynamic, strengths-based perspectives on historically marginalized communities that exist outside of our discipline (Carter-Andrews et al., 2019;King & Swartz, 2016;Marshall, 2002;Mitra, 2009;powell, 2009;Tillman, 2002). We envision that it will serve multiple functions: (1) provide a unifying conceptual space for previous and future scholarship related to this topic; (2) prepare the stage for future empirical investigations that assess the constituent elements of we-ness with greater precision; and (3) set the conditions for emergent conceptualizations of motivation that integrate the facets of we-ness in novel ways. ...
... Emphasizing this communal sense of meaning and purpose can be leveraged to support the engagement patterns of students. Some Black scholars argue that one key to making learning activities more attractive is to focus more broadly on students' ontologies-their ways of being and knowing that shape thoughts, actions, and behaviors (King & Swartz, 2016). The communal relevance of academic tasks can appeal to students' ontological beliefs, and can serve as a signal to some students that they should-and therefore will-engage in certain achievement behaviors (Boykin, 1986). ...
... Through the examination of speaking turns during classroom discussions, researchers could develop coding structures to identify when and how frequently students go beyond surface-level discussions of equity. By examining running transcripts, codes may then be developed that build upon culturally informed principles proposed by King and Swartz (2016), such as: (1) highlighting the substantive contributions of ethnically diverse populations, (2) addressing mischaracterizations and/or stereotypic portrayals of groups classified as historically disenfranchised, and (3) outlining how issues of oppression facing specific social identity groups have larger societal implications. Such studies can help to identify sparks during classroom conversations that help students make novel connections between the past and present, with a special emphasis on the extent to which instructional moves by educators (as well as discussion points raised by peers) accelerate the rate at which these connections are made. ...
In this article, we introduce the umbrella construct of “we-ness” to unite a broad array of researchers seeking to design motivationally supportive learning environments for Black students. Drawing from a variety of culturally informed perspectives both inside and outside of the psychology discipline, we outline the cultural significance of (1) Freedom Dreaming (2) Stressing the Communal “Why,” (3) Re-membering, and (4) Steering and Voicing. We explain how these motivationally influential practices are essential for acknowledging and leveraging students’ cultural assets in learning contexts, and for supporting students’ development as community leaders and change agents. We propose questions for future research on we-ness in educational psychology and suggest communally engaged methodological approaches that are crucial for advancing school-based partnerships that focus on the we-ness experiences of historically marginalized populations. We end by situating the study of we-ness in a broader set of assumptions that can guide future equity-focused research inquiry on motivation and social processes.
... Curriculum in PK-12 centers whiteness by privileging white middle-class histories, norms, and practices as dominant and essential knowledge (Au et al., 2016;King & Swartz, 2015;Pérez & Saavedra, 2017). The whitened curriculum, paired with negative media and popular culture discourses around communities of Color, lends itself to what King (1991) refers to as dysconsciousness or "uncritical habits of mind (including perceptions, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs) that justify inequity and exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as given" (p. ...
... If knowledge in schools is constituted as a relationship amongst documents, materials, experiences, and voices, then it matters who curates sets, how materials are selected and made relevant, and where they are positioned in relationship to each other. Curriculum can easily uphold American exceptionalism (Keenan, 2019;Templeton & Cheruvu, 2020), maintain power for a select few (Brown & Brown, 2015;Hannah-Jones, 2021), dilute and/or erase stories of oppression (King & Swartz, 2015), and circulate this knowledge as agreed-upon, objective truths (Sonu, 2020). For example, while some social studies educators have advocated for primary source documents as tools for presenting accurate representations of history, others have urged us to ask which documents are privileged and how they are mediated (Stanton, 2012). ...
... If knowledge is an "appropriation" of the past rather than an actual reflection of it, teachers need to be engaged in intellectual excavation-researching the origins of commonly accepted stories, foregrounding the contributions of POC, and destabilizing the authority of Eurocentric perspectives. Important to consider is whether official curriculum is a revisionist history or accurate scholarship from the stories communities tell about themselves (King & Swartz, 2015;Moll & Gonzalez, 1994). ...
In this manuscript, we recognize that young children learn stories that propagate white supremacist narratives through selective traditions of early childhood curriculum. The role of early childhood teachers, therefore, is to critically examine curriculum for biases, omissions, and distortions, as well as to rewrite curriculum to tell accurate stories and disrupt what Viet Thanh Nguyen refers to as “narrative scarcity”. Through a qualitative study of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) re-imaginings and revisions of early childhood structures, processes, and texts, we highlight the moves that teachers made to rectify, represent and expand narratives related to communities of Color.
... Three perspectives served as lenses for conceptualizing constructs in this study: Afrocentric praxis (King & Swartz, 2016) and counterstorying through Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001;Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995;Sol orzano & Yosso, 2002). ...
... We found King's and Swartz's (2016) Afrocentric praxis for teaching for freedom to be particularly useful for guiding, explaining, and understanding aspects of both the teachers' pedagogies in this study. We categorize Afrocentric praxis as a form of pedagogical love since it focuses on teaching in a manner that is informed by African worldviews, cosmologies, philosophies, and cultural concepts and practices of African Diasporic people. ...
... By locating pedagogical strategies within an African cultural context, the education process is viewed as a shared responsibility of teachers, parents, community members, and the world. This approach requires "re-membering" (reconnecting) knowledge of the past that has been silenced or distorted (King & Swartz, 2016). It means teaching children about the rich cultural legacies of African thought and people. ...
In this article, we chronicle two African American, male teachers’ (fourth and fifth-grade teachers at the same school) use of Afrocentric praxis to demonstrate how the identities of African Diasporic students can be honored and sustained. We begin by explaining the conceptual framework and the context of the school and classrooms. We focus our gaze on the two teachers and Yandi, a second-generation immigrant child, because complex cultural identities are often forgotten and negated in school. We reflect on the pedagogical needs of Yandi as a student whose parents are first generation immigrants to the U.S. We demonstrate how layering the content of African-Diasporic people using Afrocentric praxis can serve as methods to actualize pedagogical love and can be used to engage and invite Black students whose parents are recent immigrants. We conclude with recommended resources.
... Altogether, these studies reveal the need to examine the role that families play in educating their young adolescent children to issues they may encounter in U.S. society and schools. As King and Swartz (2016) note, "meanings reside in the heritage knowledge (group memory) of each culture and that these meanings are identifiable in the cultural concepts that shape what people do and how they live their lives." (p. ...
... During his first year, I noticed the culturally sustaining pedagogical moves he was consistently making with his students as a classroom teacher. I also noticed that the practices and philosophies informing his work were steeped in an African worldview (King & Swartz, 2016). It was important that his students, primarily African and Latinx, developed a harmonious relationship and respected the knowledge and wisdom from each other's families. ...
