Rowhea Elmesky | Washington University in St. Louis (original) (raw)

Papers by Rowhea Elmesky

Research paper thumbnail of Advancing Culturally Relevant Discipline: An Ethnographic Microanalysis of Disciplinary Interactions With Black Students

Urban Education, Mar 20, 2020

Culturally relevant discipline (CRD) has the potential to mitigate the disproportionate disciplin... more Culturally relevant discipline (CRD) has the potential to mitigate the disproportionate disciplining of Black students in American schools. Utilizing interaction ritual theory, this research uses ethnographic microanalysis to investigate nonverbal, paraverbal, and verbal communication in three student-teacher disciplinary interactions from one predominately Black high school. The analysis (a) provides the first microlevel empirical evidence of the success of culturally relevant discipline. Then it uses microinteractional evidence to resolve theoretical neglect and strengthen theoretical assertions of past CRD scholarship. It argues that (b) CRD can reinforce learning processes and (c) critical consciousness is a teacher prerequisite for CRD.

Research paper thumbnail of The Role of Communal Practices in the Generation of Capital and Emotional Energy among Urban African American Students in Science Classrooms

Teachers College Record, Feb 1, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of Coded Racialized Discourse Among Educators: Implications for Social-Emotional Outcomes and Cultures of Antiblackness at an Urban School

Urban Education, Aug 8, 2022

Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that under... more Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that undermine the well-being of Black students. This article combines qualitative content analysis and interactional analysis to interrogate how daily interactions between educators in an urban high school in the Midwest may contribute to a school culture of antiblackness. Findings indicate that educators at this school rely on coded and non-coded racialized language to talk about Black students. Further, the article uses Interaction Ritual Theory to argue that the racialized discourse acts as a socio-emotional resource for educators in urban contexts. Implications for schools, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of Improving Urban Science Education: New Roles for Teachers, Students, and Researchers. Reverberations: Contemporary Curriculum and Pedagogy

Rowman & Littlefield Education, Apr 1, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Crossfire on the Streets and into the Classroom: Meso/Micro Understandings of Weak Cultural Boundaries, Strategies of Action and a Sense of the Game in an Inner-City Chemistry Classroom

Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 2003

Abstract: As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” th... more Abstract: As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critical ethnography illuminates the importance of considering overlapping fields to help understand what is occurring within inner-city neighborhood classrooms. While prior attention has ...

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Anti-Blackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Anti-Blackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting

Research paper thumbnail of Coded Racialized Discourse Among Educators: Implications for Social-Emotional Outcomes and Cultures of Antiblackness at an Urban School

Urban Education

Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that under... more Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that undermine the well-being of Black students. This article combines qualitative content analysis and interactional analysis to interrogate how daily interactions between educators in an urban high school in the Midwest may contribute to a school culture of antiblackness. Findings indicate that educators at this school rely on coded and non-coded racialized language to talk about Black students. Further, the article uses Interaction Ritual Theory to argue that the racialized discourse acts as a socio-emotional resource for educators in urban contexts. Implications for schools, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Antiblackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

American Educational Research Journal

Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American... more Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American schools. The cultural mismatch hypothesis attempts to explain this hyper-disciplining by arguing that the mostly White teaching force misinterprets the attitudes and behaviors of Black students, which leads to their hyper-disciplining. Utilizing a longitudinal, deeply iterative, participatory, and critical ethnographic research process, however, this article shows that traditional scholarship around the cultural mismatch hypothesis is insufficient. The analysis indicates that teachers’ misinterpretation of mismatched capital (the traditional cultural mismatch hypothesis) is actually a racialized interpretation of both matched and mismatched capital coming from Black students, and such racialized interpretations are guided by the logic of antiblackness endemic to American institutions. Hence, this research argues for the integration of antiblackness as a theoretical tool to expand upon c...

