The education system should be in the forefront of the battle to combat racial inequality. The contributors to this book, however, argue that, far from reducing racial inequality, the education system in the UK systematically generates, maintains and reproduces it. Through careful consideration of the complex and pervasive nature of racism (and the practices it gives rise to) the contributors draw attention to the failure of the contemporaneous multicultural education theories and policies. The contributors’ concerns are with: the role of the state in sustaining and legitimating racial inequalities in education; black students’ experiences of racism in schools and post-school training schemes; and proposals for the realization of genuine and effective antiracist education principles.
Education and Racism is a concise and easily accessible primer for introducing undergraduate and graduate students to the field of race and education. Designed for introductory courses, each chapter provides an overview of a main issue or dilemma in the research on racial inequality and education and the particular approaches that have been offered to explain or address them. Theme-oriented chapters include curriculum, school (re)segregation, and high stakes testing as well as discussions on how racism intersects with other forms of marginality, like socio-economic status. The focus on particular educational themes is the strength of this book as it paints a portrait of the systematic nature of racism. It surveys multiple approaches to racism and education and places them in conversation with one another, incorporating both classical as well as contemporary theories. Although conceptually rich and dense with critical perspectives and empirical study, the book uses clear and transparent language throughout for easy comprehension. Perfect for courses in Multicultural Education, Sociology of Education, Ethnic Studies and more, Education and Racism is the ideal primer for engaging students new to race and education without sacrificing the content for those who are already familiar with the field.
Racism by Another Name: Black Students, Overrepresentation, and the Carceral State of Special Education is a thought-provoking and timely book that provides a landscape for understanding and challenging educational (in)opportunities for Black students who are identified for special education. This book provides a historical and contemporary analysis through the eyes of Black children and their families on how they navigate and push against inequitable schooling, ways they are reframing discourse about race, dis/ability, and gender in schools, how educators, administrators, and school counselors contribute to disproportionality in special education, and ways that parents are collectively organizing to dismantle injustices and the carceral state, or criminalization, of special education. Each chapter provides a ground level view of what Black students with dis/abilities experience in the classroom, and examines how the intersection of race, dis/abilty, and gender subject Black students to dehumanizing experiences in school. This book includes qualitative and quantitative approaches to exploring the material realities of Black students who are isolated, whether in separate or general education classrooms. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, DisCrit, Critical Race Feminism, and other race-centered frameworks this book challenges dominant norms of schools that reinforce inequality and racial segregation in special education. At the end of each chapter the authors present practitioner-based notes and resources for readers to expand their knowledge of how Black students, their family, and guardians advocate for themselves and their own children. This book will leave educational advocates for Black children with a clearer understanding of the obstacles and successes that they encounter when striving for a just and equitable education. Furthermore, the book challenges readers to be active agents of change in their own schools and communities.
This important volume brings together key writings from one of the most influential education scholars of our time. In this collection of her seminal essays on critical race theory (CRT), Gloria Ladson-Billings seeks to clear up some of the confusion and misconceptions that education researchers have around race and inequality. Beginning with her groundbreaking work with William Tate in the mid-1990s up to the present day, this book discloses both a personal and intellectual history of CRT in education. The essays are divided into three areas: Critical Race Theory, Issues of Inequality, and Epistemology and Methodologies. Ladson-Billings ends with an afterword that looks back at her journey and considers what is on the horizon for other scholars of education. Having these widely cited essays in one volume will be invaluable to everyone interested in understanding how inequality operates in our society and how race affects educational outcomes. Featured Essays: Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education with William F. Tate IVCritical Race Theory: What It Is Not!From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Inequality in U.S. SchoolsThrough a Glass Darkly: The Persistence of Race in Education Research and ScholarshipNew Directions in Multicultural Education: Complexities, Boundaries, and Critical Race TheoryLanding on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for BrownRacialized Discourses and Ethnic EpistemologiesCritical Race Theory and the Post-Racial Imaginary with Jamel K. Donner
Challenging Racism in Higher Education provides conceptual frames for understanding the historic and current state of intergroup relations and institutionalized racial (and other forms of) discrimination in the U.S. society and in our colleges and universities. Subtle and overt forms of privilege and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability are present on almost all campuses, and they seriously damage the potential for all students to learn well and for all faculty and administrators to teach and lead well. This book adopts an organizational level of analysis of these issues, integrating both micro and macro perspectives on organizational functioning and change. It concretizes these issues by presenting the voices and experiences of college students, faculty and administrators, and linking this material to research literature via interpretive analyses of people's experiences. Many examples of concrete and innovative programs are provided in the text that have been undertaken to challenge, ameliorate or reform such discrimination and approach more multicultural and equitable higher educational systems. This book is both analytic and practical in nature, and readers can use the conceptual frames, reports of informants' actual experiences, and examples of change efforts, to guide assessment and action programs on their own campuses.