... That's what I teach Yandi." Yandi's father honored teachings that emphasized "Black thinking" and African Diaspora cultural continuities (King & Swartz, 2016). He shared that his wife spoke highly of the critical literacy workshop where parents discussed issues of race and racism in the U.S. It was evident that Yandi's father, although not present physically, held high expectations for his daughters' educators and appreciated how these educative spaces (the literacy workshop and Valente's classroom) embodied culturally relevant teachings and the emancipatory pedagogy of communal responsibility and centering students' cultures (King & Swartz, 2016). ...
Background
The increase in the number of Black immigrants and other immigrant populations has undoubtedly changed the landscape of educational spaces. In fact, in 2016, 8% of Blacks were second generation Americans. Although Black immigrants may share similar experiences to native born African Americans, there are markedly distinct cultural influences that shape their educational experiences. Both racialized and cultural experiences come to play a major role in how students experience schooling in the U.S. The relationship that Black immigrant families have with schools and teachers can impact immigrant children's well-being and inform teachers. Therefore, it is important that Black immigrant families and schools create lasting relationships grounded in a respect for language, culture, race, and county of origin.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question
I use the insights from discussions with one Black immigrant family from Senegal who participated in an after-school critical literacy workshop where relationships were built among parents, students, and educators. Although there is an extensive body of literature on Black immigrants in the U.S., this research will contribute to filling the gap concerning how Black immigrant parents can be supported in serving as agents of socialization as their children come to understand the way race functions in the United States and how other parents, teachers, and curricula can be informed through discussions with them. This study is guided by the following question: What can be learned about the role of an after-school critical literacy workshop in creating a space for a Senegalese immigrant family to engage in discussions with their children, other families, and teachers as they react to race and violence in the U.S.?
Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis
Throughout the course of the project, students’ participation was documented through field notes, research memos, and audio and video recordings of family workshop meetings. Classroom data in the form of children's writing samples, written response journaling, and visual responses (sketch to stretch) were also collected. The study included in-depth interviews with student participants at the conclusion of the workshop. Parents completed a survey to share their experiences. Data were uploaded to Dedoose to identify codes.
Findings/Results
Three themes refected how the critical literacy workshop enhanced the family's ability to prepare their children for a racialized society and inform other children, families, and teachers: (a) transnational literacies were important in building racial and heritage knowledge for the children, (b) children's literature and film opened spaces for conversation that allowed the family to inform other parents about racial injustices and the importance of African heritage pride and also informed the classroom teacher about the need for discussing colorism in his classroom, and (c) transnational literacies and talk about anti-Blackness occurred within a supportive environment.
Conclusions/Implications
When the after-school critical literacy workshop affirmed a Black immigrant family in their “Black thinking” and sociopolitical consciousness, they were able to articulate their feelings about racist acts and violence and the need for African heritage pride. Findings corroborate the studies that argue for the value of teaching about contemporary movements such as #BlackLivesMatter and the importance of honoring the voices of Black immigrant youth and families in curricular spaces.
... First, we recognize the historical role of educational spaces as sites of Black suffering. We then utilize King and Swartz (2016) frameworks for "Afrocentric praxis," as discussed by Johnson et al. (2019) in evoking a "pedagogy of love" (p. 47), together with the theoretical lens of BlackCrit (Dumas & Ross, 2016;Lewis, 2000) to examine popular-media narratives and theorize what a pedagogy of love looks like as affirming Black youth and youth in the African Diaspora. ...
... In our ongoing (re)imagining of research and teaching approaches, we build with Johnson et al. (2019), who compels a consideration of a "pedagogy of love" (p. 47) as they put to use King and Swartz (2016) six pedagogical principles for "Afrocentric praxis" (pp. 15-17) -"eldering," "locating students (where they are)," "multiple ways of knowing," a "question-driven pedagogy," "culturally authentic assessment," and "communal responsibility" (Johnson et al., 2019, p. 57). 1 Teaching and learning in this way, as embodied stance taking attending to and affirming an "Afrocentric praxis and African Diaspora Literacy" (Johnson et al., 2019, p. 46), involves emboldened approaches situated simultaneously in historicized, contemporary, and yet-to-be contextsin pasts, presents, and futures comprising "Black youths' racialized and gendered life histories and experiences and their language and literacy practice" (p. ...
... Next, the research team individually and collaboratively asked "comparative and analytic" (p. 55) questions of analytic categories, in conversation with our research question; King and Swartz (2016) pedagogical principles for "Afrocentric praxis" (pp. 15-17) that Johnson et al. (2019) put to use in evoking a pedagogy of love; and BlackCrit as a theoretical lens. ...
Recent contexts of migration for immigrant communities from African countries have comprised what sociologist April Gordon discussed as a “new diaspora of black Africans to the U.S.” (p. 84). Yet amid contemporary contexts of migration, popularized narratives of African immigrant youth consistently linger on deficit framings and “emphasize what a particular student, family, or community is lacking”. As the ongoing work of rendering visible narratives of possibility, we analyzed how the cultural and linguistic strengths of African immigrant communities are named (or not named) in popular-media narratives of African immigrant communities. We utilized King and Swartz frameworks for “Afrocentric praxis,” as discussed by Johnson et al. in evoking a “pedagogy of love” (p. 47), together with the theoretical lens of BlackCrit to examine popular-media narratives. In particular, we examine complex meanings of locating a pedagogy of love in popular-media narratives of African immigrant communities in the interplay of three themes: “eldering and communal responsibility,” “language as a colonial modality of loss,” and “envisioning a pedagogy of love as speculative seeing.” We conclude with productive implications for teaching, teacher education, and educational research.
... Such revolutionary sites incorporate the multiple Black literacies and language Black students bring to classrooms. Author (2018c) operationalize the concept of revolutionary love of Blackness by offering Afrocentric praxis (King & Swartz, 2016) and African Diaspora Literacy (Johnson et al., 2018a) as antidotes to anti-Black violence that many students experience in schools. ...
... All four cases draw from Black emancipatory and Afrocentric traditions (Asante, 2007;DuBois, 1903;Fanon, 1963;Hilliard, 2002;King, 1991King, , 1992King, , 2005King & Swartz, 2016;Lynn, 1999;Lynn et al., 2013;Woodson 1933Woodson /1990) which focus on teaching and scholarship that are informed by African worldviews, cosmologies, philosophies, cultural concepts and practices of people in the African Diaspora. These pedagogical and scholarly approaches are conceived of as liberating and healing antidotes for African Diasporic people whom have been viewed and taught from Eurocratic perspectives and subjected to ongoing symbolic, linguistic, physical, curricular and pedagogical violence (Author, 2018c). ...
... By locating pedagogical and scholarly strategies within an African cultural context, the education of Black students is viewed as a shared responsibility of teachers, parents, community members, and the world. This approach requires 're-membering' (reconnecting) knowledge of the past that has been silenced, omitted, or distorted (Au et al., 2016;King & Swartz, 2016). From this point of view, African and African American epistemologies are lovingly viewed as complex and vibrant rather than problematic and pathological. ...