Research paper thumbnail of Roadblocks on the Way to Higher Education: Non-Dominant Cultural Capital, Race, and the “Schools are Equalizer” Myth

The Crisis of Race in Higher Education: A Day of Discovery and Dialogue, 2016

Abstract The purpose of this case study is to investigate one conduit through which racial inequa... more Abstract The purpose of this case study is to investigate one conduit through which racial inequality is perpetuated in American schools. Using Bourdieu’s theory of capital, this chapter uses visual ethnography to examine the signage of one predominately African American high school in the Midwest. Some of the signs, which are featured photographically in the chapter, include bans on “sagging,” bans on certain slang words, an emphasis on individual accountability, and more. The chapter finds that this school works to normalize forms of cultural capital considered valuable in the White, middle to upper-middle class communities while simultaneously discrediting and preventing less dominant forms of capital. The implications of this analysis are that Black students must gain access to dominant forms of capital in order to experience success in school. Such an analysis asks leaders in higher education to: (1) recognize that high schools often negatively evaluate a student’s non-dominant cultural capital – as reflected in poor student discipline records, low achievement and attainment; (2) consider transforming the college admissions process to be more inclusive of measures of non-dominant capital; and (3) consider how to authentically value what matriculating students with non-dominant forms of capital bring to the campus.

Research paper thumbnail of From the Middle East to Missouri: Youth Oppression and Alienation in Global Contexts

Research paper thumbnail of Maintaining Commitments, Shifting Identifies, and Understanding Cultural Conflicts While Navigating the Rite of Passage in the Science Education Academy

Re-visioning Science Education from Feminist Perspectives, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Collaborative Research Models for Transforming Teaching and Learning Experiences

Second International Handbook of Science Education, 2011

... When Angela Calabrese-Barton (2001) discusses critical ethnography, she describes the researc... more ... When Angela Calabrese-Barton (2001) discusses critical ethnography, she describes the research ... Kenneth Tobin (2006) has conducted educational research that involves students as researchers ...Sonya Martin (2004) posits that “only by collectively [emphasis added] seeking ...

Research paper thumbnail of Crossfireon the Streets and into the Classroom

Cybernetics and Human Knowing - CHK

:As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critic... more :As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critical ethnography,illuminates the importance of considering overlapping fields to help understand what is occurring within inner-city neighborhood,classrooms. While prior attention has focused on the apparent deficiencies of urban schools, such discussions do not take into account the complex sociocultural issues associated with a classroom field. In this paper, I provide descriptive narratives ofthe unfolding day by day events occurring within urban neighborhoods, as well as common practices, shared strategies of action and a “sense of the game” embodied within urban youth as they enter the workplace ,and a chemistry ,classroom of a ,comprehensive ,neighborhood ,high school in Philadelphia. Moreover, by identifying and interpreting the patterns of coherence as well as the contradictions of what is occurring on both the meso and micro levels across these various fields, I offer alternative ...

Research paper thumbnail of “I Am Science and the World IsMine”: Embodied Practices as Resources for Empowerment

School Science and Mathematics, 2005

Those who are most marginalized, both culturally and economically, in society are concentrated in... more Those who are most marginalized, both culturally and economically, in society are concentrated in the nation's largest urban centers and have the least opportunities to be successful in school science or to pursue higher education and career trajectories in science, mathematics, or engineering. This article shares the results of a study in which African American economically disadvantaged high school students living in Philadelphia were hired as student researchers and had the opportunity to develop a curriculum enhancer-a movie entitled Sound in the City. The findings reveal that the students' capacity to act, or their sense of agency, expanded both through the process of making the movie and with the final movie product. During the production of the movie, the youth accessed multiple resources (both physical and human) to represent abstract physics facts in contextualized ways. Specifically, this article illuminates how they drew upon embodied practices that included rhythm, verbal fiuency, and high energy in creating and filming the movie segments, as well as behind the scenes as they worked to understand the physics content. This study urges the science education community to consider how students' embodied practices can connect them to science in empowering ways that expand their capacity for action in multiple spaces. Kareem: Yeah, but then again I don' t like finding the science in stuff. I don't find it amusing. Rowhea: You don't find it amusing? Oh boy. Cuz [because] of what? Kareem: I mean cuz the definition that I be givin' em about the science that's in me [emphasis added] is not what they want. ... Rowhea: What were you saying as your answer? ... Kareem: Science is everything and I'm science. The world and everything in it is science. And I'mscience so the world is mine...

