School Norms and Reforms, Critical Race Theory, and the Fairytale of Equitable Education (original) (raw)
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The Agony of School Reform: Race, Class, and the Elusive Search for Social Justice
Educational Researcher, 2003
litical commitments of its change proponents. Some of these commitments provide the backdrop for the ideological interests that subvert social justice in education. Education and Democratic Theory and The Color School Reform provide a good pair for undertaking a critical study of school reform. They share common characteristics. First, both books represent an interdisciplinary approach to school reform. Fields is an emeritus professor of political science working with a philosopher of education, Feinberg. Henig et al. are political science scholars concerned with urban school reform (see also Henig, 2001; Stone et al., 2001). These collaborations suggest that research on educational change that cuts across traditional boundaries strengthens scholars’ ability to research persistent problems through intellectual partnerships. Second, both books represent empirical studies that are theoretically grounded. The first is an ethnographic analysis of a site-based reform in Ed City, with the authors engaging models of democracy from Rousseau to Sartre; the second is an ambitious study of the impact of reform on race relations in four Black-led cities—Washington, DC, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Detroit—mobilizing a framework they call “civic capacity.” Contrary to what researchers may expect, the fact that Blacks have reached positions of city leadership is not by itself sufficient to raise the educational achievement of Black students. Third, as already mentioned, both books confront the political aspects of reform, what I have called its ideological dimensions. I will review the books thematically. This review integrates them under the themes they share with respect to the centrality of power and ideology in education.
Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education
This article asserts that despite the salience of race in U.S. society, as a topic of scholarly inquiry, it remains untheorized. The article argues for a critical race theoretical perspective in education analogous to that of critical race theory in legal scholarship by developing three p r o p o s i t i o n s : (1) race continues to be significant in the United States; (2) U.S. society is based on property rights rather than human rights; and (3) the intersection of race and property creates an analytical tool for understanding inequity. The article concludes with a look at the limitations of the current multicultural paradigm. The presentation of truth in new forms provokes resistance, confounding those committed to accepted measures for determining the quality and validity of statements made and conclusions reached, and making it difficult for them to respond and adjudge what is acceptable. In 1991 social activist and education critic Jonathan Kozol delineated the great inequities that exist between the schooling experiences of white middle class students and those of poor African-American and Latino students. And, while Kozol's graphic descriptions may prompt some to question how it is possible that we allow these " savage inequalities, " this article suggests that these inequalities are a logical and predictable result of a racialized society in which discussions of race and racism continue to be muted and m a r g i n a l i z e d. 1
Abstract Educational leaders attempting to enact equity-focused change in their schools are frequently met with fierce opposition by politically powerful parents whose children are well served by the status quo. The purpose of this conceptual article is to: (a) explore the utility of Critical Race Theory as a framework for helping K-12 school leaders anticipate and make sense of resistance to change efforts aimed at creating greater educational equity for underserved students, and (b) suggest ways that school leaders can more effectively engage in equity reforms in their schools. To do this, we examine a highly contested public debate over a recent equity-focused change effort at Berkeley High School (BHS)—a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse public school in Northern California. Using the events at BHS as an example, we argue that change efforts could be undertaken more effectively by: (a) identifying and addressing the underlying property interests up front, (b) anticipating how majoritarian narratives rooted in ‘‘colorblindness’’ and deficit thinking would be employed as a means for obscuring and maintaining unequal access to scarce resources, and (c) focusing on specific areas of interest convergence.
Critical Race Studies in Education: Examining a Decade of Research on U.S. Schools
The Urban Review, 2006
In this article, the authors critically synthesize how Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an emerging field of inquiry has been used as a tool of critique and analysis in K-12 education research. The authors point out that CRT has been used as a framework for examining: persistent racial inequities in education, qualitative research methods, pedagogy and practice, the schooling experiences of marginalized students of color, and the efficacy of race-conscious education policy. The authors explore how these studies have changed the nature of education research and stress the need for further research that critically interrogates race and racism in education.
The Elephant in the Living Room: Racism in School Reform
1999
When serving economically disenfranchised African American children, school systems often unconsciously respond from a racist and class biased paradigm. Teachers often unconsciously operate from a framework of low expectations for these students' success. Society often supports the notion of students getting by with less because less is all the schools believe they can do. The Urban Atlanta Coalition Compact (UACC) is one current reform effort. As researchers engage with UACC schools that are struggling with ways to create better learning environments for African American children, they have observed that racism is a significant factor in the failure of schools to meet these students' academic needs. A 1997-99 research effort explored what could be done as a collaboration of schools and universities to remedy this situation. This paper discusses the early manifestations of racism encountered in the formation of the UACC project during its planning meetings with the steering committee, the boards of education, school leaders, parents, and other parties. Because of these experiences, part of the research was driven by the question of whether the prejudices, stereotypes, and misconceptions of well-intentioned educators sabotage educational reform efforts. The paper also explores reasons for the resistance of mainstream educators to discuss the impact of racist politics, economics, and educational theory on the school's capacity to teach all children. (Contains 33 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. S
Our Separate Struggles are Really One: Building Political Race Coalitions for Educational Justice
Leadership and Policy in Schools, 2019
In this article, we explore political race theory as a framework for building coalitions between Black and Brown communities as part of a shared struggle for educational justice and community power amid neoliberal reform. Inspired by the Black and Brown alliances for economic justice of the 1960s and 1970s and informed by previous scholarship on the conceptualization of political race and the lived experience of being raced in America and its relationship to power, we draw from the experiential knowledge of African American and Mexican American superintendents to better understand how they interpreted and navigated the politics of race as school district leaders in their advocacy for students raced black or brown. We then discuss how political race, and the racialization of power in schools requires more theorizing in education leadership research and provide examples of how the field can deepen future analyses by recasting educational inequality as a political problem rather than instructional or cultural and valuing the experiential knowledge of those who have been raced.
The Story of Schooling: Critical Race Theory and the Educational Racial Contract
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2013
This article is an engagement of methodology as an ideologico-racial practice through Critical Race Theory's practice of storytelling. It is a conceptual extension of this practice as explained through Charles Mills' use of the 'racial contract (RC) as methodology' in order to explain the Herrenvolk Educationone standard for Whites, another for students of colorthat is in place in the USA. At its most general, the article introduces the full offerings of Mills' RC methodology for a study of educational research. Once deployed, the RC as methodology unveils a school system's foundation as deeply racial rather than universal or race-neutral.