We center and unpack the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Commission on Research in Black Education’s (CORIBE) research validity principle, which emphasizes that the highest priority must be placed on studies of: (A) African tradition (history, culture and language); (B) Hegemony (e.g. uses of schooling/socialization and incarceration); (C) Equity (funding, teacher quality, content and access to technology); and (D) Beneficial practice (at all levels of education, from childhood to elderhood). We present four interrelated and overlapping critical case studies/stories which demonstrate the application, elasticity, and validity of Black emancipatory scholarship frameworks.
... In addition, they join a workforce that has had little opportunity (through their own teacher education programs or inservice professional development) to understand the ongoing effects of colonialism on curriculum, theory, and instruction (Asante, 2017;Au, Brown & Calderon, 2016). This means that Eurocratic (King & Swartz, 2016) curricula, policies, and practices continue to dominate in most educational settings rather than normalizing the community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) --the strengths, accomplishments, values, and resources --of cultural and racial communities that continue to be marginalized, misrepresented, or invisible in schools and in teacher education programs (Baines, Tisdale, & Long, 2018;Paris & Alim, 2017). Further, it is well documented that children of Color are consistently over-referred to special education (Codrington & Fairchild, 2013), under-referred to gifted programs (Ford, 2013), and inequitably disciplined (U.S. ...
... The work focuses on issues of equity in early childhood (grades PreK -Grade 3) pedagogy, practice, and policy. Through the work, teachers, preservice teachers, and university faculty engage together in investigating how Eurocratic practice not only disempowers communities and disenfranchises children who are marginalized, but how it communicates the centrality of Whiteness to every student (King & Swartz, 2016). We worked to develop a cohort experience for preservice teachers and a professional development experience for practicing teachers that would help both groups of educators learn realities of inequity as well as humanizing, decolonizing, and culturally relevant pedagogical strategies (Ladson-Billings, 2014 for change. ...
... Students were adamant that the Urban Cohort should continue. They felt this not only from their course work but from experiences in public schools which helped them understand the need for a challenge to the Eurocratic status quo (King & Swartz, 2016). Their words about continuing the focus on anti-bias, anti-racist, decolonizing teaching using a cohort model came through loudly and clearly: ...
This chapter provides a profile of an urban education collective that fosters relationships among preservice teachers, university faculty, and a local school district. The partnership supports preservice and in-service teachers serving marginalized communities using culturally relevant, humanizing, and decolonizing pedagogies. Drawing from decolonizing and humanizing theoretical and pedagogical frameworks, the collective highlights equity, asset-based, and anti-racist teachings. Insights gained from this initiative and recommendations for navigating challenges in equity work are presented. Implications for teacher education programs and future research goals are provided.
... To counter this, scholars have long called for African-centered curricula that locate African-descendant peoples within the context of decolonized African histories and cultural agency (G. Boutte et al., 2017;Du Bois, 1903;King & Swartz, 2016), reflecting the position that "the education of any people should begin with themselves" (C. G. Woodson, 1933, p. 32). ...
... Because Africans across the diaspora are not monolithic, these principles vary somewhat across peoples. At the same time, they reflect a collective history (King, 2005), so there is commonality across principles that guide African lives (G. S. Boutte, 2016;King & Swartz, 2016). ...
... Kwanzaa's guiding principles include umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith). King and Swartz (2016) also offer African culturally informed principles to guide teachers: inclusion, representation, accurate scholarship, Indigenous voice, critical thinking, and a collective humanity. Together, these principles inform our work and are foundational to the teaching illuminated in this article. ...
This article examines the partnership between a teacher and teacher educator disrupting a colonized early childhood curriculum that fosters a dominance of whiteness by replacing it with the beauty and brilliance of Blackness. We explore the following research question: “What are the affordances of teaching from an Afrocentric stance in a first-grade classroom?” We employ Afrocentrism, which includes African cultural principles as the paradigm, and our theoretical lenses are Critical Race Theory and Black Critical Theory. Our Sankofa methodology revealed that African Diaspora literacies fostered (a) positive racial and gender identities, (b) community, and (c) positive linguistic identities in the work to help children to love themselves, their histories, and their peoples. We close with implications.
... Examples of this other-focused orientation include when individuals value relationships and meaningful social interactions more than they do material objects, and when the needs and concerns of the cultural group are promoted over the self (Hurley, Boykin, & Allen, 2005). King and Swartz (2016) explain that in the Black community, such cultural values are evident in many forms of community building including social movements, family structures, churches, economic cooperatives, and Kwanzaa; and are underpinned by the African ontology of (1) collectivity (the belief that the well-being of the group supersedes the needs of individuals in the group), and (2) cooperation (the belief that individuals benefit as the group benefits). A similar cultural continuity, familismo, is found in Latinx cultures, which represents a strong identification and attachment to persons within nuclear and extended families, and which may involve prioritizing the group's needs over the individual's needs (Smith-Morris, Morales-Campos, Castañeda Alvarez, & Turner, 2012;Suizzo et al., 2012). 1 This study is situated within iScholar, a school-university partnership with a vision to empower students to substantively contribute to the improvement of their social and physical condition in which they live. ...
... In the present study we responded to the call by Boucher and colleagues to expand the study of communalism to include other underrepresented populations in STEM-by recognizing the importance of communalism as a cultural continuity (Boykin, Jagers, Ellison, & Albury, 1997;Coleman, Bruce, White, Boykin, & Tyler, 2017;Hurley et al., 2005). This theoretical connection is especially valuable, given that the cultural traditions and assets of historically marginalized groups can sometimes be silenced, distorted, and/or forgotten over time (King & Swartz, 2016). As a case in point, historical accounts of southern Black schools during the Segregation Era reveal that schools nurtured their students' motivational resources by embracing "a deeply communal and political agenda that sought to elevate the needs of the race through education" (Walker, 2009, p. 8). ...
... Considering our aim to investigate the concept of relevance from a culturally based communal perspective, we deemed it necessary to draw on arguments from established theoretical perspectives underscoring the importance of tailoring school environments to meet the needs of the students they serve. Our framework for conceptualizing relations between communal learning opportunities and behavioral engagement emanated from multiple perspectives including stage-environment fit (Eccles et al., 1993), expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983), the triple quandary (Boykin, 1986), and teaching for freedom (King & Swartz, 2016). ...