Research paper thumbnail of Building Capacity in Understanding Foundational Biology Concepts: A K-12 Learning Progression in Genetics Informed by Research on Children’s Thinking and Learning

Research in Science Education, 2012

This article describes the substance, structure, and rationale of a learning progression in genet... more This article describes the substance, structure, and rationale of a learning progression in genetics spanning kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). The learning progression is designed to build a foundation towards understanding protein structure and activity and should be viewed as one possible pathway to understanding concepts of genetics and ultimately protein expression, based on the existing research. The kindergarten through fifth grade segment reflects findings that show children have a rich knowledge base and sophisticated cognitive abilities, and therefore, is designed so that elementary-aged children can learn content in deep and abstract manners, as well as apply scientific causal explanations appropriate to their knowledge level. The article also details the LP segment facilitating secondary students' understanding of genetics as protein expression by outlining the overlapping conceptual frames which guide student learning from cell structures and functions to cell splitting, both cell division and gamete formation, to genetics as trait transmission culminating in genetics as protein expression. The learning progression product avoids the use of technical language, which has been identified as a prominent source of student misconceptions in learning cellular biology, and explicit connections between cellular and macroscopic phenomena are encouraged.

Research paper thumbnail of Re/Making Identities in the Praxis of Urban Schooling: A Cultural Historical Perspective

Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Expanding our understandings of urban science education by expanding the roles of students as researchers

Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2005

In this article, we explore the roles of student researchers as they have emerged over 5 years of... more In this article, we explore the roles of student researchers as they have emerged over 5 years of studies on the teaching and learning of science in urban high schools. These studies incorporate sociocultural theory in an approach to research that explores the capital that urban students bring to school and situates student researchers as active participants who exercise agency by accessing and appropriating a variety of resources. We provide examples of students engaged as productive, central members of a research team and describe the roles in which they have participated, from teacher educators and science learners to curriculum developers and ethnographers. We show how the involvement of students as researchers, within these roles, allows them to produce and select artifacts and data resources for interpretation that offer unique insider perspectives on how to improve the teaching and learning of science for urban high school students.

Research paper thumbnail of Forum: structure, agency, and the development of students’ identities as learners

Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2006

In this forum, we discuss the ways in which the culture of science has become conflated with cate... more In this forum, we discuss the ways in which the culture of science has become conflated with categorical groupings of students according to race, class, and gender-so as to better understand how Black female students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds may become alienated from dominant school discourses that emphasize college and non-college bound trajectories. In addition, we examine the power and limitations of creating spaces inside and outside of science classrooms that value student discourses, goals, and ways of being. Specifically, we debate whether cogenerative dialogues can allow for (a) conscious critical conversations that cut across student, teacher and administration levels, (b) expanded possibilities for local action, and (c) the building of solidarity and respect amongst stakeholders.

Research paper thumbnail of Movement expressiveness, solidarity and the (re)shaping of African American students’ scientific identities

Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2007

Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school stu... more Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school students to experience success in science. In this paper, we argue that understanding the ways in which cultural practices from fields outside of school mediate what happens inside classrooms and contribute to the learning of students is crucial to addressing current disparities in science performance. Specifically, we explore the significance of movement expressiveness dispositions to the lives and the learning of economically disadvantaged African American youth. These particular dispositions have been repeatedly observed in our research, and they can be important resources for the creation of individual emotional energy, collective solidarity, and heightened engagement in learning activities since they provide resources for the (re)shaping of identity. Thus movement expressiveness dispositions hold potential for transforming the teaching and learning of these students. Keywords African American students AE Cultural dispositions AE Movement expression AE Hybrid identities AE Creolized science Stop that tapping One fall day in 2001, following our first summer of collaborative research, I called Shakeem, one of our student researchers, to see how tenth grade was going. He was not doing well-in fact, he was getting ''kicked out'' of classes often. As I engaged him in a conversation about what was going wrong, he gave R. Elmesky (&)

Research paper thumbnail of Advancing Culturally Relevant Discipline: An Ethnographic Microanalysis of Disciplinary Interactions With Black Students

Urban Education, Mar 20, 2020

Culturally relevant discipline (CRD) has the potential to mitigate the disproportionate disciplin... more Culturally relevant discipline (CRD) has the potential to mitigate the disproportionate disciplining of Black students in American schools. Utilizing interaction ritual theory, this research uses ethnographic microanalysis to investigate nonverbal, paraverbal, and verbal communication in three student-teacher disciplinary interactions from one predominately Black high school. The analysis (a) provides the first microlevel empirical evidence of the success of culturally relevant discipline. Then it uses microinteractional evidence to resolve theoretical neglect and strengthen theoretical assertions of past CRD scholarship. It argues that (b) CRD can reinforce learning processes and (c) critical consciousness is a teacher prerequisite for CRD.

Research paper thumbnail of The Role of Communal Practices in the Generation of Capital and Emotional Energy among Urban African American Students in Science Classrooms

Teachers College Record, Feb 1, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of Coded Racialized Discourse Among Educators: Implications for Social-Emotional Outcomes and Cultures of Antiblackness at an Urban School

Urban Education, Aug 8, 2022

Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that under... more Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that undermine the well-being of Black students. This article combines qualitative content analysis and interactional analysis to interrogate how daily interactions between educators in an urban high school in the Midwest may contribute to a school culture of antiblackness. Findings indicate that educators at this school rely on coded and non-coded racialized language to talk about Black students. Further, the article uses Interaction Ritual Theory to argue that the racialized discourse acts as a socio-emotional resource for educators in urban contexts. Implications for schools, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of Improving Urban Science Education: New Roles for Teachers, Students, and Researchers. Reverberations: Contemporary Curriculum and Pedagogy

Rowman & Littlefield Education, Apr 1, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Crossfire on the Streets and into the Classroom: Meso/Micro Understandings of Weak Cultural Boundaries, Strategies of Action and a Sense of the Game in an Inner-City Chemistry Classroom

Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 2003

Abstract: As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” th... more Abstract: As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critical ethnography illuminates the importance of considering overlapping fields to help understand what is occurring within inner-city neighborhood classrooms. While prior attention has ...

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Anti-Blackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Anti-Blackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

Proceedings of the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting

Research paper thumbnail of Coded Racialized Discourse Among Educators: Implications for Social-Emotional Outcomes and Cultures of Antiblackness at an Urban School

Urban Education

Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that under... more Despite good intentions, educators often inadvertently uphold systems of antiblackness that undermine the well-being of Black students. This article combines qualitative content analysis and interactional analysis to interrogate how daily interactions between educators in an urban high school in the Midwest may contribute to a school culture of antiblackness. Findings indicate that educators at this school rely on coded and non-coded racialized language to talk about Black students. Further, the article uses Interaction Ritual Theory to argue that the racialized discourse acts as a socio-emotional resource for educators in urban contexts. Implications for schools, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Antiblackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

American Educational Research Journal

Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American... more Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American schools. The cultural mismatch hypothesis attempts to explain this hyper-disciplining by arguing that the mostly White teaching force misinterprets the attitudes and behaviors of Black students, which leads to their hyper-disciplining. Utilizing a longitudinal, deeply iterative, participatory, and critical ethnographic research process, however, this article shows that traditional scholarship around the cultural mismatch hypothesis is insufficient. The analysis indicates that teachers’ misinterpretation of mismatched capital (the traditional cultural mismatch hypothesis) is actually a racialized interpretation of both matched and mismatched capital coming from Black students, and such racialized interpretations are guided by the logic of antiblackness endemic to American institutions. Hence, this research argues for the integration of antiblackness as a theoretical tool to expand upon c...