With the aim of bridging research in educational psychology and teacher education, we designed a research-practice partnership to unpack the concept of relevance from a race-reimaged perspective. Specifically, we employed a mixed-methods sequential explanatory research design to examine associations between the communal learning opportunities afforded to Black and Latinx students, and their engagement patterns during STEM activities. Within a nine-week instructional unit we provided students six opportunities to rate their scholastic activities. High levels of behavioral engagement were sustained over the course of the instructional unit. On weeks when students rated the activities as higher in communal affordances, they also reported more behavioral engagement. Classroom observations facilitated our efforts to create state space grids that show when and how teachers used emancipatory pedagogies to support students’ learning. We used these state space grids, along with teacher interviews and student focus groups, to develop contextualized illustrations of two teachers of color as they successfully provided communal forms of motivational support over the span of six observations per teacher. These strategies differed based on three key factors: where the lesson was placed within the larger instructional unit, the way teachers interpreted and responded to their students’ engagement patterns, and how the demands of the larger school environment impacted classroom dynamics.
... Indeed, the market's ''we'' stands in contrast to the ''we'' of African American collective struggle (King & Swartz, 2016). The RSD Superintendent, an African-American educator from New Orleans, articulated the prescribed parameters of engagement. ...
... Indeed, this article speaks to a pressing need for additional inquiries into how the plantation regime seeks to control (LaViscount & Jeffers, 2021), suppress (Ferguson v. LDE, 2014), and delegitimize knowledge that does not adhere to the plantation governance and perceptual schema. This case study was limited in scope, particularly relating to everyday struggles for the school pre-Katrina and the author's absence of heritage knowledge as it relates to African American education (King & Swartz, 2016), but the researcher's decade-long work as an educator, researcher, and supporter of youth and community efforts for educational justice at the school provided her with unique insight. ...
Departing from mainstream accounts of the post-Katrina New Orleans state takeover and the more recent “unification” of schools under local governance, this case study utilizes the plantation (Hartman, 1997; Woods, 1998, McKittrick, 2011) as a theoretical device and the silenced archive (Trouillot, 2015) as a method of inquiry to better understand why and how a Black public high school was obliterated. Data analysis indicates that despite the takeover and the damning of John McDonogh Senior High, this school was a lynchpin of struggle for democratic public schooling. Additionally, findings suggest that the charter school movement deployed community engagement, an evolving technology, to obliterate a collective vision that fell beyond the parameters of “choice.” In closing, the article points to an absence of empirical evidence on the all-charter structure, the ever-present use of the city as a laboratory for restructuring efforts elsewhere, and a pressing need for building and sustaining researchers who are accountable to African American communities in New Orleans.
... Research shows how the Jeanes teachers, African American rural school supervisors in the south, sought cultural integrity and transferred elements of their African worldview (such as a notion of "ethos of community mindedness") despite plantation-controlled education during the Jim Crow Era (King & Swartz, 2016, p. 95). As evidenced by historical and recent research, Black educators served as community leaders (Franklin, 2008;King & Swartz, 2016;Siddle Walker, 1993, 2001, fought institutionalized racism (Ward Randolph, 2009), and prepared Black children to navigate a racist hegemonic society (Foster, 1993;Milner, 2020). Research has found that intergenerational teachers have brought a unique outlook enacted through responsiveness to community needs (Dingus, 2006). ...
... She used reflective memos and peer debriefing to better understand how her ways of knowing and being include cognitive limitations and self-deceptions. While African American veteran educators in New Orleans public schools shared cultural knowledge, knowledge gained about a culture other than one's own, in the form of pedagogy with Elizabeth, this should not be confused with heritage knowledge (King & Swartz, 2016). ...
Education research has often overlooked how the long durée of resistance for Black education has shaped current educational policy. We complicate notions of Black public school closures in two case studies from extensive ethnographic research in post-Katrina New Orleans through our reading of the plantation. Findings suggest these institutions have served as lynchpins for the transferal of the blues. Data analysis also indicates that traditional public school closures have functioned as a plantation management device. We encourage future inquiries into portfolio governance models, school “choice,” and school closures to consider the plantation complex and to recognize that post-Katrina education reforms were not isolated policy enactments.
... In these ways, we support educators in examining Eurocratic practices and working toward replacing them with curricular content that "re-members" knowledge that has been silenced or misrepresented from the earliest days of European colonization (Dillard, 2012;King & Swartz, 2016). Foundational to the work is learning how to engage children in developing and using a critical consciousness to recognize injustices and affect change (Ladson-Billings, 1995). ...
... This has been taken up by a range of education scholars. Most notably, King and Swartz (2016), who are highly influential in guiding educators to rethink the Eurocratic nature of educational policy and practice (Baines et al., 2018). Du Bois is credited by some scholars (Chawane, 2016) with coining the phrase Afro-centrism in the 1960s when proposing that his Encyclopedia Africana would be "unashamedly Afro-centric" in focus. ...
In this article, the authors honor the legacy of W.E.B Du Bois by paying tribute to the Brownies’ Book on its 100th anniversary. In a time when racial inequities continue to flourish and textbooks and curriculum lack a commitment to sharing stories of Black brilliance, we demonstrate how the Brownies’ Book holds a critical place in children’s literature. We offer concrete pedagogical connections that honor Du Bois’ Brownies Book goals as precursors to critical race theory, Afrocentrism, and culturally relevant teaching, which are all three bodies of thought that underlie our efforts to build anti-racist and Afrocentric culturally relevant practices in preservice teacher education and elementary school classrooms.
... All students deserve an education and curriculum that critically "(re)members" African heritage knowledge (King, 2018), and which provides accurate and critical information (King & Swartz, 2015). The marginalization of the contributions of people of African descent is a disservice to students and educators. ...
... Utilizing an Afrocentric framework and explaining the importance of PtahHotep's contributions, this research addresses key issues surrounding miseducation, "re-membering" history, and the transformative power of education for human freedom. Originating with the "Father of Black History," Carter G. Woodson, but contemporarily coined and popularized by Molefi Kete Asante and others, Afrocentricity is a social, economic, and political framework that positions Africa and African Diasporic issues at the core of its vision and work (Asante, 1990;King & Swartz, 2015). Advocating for continued improvement of Africa, the world, people of African descent, and the broader human population/family, Afrocentricity centers Africa as a crucial starting point in the human family tree and world civilizations (Asante, 1998(Asante, , 2003Karenga, 1995;King et al., 2013;Wiggan, 2010). ...
“Countering Miseducation: Situating K-12 Social Studies Education within the Black Intellectual Tradition” combines two separate articles—Part I “Re-membering” The Teachings of PtahHotep: Educational Implications of the Oldest Book in the World” and Part II “Locating Early 20th Century K-12 Black Social Studies Educator, Leila Amos Pendleton, within the Black Intellectual Tradition.” Our aim is to speak to limitations and new possibilities in Social Studies education. We address lesser known Black intellectuals, PtahHotep in ancient Egypt [Kemet] and Leila Amos Pendleton, African American educator and social activist, and how their intellectual contributions expand the contours of school-based instructional knowledge for teachers and diverse learners. Moreover, this article uses African-centered perspectives to place key issues surrounding standards-based Social Studies instruction within the context of the Black Intellectual Tradition. In Part III, we conclude with a duoethnography discussion on the aforementioned intellectuals and the implications of their work for the continued development of Social Studies education.