Research paper thumbnail of Roadblocks on the Way to Higher Education: Non-Dominant Cultural Capital, Race, and the “Schools are Equalizer” Myth

The Crisis of Race in Higher Education: A Day of Discovery and Dialogue, 2016

Abstract The purpose of this case study is to investigate one conduit through which racial inequa... more Abstract The purpose of this case study is to investigate one conduit through which racial inequality is perpetuated in American schools. Using Bourdieu’s theory of capital, this chapter uses visual ethnography to examine the signage of one predominately African American high school in the Midwest. Some of the signs, which are featured photographically in the chapter, include bans on “sagging,” bans on certain slang words, an emphasis on individual accountability, and more. The chapter finds that this school works to normalize forms of cultural capital considered valuable in the White, middle to upper-middle class communities while simultaneously discrediting and preventing less dominant forms of capital. The implications of this analysis are that Black students must gain access to dominant forms of capital in order to experience success in school. Such an analysis asks leaders in higher education to: (1) recognize that high schools often negatively evaluate a student’s non-dominant cultural capital – as reflected in poor student discipline records, low achievement and attainment; (2) consider transforming the college admissions process to be more inclusive of measures of non-dominant capital; and (3) consider how to authentically value what matriculating students with non-dominant forms of capital bring to the campus.

Research paper thumbnail of From the Middle East to Missouri: Youth Oppression and Alienation in Global Contexts

Research paper thumbnail of Maintaining Commitments, Shifting Identifies, and Understanding Cultural Conflicts While Navigating the Rite of Passage in the Science Education Academy

Re-visioning Science Education from Feminist Perspectives, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Collaborative Research Models for Transforming Teaching and Learning Experiences

Second International Handbook of Science Education, 2011

... When Angela Calabrese-Barton (2001) discusses critical ethnography, she describes the researc... more ... When Angela Calabrese-Barton (2001) discusses critical ethnography, she describes the research ... Kenneth Tobin (2006) has conducted educational research that involves students as researchers ...Sonya Martin (2004) posits that “only by collectively [emphasis added] seeking ...

Research paper thumbnail of Crossfireon the Streets and into the Classroom

Cybernetics and Human Knowing - CHK

:As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critic... more :As this nation shifts towards an educational focus of “teaching for social justice,” this critical ethnography,illuminates the importance of considering overlapping fields to help understand what is occurring within inner-city neighborhood,classrooms. While prior attention has focused on the apparent deficiencies of urban schools, such discussions do not take into account the complex sociocultural issues associated with a classroom field. In this paper, I provide descriptive narratives ofthe unfolding day by day events occurring within urban neighborhoods, as well as common practices, shared strategies of action and a “sense of the game” embodied within urban youth as they enter the workplace ,and a chemistry ,classroom of a ,comprehensive ,neighborhood ,high school in Philadelphia. Moreover, by identifying and interpreting the patterns of coherence as well as the contradictions of what is occurring on both the meso and micro levels across these various fields, I offer alternative ...

Research paper thumbnail of “I Am Science and the World IsMine”: Embodied Practices as Resources for Empowerment

School Science and Mathematics, 2005

Those who are most marginalized, both culturally and economically, in society are concentrated in... more Those who are most marginalized, both culturally and economically, in society are concentrated in the nation's largest urban centers and have the least opportunities to be successful in school science or to pursue higher education and career trajectories in science, mathematics, or engineering. This article shares the results of a study in which African American economically disadvantaged high school students living in Philadelphia were hired as student researchers and had the opportunity to develop a curriculum enhancer-a movie entitled Sound in the City. The findings reveal that the students' capacity to act, or their sense of agency, expanded both through the process of making the movie and with the final movie product. During the production of the movie, the youth accessed multiple resources (both physical and human) to represent abstract physics facts in contextualized ways. Specifically, this article illuminates how they drew upon embodied practices that included rhythm, verbal fiuency, and high energy in creating and filming the movie segments, as well as behind the scenes as they worked to understand the physics content. This study urges the science education community to consider how students' embodied practices can connect them to science in empowering ways that expand their capacity for action in multiple spaces. Kareem: Yeah, but then again I don' t like finding the science in stuff. I don't find it amusing. Rowhea: You don't find it amusing? Oh boy. Cuz [because] of what? Kareem: I mean cuz the definition that I be givin' em about the science that's in me [emphasis added] is not what they want. ... Rowhea: What were you saying as your answer? ... Kareem: Science is everything and I'm science. The world and everything in it is science. And I'mscience so the world is mine...