... The first people many BHSS members encounter walking into their schools (the police), foreshadow the school-to-prison nexus operating within (Stovall, 2016). Once in their classrooms they can expect to have their life stories invisibilized in the curriculum (Acosta, 2007;King & Swartz, 2016;Lyiscott, 2019;Muhammed & Haddix, 2016;Pour-Khorshid, 2018), and if they are a QTPOC, 3 they will be shown "they are fundamentally wrong or impossible or don't belong" (Darling-Hammond, 2019, p. 427). They will have to prove their intelligence and worthiness (Gillen, 2019;Love, 2019) as "even within school spaces full of educators, administrators and superintendents of color," Lyiscott (2019) reasons, "the policies, curricula, and general ethos of in-school spaces are deeply rooted in Eurocentric white middle class frameworks, values, and standards" (p. 6). ...
... Witnessing invites youth to continually remember they are the subjects and agents of their stories, capable of not just reacting to oppression and trauma (King & Swartz, 2016) but of radical collective healing (Ginwright, 2015). Listening and releasing nudges youth to reject what has been inscribed on them (Cruz, 2012), learning from Zora Neal Hurston "If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it" (another offered artifact) and to boldly ask, a sister claimed, "Why are you trying to make me forget the things that make me, me?" Witnessing therefore helps youth "change the language of how they speak to themselves" to turn their voice into an "unapologetic mirror held up to society" (Lyiscott, 2019, p. 85). ...
Despite developing curriculum for a youth organization with which I have a long history, it was not until a 7-hour videocall that it occurred to me that “witnessing” might be part of its pedagogy. Something important about bearing witness to the members and their baring witness (confessing their thoughts to us), seemed to be afoot, and I wanted to contemplate with staff what intentional witnessing asks of and offers youth and facilitators. What tools and techniques are being employed? What can we learn from witnessing as pedagogy about nurturing the educational excellence of BIPOC and LGBTQ youth in an out-of-school space? This article lifts up ideas about witnessing as pedagogy explored during gatherings with Black and Latinx women staff working directly with youth through theorizing bearing/baring witness and by describing how educational excellence is cultivated by the organization.
... Lastly, epistemic love of audacity focuses on building the capacity to be audacious and emboldened in persisting and resisting systemic inequities. Teachers and educators are considered elders (Dilliard 2023; King and Swartz 2015), inciting wisdom and courage to create social change through a meaningful learning environment. This type of love is a collective endeavor. ...
This paper explores the concept of epistemic love as a purposeful orientation to resist epistemic violence in STEM education, particularly in utilizing culturally relevant pedagogies. By critiquing the often superficial implementation of culturally relevant pedagogies and the persistent dominance of white-centric ideologies in STEM, we advocate for a deeper, more purposeful integration of culturally relevant practices. We propose that epistemic love—encompassing tangible, emotional, intellectual, and audacious dimensions—can foster genuine, liberatory change and support marginalized students in engaging meaningfully with STEM disciplines.
... Authors in the second wave of research, 2010 to 2017, began to detail nuanced contours of African immigrant youth experiences of schooling in the US (Harushimana & Awokoya, 2011;Njue & Retish, 2010;Roy & Roxas, 2011). Such scholarship conceptualized African-informed pedagogies (King & Swartz, 2015); examined youth negotiating schooling contexts with Nigerian families and peers (Awokoya, 2012); identified Ethiopian immigrant students' transnational experiences in a high school (Hersi, 2012); and asserted the range of educators and teacher educators' teaching and learning experiences and perspectives with African immigrant youth (e.g., Ikpeze et al., 2013;Ukpokodu & Ukpokodu, 2012;see Bitew & Ferguson, 2010;Hatoss, 2012 andKajee, 2011 for such work in global contexts, including Australia and South Africa). Of note for researchers and educators of literacy and the language arts: across the second wave in US educative spaces, Park (2013) studied an African immigrant youth navigating traditional notions of academic literacy. ...
We assert two overarching goals of the special issue in this introduction. First, we frame four key contributions of the issue’s manuscripts to scholarship in the field: (1) providing a review of scholarship on African immigrant youth in US schools; (2) meaningfully affirming and extending diverse epistemological frameworks in the scholarship on African immigrant youth in US schools; (3) rendering visible complexities of the multiple and layered social, cultural, political, racial, and historical contexts that Black African immigrant students in the US negotiate; and, (4) extending meanings of a transcendent approach to literacy (Willis, 2023; Waldron et al., 2023) in the educational lives of Black African immigrant youth. Additionally, as a second overarching goal, we assert this introduction itself, in the potentiality of rendering visible African transnational literacies and diasporic tellings that this special issue represents, as making its own contribution to the field.
... Authors in the second wave of research, 2010 to 2017, began to detail nuanced contours of African immigrant youth experiences of schooling in the US (Harushimana & Awokoya, 2011;Njue & Retish, 2010;Roy & Roxas, 2011). Such scholarship conceptualized African-informed pedagogies (King & Swartz, 2015); examined youth negotiating schooling contexts with Nigerian families and peers (Awokoya, 2012); identified Ethiopian immigrant students' transnational experiences in a high school (Hersi, 2012); and asserted the range of educators and teacher educators' teaching and learning experiences and perspectives with African immigrant youth (e.g., Ikpeze et al., 2013;Ukpokodu & Ukpokodu, 2012;see Bitew & Ferguson, 2010;Hatoss, 2012 andKajee, 2011 for such work in global contexts, including Australia and South Africa). Of note for researchers and educators of literacy and the language arts: across the second wave in US educative spaces, Park (2013) studied an African immigrant youth navigating traditional notions of academic literacy. ...
Our introduction to this Special Issue first situates this special issue, and these times, in contemporary contexts of migration of Black African immigrant communities
to the US. We then contextualize three waves of scholarship, including scholarship
particular to researchers and educators of literature, literacy, and the
language arts. We next explore diasporic tellings as a construct extending such
pathways as a transcendent approach to literacy; in doing so, we undergird the
authorial contributions of literate presents/literate presence articulated in this
issue. Following this, we describe each authorial contribution in the issue in
turn. We conclude with a call in the field of research and teaching of literature,
literacy, and English language arts for diasporic tellings as a means of honoring
literate presents/literate presence of African transnational literacies in ways
that affirm and transcend vibrant pasts and connect glocal worlds for fugitive
futures.
... My sibling[s] don't have the connection i have with my grandmother because they were young … and they didn't grow up with, so i share as much story as i can remember when remember[ing] about our grandmother with them, just so they can have that feeling of knowing her and connecting with her through the stories. Moira underscores complex roles of eldering, braiding the urgency of eldering, multiple and varied meanings of community, and possibilities of memory and storying as teaching, ongoing, and as always learning, affirming, and building with (King & Swartz, 2016;Watson et al., 2022). Moments of family extend within and across geographic or temporal borders, emboldened and extended through and with each telling. ...
We share digital collages composed by youth in Lit Diaspora, a community-based after-school literacy initiative involving Black African immigrant youth and adult collaborators, as one contemporary example of rendering visible the contours of the educational lives of African immigrant youth, among the fastest growing immigrant communities in the U.S. We do so amid anti-Black, anti-immigrant discourse and policy in schools, workplaces, and society in the U.S. and globally. Thus, in framing our inquiry, we examine how educators and researchers, attending to the varied diaspora digital literacies and educational experiences of African immigrant youth: talk back to deficit narratives of their lived schooling experiences; navigate literacy learning across contexts of families and elders; demonstrate social and civic literacies that extend youth's identities; and affirm cultural and embodied knowledge, language, and practices.
... Radical trust requires educators to actively work to repair relationships between communities of color and the schools serving them (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2003;Suk et al., 2020). Radical imagination requires educators and students to create learning environments that nurture the strengths, interests, and cultural values of all students (Dunn et al., 2021;King & Swartz, 2015;Yosso, 2005). During the implementation of transition services, radical imagination requires the dismantling of discriminatory policies and practices that limit students of color from experiences that support transition (e.g., campus tours, AP classes, employment opportunities) are critically examined, redesigned, or eliminated. ...
There is a common narrative in the field of transition; students with disabilities continue to experience poorer post-school outcomes compared with their peers without disabilities. After decades of research and practice, scholars and practitioners have impacted countless numbers of students. However, disparate outcomes for diverse youth still exist. The Division on Career Development and Transition takes the position that if we are to begin reducing persistent differential outcomes for diverse youth, we must examine our current practices and apply anti-oppressive practices to transition planning to ensure we do not continue to perpetuate White cultural norms and ableist approaches to transition. We applied four equity frameworks to transition planning and provided recommendations for transition practice and service delivery.
... ). They challenge the Eurocentric model that dominates school curricula, policies, and practices to normalize the strengths, accomplishments, values, and resources of cultural and racial communities that continue to be marginalized, misrepresented, or erased in schools(Boutte 2017;King and Swartz 2016;Ladson-Billings 2017;Wynter Hoyte et al. 2019).Gay and ...
Multiculturalism is a burning issue in today’s educational landscape. There is a pressing need within Early Childhood Jewish Education (ECJE) to interrogate biases and Euro-centric discourses that perpetuate inequities within classroom practices. The authors apply the metaphor of a “Seder Plate” to challenge the pedagogical models of the “melting pot” (assimilationist education) and the “salad bowl” (multicultural education) that devalue each child’s culture. Just as a traditional seder plate is used to prompt questions and a discussion about oppression and marginalization, the Seder Plate approach can be used to confront injustices and honor cultural differences. The Seder Plate model supports tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, including a) competence in their own and others’ cultures, (b) critical consciousness, and (c) academic excellence. Along with fleshing out the implications of these three models, the authors provide critical questions for social justice, and strategies to implement a Seder Plate approach in ECJE.
... Since this learning approach is a novel phenomenon, it is predicted to be faced with various difficulties, requiring teachers and schools to take some time for adapting to this new approach. Pilot implementation of this approach and constant evaluation can provide teachers for change and adaptation (Galili, 2018;King & Swartz, 2015;Zhu & Bargiela-Chiappini, 2013). The history of blended learning approaches can be divided into four distinct epochs: a) Years before 1983, educator-centered environment: Before the advent of computers, educator-centered environment was the main method of instruction. ...
Learning is one of the most human characteristics and with the increase in human knowledge; the need for more studies in learning becomes more prominent. Blended learning is a mixture of face-to-face and non-face to face (electronic) instruction. This approach aims to use various resources and tools such as multimedia software, simulation, conferences, DVDs, books, homework, virtual classrooms, internet labs, groups and forums to help students in better learning. Today, electronic learning is starting to replace the traditional learning methods. On the other hand, many studies show that electronic learning has several disadvantages and can't replace to the traditional learning methods. Therefore despite of the advantages and limitations of both methods, educational experts have attempted to combine these two methods; believing that blended instruction can be an effective solution. This novel educational approach attempts to use various tools and resources for better learning. In order to support the necessary infrastructures for blended electronic learning approach, it is necessary to use information and communication technology tools. This requires policy-making, legislation and regulations in order to facilitate the participation of faculty members in educational planning and improving the physical environment of universities.
... CRT, developed in the 1970s in the field of legal studies, is foundational to antiracist teaching in its insistence on understanding racism as endemic to U.S. society in general and in the field of education (King & Swartz, 2016) and that societal disparities faced by different groups can be explained through systemic structures (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). CRT is anchored in the counternarrative or the use of storytelling to inform and transform (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). ...
Teacher educators are called to replace the foregrounding of courses from Eurocratic practice to those that better prepare pre-service teachers to use equity pedagogy to address issues of justice. This study analyzed the reactions of twelve undergraduate and graduate education students in a one-semester course that used the lives of Anne Frank and Emmett Till to learn pedagogical insights to counter racism and antisemitism in the classroom. Themes that emerged from the findings were the ways that children hide and are made visible in classrooms and the role of the teacher in this phenomenon; the importance of respecting and partnering with families; the benefits of teaching through stories, teaching against the grain, and recognizing the ability of children to use critical thinking to support change; and the impact of a professor’s ability to “cross borders” through authentic dialog and model how to have weighty conversations with practical applications.
... For educators, this means examining the underpinnings of corporate privatization, self-interests, and discussing how racist policies affect the way students learn and live. In the pursuit of educational freedom, teachers can imagine ways to disrupt pedagogical practices that are perpetuated by White supremacy by learning and using students' cultural knowledge to center learning in their own history and heritage (King & Swartz, 2015). ...
In the United States of America, the year 2020 will be remembered as a year of sorrow, infection, greed, violence, loss, devastation, protest, resistance, and death. The tragedies of this year were made possible by America’s long history and obsession with anti-Blackness, racism, white supremacy, violence, and capitalism. America’s schools, populated by Black, Brown, and Indigenous children for centuries, have ensured the wrath of this rage. With this amount and scale of oppression, we argue that there is no need to (re)imagine or reform schools; instead, we need to abolish schools with a radical doctrine. We use the word radical as civil rights and community organizer icon Ella Baker defined it: “[R]adical in its original meaning—getting down to and understanding the root cause. It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.” A Radical Doctrine: Abolitionist Education in Hard Times establishes a set of principles needed to abolish schools based on radical joy, radical trust, radical imagination, and radical disruption.