Research paper thumbnail of Building Capacity in Understanding Foundational Biology Concepts: A K-12 Learning Progression in Genetics Informed by Research on Children’s Thinking and Learning

Research in Science Education, 2012

This article describes the substance, structure, and rationale of a learning progression in genet... more This article describes the substance, structure, and rationale of a learning progression in genetics spanning kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). The learning progression is designed to build a foundation towards understanding protein structure and activity and should be viewed as one possible pathway to understanding concepts of genetics and ultimately protein expression, based on the existing research. The kindergarten through fifth grade segment reflects findings that show children have a rich knowledge base and sophisticated cognitive abilities, and therefore, is designed so that elementary-aged children can learn content in deep and abstract manners, as well as apply scientific causal explanations appropriate to their knowledge level. The article also details the LP segment facilitating secondary students' understanding of genetics as protein expression by outlining the overlapping conceptual frames which guide student learning from cell structures and functions to cell splitting, both cell division and gamete formation, to genetics as trait transmission culminating in genetics as protein expression. The learning progression product avoids the use of technical language, which has been identified as a prominent source of student misconceptions in learning cellular biology, and explicit connections between cellular and macroscopic phenomena are encouraged.

Research paper thumbnail of Re/Making Identities in the Praxis of Urban Schooling: A Cultural Historical Perspective

Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Expanding our understandings of urban science education by expanding the roles of students as researchers

Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2005

In this article, we explore the roles of student researchers as they have emerged over 5 years of... more In this article, we explore the roles of student researchers as they have emerged over 5 years of studies on the teaching and learning of science in urban high schools. These studies incorporate sociocultural theory in an approach to research that explores the capital that urban students bring to school and situates student researchers as active participants who exercise agency by accessing and appropriating a variety of resources. We provide examples of students engaged as productive, central members of a research team and describe the roles in which they have participated, from teacher educators and science learners to curriculum developers and ethnographers. We show how the involvement of students as researchers, within these roles, allows them to produce and select artifacts and data resources for interpretation that offer unique insider perspectives on how to improve the teaching and learning of science for urban high school students.

Research paper thumbnail of Forum: structure, agency, and the development of students’ identities as learners

Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2006

In this forum, we discuss the ways in which the culture of science has become conflated with cate... more In this forum, we discuss the ways in which the culture of science has become conflated with categorical groupings of students according to race, class, and gender-so as to better understand how Black female students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds may become alienated from dominant school discourses that emphasize college and non-college bound trajectories. In addition, we examine the power and limitations of creating spaces inside and outside of science classrooms that value student discourses, goals, and ways of being. Specifically, we debate whether cogenerative dialogues can allow for (a) conscious critical conversations that cut across student, teacher and administration levels, (b) expanded possibilities for local action, and (c) the building of solidarity and respect amongst stakeholders.

Research paper thumbnail of Movement expressiveness, solidarity and the (re)shaping of African American students’ scientific identities

Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2007

Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school stu... more Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school students to experience success in science. In this paper, we argue that understanding the ways in which cultural practices from fields outside of school mediate what happens inside classrooms and contribute to the learning of students is crucial to addressing current disparities in science performance. Specifically, we explore the significance of movement expressiveness dispositions to the lives and the learning of economically disadvantaged African American youth. These particular dispositions have been repeatedly observed in our research, and they can be important resources for the creation of individual emotional energy, collective solidarity, and heightened engagement in learning activities since they provide resources for the (re)shaping of identity. Thus movement expressiveness dispositions hold potential for transforming the teaching and learning of these students. Keywords African American students AE Cultural dispositions AE Movement expression AE Hybrid identities AE Creolized science Stop that tapping One fall day in 2001, following our first summer of collaborative research, I called Shakeem, one of our student researchers, to see how tenth grade was going. He was not doing well-in fact, he was getting ''kicked out'' of classes often. As I engaged him in a conversation about what was going wrong, he gave R. Elmesky (&)