The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism bring into sharp relief the urgent need to integrate anti-racism into the study and praxis of graphic medicine. The article’s approach to “cripping graphic medicine” brings together Black feminist disability studies and comics studies, foregrounding Black comics theorists and creators. The focus is on Damian Duffy and John Jennings’s graphic adaptations of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and Victor LaValle’s Destroyer , examining how they employ non-realist conventions of speculative fiction and horror to represent racial injustice and the body in effective ways for social justice-oriented conversations in health humanities’ classrooms and beyond. The article also shares experiences facilitating student-centered discussion of these texts in undergraduate courses and highlights student interpretations as evidence of the comics medium’s ability to foster reflective dialogue and collaborative learning around topics of racism, medicine, disability, and creative storytelling.
Afrocentrism is a perspective wherein phenomena, ideas, events, and cultures that influence the lives of people of African descent are centered within the epistemologies of the African descent communities. Afrocentrism as a socialization mechanism for youth has been increasingly endorsed by African descent communities globally but remains nascent within youth studies literature on adolescent development. The omission of Afrocentrism as a perspective on youth development represents an oversight of culturally responsive, anti-racist research with African-descent youth populations. This conceptual article revisits Afrocentrism as a perspective to envision healthy development of Black youth. In doing so, the authors propose that positive development among Black youth intersects not only with the reality of youth developmental universalisms and race-related concerns, but also that Africanness and associated philosophical underpinnings, as will be described, are central to their healthy development. Historical, theoretical, and findings from exemplar Afrocentric programs are presented, with implications for future scholarship.
This paper is part of a larger NSF funded research project that situates the lived experiences and narratives of African Americans and Black heritage in the K-12 science curriculum. In this publication I've created the science standards for inclusion in the science curricula as well as provided a sample of the science content used in this project. I also show how this work can support and be supported by the Next Generation Science Standards. Use the link to view the entire abstract for this publication.
Although recent literature has emphasized the value of African-centered schools among Black youth, little is known about the factors that make Afrocentric schools successful. The current study examined experienced educators’ perceptions of their PK − 8 Afrocentric schools using a qualitative focus group interview (n = 7). Drawing from care ethics and the Integrative Model for the Study of Stress in Black American Families, researchers identified three key themes: (1) the formative Influence of upbringing experiences inspiring many educators to work at Afrocentric schools; (2) educators’ understanding of the utility of Afrocentric education as foundational to student development and building a community of care; and (3) the dual and synergistic influence of both racial and cultural socialization on educators’ outlook of students’ character development. Recommendations for future research and practice are discussed.
Black South Africans have been widely described in the popular media as having anti-foreigner sentiments, particularly towards African migrants in the country. Anchored on labels such as “makwerekwere” (a derogatory word used to describe African migrants in the country) and “foreigner”, such sentiments have unfortunately resulted in waves of violent attacks on African migrants leading to loss of lives and properties. These actions have been described as being “Afrophobic”, “Black on Black” Violence and a new form of racism in South Africa. We contend that these vices cannot be divorced from the history of Apartheid which fostered a system of fear of and mistrust for other foreign African nationals through isolating black South Africans from the international community. In this paper, we employ Kenneth Waltz’s levels of analysis as an analytical framework to examine the conceptualisations of Afrophobia, “black on black” violence and the so-called new racism in South Africa. Using Bronwyn Harris’ thematic classifications of the various hypotheses of the causes of xenophobia, we analyse the rationale behind the increasing anti-migrant tendencies of black South Africans. Going beyond this analysis, the paper examines how adult education could help promote tolerance and co-existence between South Africans and foreign nationals.
Since its introduction as an analytic and theoretical tool for the examination of racism in education, CRT scholarship has proliferated as the most visible critical theory of race in educational research. Whereas CRT’s popularity can be viewed as a welcome sign, scholars continually caution against its misappropriation and overuse, which dilute its criticality. We draw from the cautionary ethos of this canon of literature as the impetus for examining CRT’s terrain in social studies education research. Starting from Ladson-Billings’s watershed edited CRT text on race and social studies in 2003, this study provides a comprehensive theoretical review of scholarly literature in the social studies education field pertinent to the nexus of CRT, racialized citizenship, and race(ism). To guide our review, we asked how social studies education scholars have defined and used CRT as an analytic and theoretical framework in social studies education research from 2004 to 2019, as well as how scholars have positioned CRT within social studies education research to foreground the relationship between citizenship and race. Overall, findings from our theoretical review illustrated that contrary to the proliferation of CRT in educational research, CRT was slow to catch on as a theoretical and analytic framework in social studies education, as only seven of the articles in our analysis were published between 2004 and 2010. However, CRT emerged as a viable framework for the examination of race, racism, and racialized citizenship between 2011 and 2019, with a majority of these studies emphasizing (a) the centrality of race as a core tenet of CRT, (b) idealist interrogations of race, (c) the perspectives of teachers of color and White teachers in learning how to teach about race, and (d) the role of race and racism in curricular analyses that serve as counternarrative to the master script of the nation’s linear social progress in social studies education.
In this essay, we center hip-hop culture and Black cultural legacies. We envision and offer a two-fold framework which illuminates the intersection between the two. We explore ways that the Black cultural experience (or better yet Black cultural praxis) has always brilliantly and organically demonstrated the shape and form of a scholarship of consequence. Black cultural praxis, or reflective action with a Black emancipatory influence, has always allowed freedom of movement, freedom of body, freedom of tongue, and freedom of voice. We translate what this cultural praxis teaches and urges regarding the transformation, unbinding, and freeing of both educators and educational spaces. We demonstrate how the intersection of hip-hop culture and Black cultural legacies can be instructive and transformative to educators. We invite educators to reimagine their classroom spaces by not only focusing on learning about hip hop but from it as well.
In this final chapter, we connect the findings of the study to curriculumCurriculumand instructionInstruction, and policy reformPolicy reform. EthiopiaEthiopia is regarded as the cradle of human civilizationCivilization and as such, its cultural influence is of great importance. However, this is often omitted from educationEducation discourse. Thus, our study’s findings have implications for policy makersPolicy makers, community activistsCommunity activists, and educators who are committed to improving the educational outcomes of diverse learners. The findings also suggest a need for further research regarding the impact of acculturationAcculturationand assimilationAssimilationof immigrantImmigrants students in schoolsSchool and society.
This chapter provides a detailed discussion on the theoretical framework and background for the book and the study on Ethiopian immigrantsImmigrants in the U.SUnited States (US). This chapter develops critical race feminismCritical race feminism (CRF) (CRF) and AfrocentricityAfrocentricity as theoretical lens for our discussion. Additionally, using CRFCritical race feminism (CRF) and Afrocentricity, the chapters provide cultural context for EthiopiaEthiopia and Ethiopians as immigrants’ experiences. It also discusses racial and ethnic relations, identityIdentity development, and cultural conflicts in the U.SUnited States (US).
In this chapter, we provide background on Ethiopian history as context for our investigation regarding Ethiopian immigrantsImmigrants in the U.SUnited States (US). This case studyCase study provides analysis for educators, public policy makersPolicy makers, and social change agents with information to support and assist Ethiopian womenWomen with their transition into U.S. schoolsSchool and society. Using critical race feminismCritical race feminism (CRF)and AfrocentricityAfrocentricity theory as guiding frameworks for the entire book, we analyze raceRace and the effects of acculturationAcculturationand assimilationAssimilation on school achievementAchievement, identityIdentity development, and concepts of beauty among Ethiopian immigrantImmigrantswomenWomen.
Ongoing controversy debates whether public schools should implement critical pedagogy—curricula centering on the perspectives of marginalized peoples. Despite much contention, students (particularly racially marginalized students) enrolled in courses that employ critical pedagogy demonstrate more school engagement, higher grade point averages (GPAs), and more civic engagement than students who do not. Building on previous reviews, this article briefly summarizes the history and controversy of critical pedagogy, evaluates the scientific evidence surrounding it, and offers suggestions on how to make the most of critical pedagogy in academic curricula.
Guided by Kalamu ya Salaam’s Revolutionary Love poem, this article theorizes 3 tenets of revolutionary love in education: (a) self-examination, (b) interconnectedness, and (c) liberation. The authors, a teacher educator, educational consultant, inservice, and preservice teacher will conceptualize how they enact these tenets in teacher education and early childhood education and provide implications and recommendations for practice.
Introductory mathematics courses, including precalculus and calculus, largely influence Black and Latin* students’ persistence and sense of belonging in STEM. However, prior research on instruction in these courses for advancing more equitable outcomes is limited. This paper presents findings from a study of 18 Black and Latin* students’ perceptions of introductory mathematics instruction as a racialized and gendered experience at a large, public, and historically white research university. Sociological perspectives of logics and mechanisms of inequality guided an analysis of Black and Latin* students’ group interview responses on how instruction perpetuates racial and gendered oppression. Two logics were identified: (i) Instructors hold more mathematical authority than students in classrooms; and (ii) Calculus coursework is used to weed out students ‘not cut out’ for STEM. These logics, coupled with the influence of broader sociohistorical forces (e.g., cultural scripts of behavior, stereotypes), gave rise to mechanisms of inequality through seemingly neutral instructional practices that reinforce racial-gendered distribution of classroom participation and STEM persistence. Our findings inform implications for STEM higher education researchers and mathematics faculty to inform and promote socially affirming STEM instruction, especially in introductory courses.
Africa is the cradle of civilization, yet its rich history and culture is undertaught—especially in elementary P-5 classrooms. In this article, we share Adinkra symbols from West Africa which can be used for interdisciplinary instruction and classroom management. We offer Adinkra symbols as an organizing theme for teaching in the spirit of not only learning about Africa, but also learning from Africa as well. We discuss the origin and purpose of Adinkra symbols. Next, we share classroom examples provided by four teachers. We also present examples from Drs. Diaspora curriculum created by two of the authors who are teacher educators. We invite educators to use Adinkra principles across all grade levels and ethnic and cultural groups to go back to Africa in substantive, non-stereotypical and relevant ways.
Some of the conceptual connections between general curriculum theory and multicultural education are traced, guided by the concept model of education and curriculum theory developed by George Beauchamp. The major premise is that multicultural education is consistent with, and actually a continuation of, some trends that have long-standing precedents in the United States. Multicultural education is further asserted to be compatible with the basic egalitarian principles of democracy and valuable in translating some of the fundamental ideas of American education into practice. Reviewing the literature makes it clear that developments in multicultural education scholarship meet the general criteria of curriculum theorizing in that the key concepts and parameters of the field have been defined and models and subtheories have been developed. Multicultural education is on its way to becoming a mature curriculum theory in its own right. Educational equity and excellence for all children cannot be obtained without the incorporation of cultural pluralism in all aspects of the educational process, and this will require more exploration of the connections between curricular innovations and elements of multicultural education. (Contains 145 references.) (SLD)
The present study sought to further establish that contextual factors informed by certain postulated cultural experiences could influence performance on a learning task. Towards this end, low income Afro-American and Euro-American children learned to pair pictures in an acquisition context that allowed for them to coordinate movement with music (High Movement Expressive [HME]) and in an acquisition context which allowed for little movement opportunity and no music (Low Movement Expressive [LME]). Children were subsequently tested for picture pair retention in a context where music was present or in a context where music was absent. The findings revealed that Afro-American children's tested performance was superior with the HME acquisition context, while Euro-American children's performance was superior with the LME context. In addition, music present at testing context seemed to have an independent enhancing effect only on Afro-American children's performance. The cultural and educational implications of these findings are discussed as are recommendations for future research.
It has come to be widely accepted that slavery prevailed on the African continent before the arrival of the Europeans, and this indigenous slavery is said to have facilitated the rise and progress of the Atlantic slave-trade. According to P. D. Rinchon, ‘from the earliest days of the trade, the majority of the Negroes were living in a state of servitude, and the native chiefs did not have far to seek for the human merchandise’. Daniel Mannix, in one of the most recent accounts of the Atlantic slave-trade, contends that ‘many of the Negroes transported to America had been slaves in Africa, born to captivity. Slavery in Africa was an ancient and widespread institution, but it was especially prevalent in the Sudan.’ In the opinion of J. D. Fage, ‘the presence of a slave class among the coastal peoples meant that there was already a class of human beings who could be sold to Europeans if there was an incentive to do so… So the coastal merchants began by selling the domestic slaves in their own tribes.’ The main purpose of this brief study is to test these generalizations with evidence taken from the Upper Guinea Coast—the region between the Gambia and Cape Mount.
Without slaves from Africa, reported an early Portuguese source, ʽit is impossible to do anything in Brazilʼ Although prior arrivals are suspected, the first known landing of slaves from Africa on Brazilian soil took place in 1552. In 1580, five years after the founding of Loanda and on the eve of Brazil's sugar boom, there were no fewer than 10,000 Africans in Brazil. Fifty years later, Pernambuco alone imported 4,400 slaves annually from Africa. It also contained 150 engenhos, or a third of the total sugar-mill and plantation complex in Brazil. In 1630, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) captured Pernambuco, and within a decade Portugal had abandoned Brazil to the Dutch. It was ultimately the decision of local settlers, the moradores, to fight the West India Company that led to restoration of Portuguese control in 1654. The Dutch retreat from Brazil, however, was secured through a joint Afro-Portuguese effort which gave the Black Regiment of Henrique Dias its colonial fame. If early settlement and a sugar-based economy could not have been sustained without the African labourer, neither could the Portuguese continue to hold Brazil without the African soldier. The subsequent evolution of Brazil is no less a story of Euro-African enterprise. Exploitation of gold and diamonds in the eighteenth century, pioneering shifts of population from the coast to the interior, dilution of monoculture, formation of mining states or advent of an abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century were all dependent on the same combination. The blend of race, language and culture in contemporary Brazil confirms this evolution.