Anti-Racist Educational Leadership and Policy helps educational leaders better comprehend the racial implications and challenges of the current educational policy landscape. Each chapter unpacks a policy issue such as school choice, school closures, standardized testing, discipline, and school funding, and analyzes it through the racialized and market-driven lenses of the current leadership context. Full of real examples, this book equips aspiring school leaders with the skills to question how a policy addresses or fails to address racism, action-oriented strategies to develop anti-racist solutions, and the tools to encourage their school community to promote racial equity. This important book demystifies a complex policy context and prepares current and future teacher leaders, principals, and superintendents to lead their schools towards more equitable practice. 2021 Winner of the AESA Critics’ Choice Book Award.
Confronting Racism in Teacher Education aims to transform systematic and persistent racism through in-depth analyses of racial justice struggles and strategies in teacher education. By bringing together counternarratives of critical teacher educators, the editors of this volume present key insights from both individual and collective experiences of advancing racial justice. Written for teacher educators, higher education administrators, policy makers, and others concerned with issues of race, the book is comprised of four parts that each represent a distinct perspective on the struggle for racial justice: contributors reflect on their experiences working as educators of Color to transform the culture of predominately White institutions, navigating the challenges of whiteness within teacher education, building transformational bridges within classrooms, and training current and inservice teachers through concrete models of racial justice. By bringing together these often individualized experiences, Confronting Racism in Teacher Education reveals larger patterns that emerge of institutional racism in teacher education, and the strategies that can inspire resistance.
Racism is a sickness that permeates every aspect of Black life. But if the events of the past few years have taught us anything, it is that America has a hard time talking about issues that create disparity and inequality for Black people. This inequality extends not just into education but also into physical education. Blacks are stereotyped as physically superior and intellectually deficient. They are marginalized in PE just as they are in other aspects of their lives. Through a series of case studies, Critical Race Studies in Physical Education offers deep insights into the issues that Black students face. The text, geared to undergraduate and graduate PETE students and in-service teachers, does the following: Provides culturally aware teaching strategies that affirm the worth of Black students Amplifies the crucial issues that negatively affect Black students Addresses the litany of intentional and covert racist practices directed toward Black youth, thus broadening the book’s value beyond the sharing of teaching strategies The end goal is to elevate the perspectives of Black youths and teachers and to normalize positive experiences for Black students in physical education. To do so, Critical Race Studies in Physical Education provides the following: Eight case studies of situations that expose racism, disparities, and other issues affecting Black students’ well-being, self-worth, and healthy experiences in PE Critical race study discourse that stimulates discussion of relevant issues and enhances learning Reflective activities, resources, lesson considerations, and definitions to help students and in-service teachers use what they have learned through the case studies and discussions Each case study includes discussion and reflection prompts that are meant to lead the way to effective strategies and immediate implementation opportunities. Here is a partial list of the case studies: A white elementary student uses the N-word toward a Black teacher A Black female student endures gendered racism and racial disparities through her swimming experiences A white teacher is oblivious to why her Black students don’t want to be outside in the sunshine or get their hair moist A new PE teacher harbors toxic masculinity, white supremacy, and stereotypes of Black sexuality White student teachers grapple with accepting job offers in an urban area Black students need teachers to engage in anti-racist teaching practices that empower Black youth and aid in their success. For this to happen, teachers need to affirm students and make them feel safe, cared for, listened to, and recognized as worthy. Critical Race Studies in Physical Education will help teachers of all races adopt the teaching practices that create this supportive, empathetic, and nurturing environment—and, in doing so, validate Black students’ self-worth and swing the pendulum back toward a more equitable education in PE.
“A book that both taught me so much and also kept me on the edge of my seat. It is an invaluable text from a supremely talented writer.” —Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed The definitive history of the pervasiveness of racial inequality in American higher education America’s colleges and universities have a shameful secret: they have never given Black people a fair chance to succeed. From its inception, our higher education system was not built on equality or accessibility, but on educating—and prioritizing—white students. Black students have always been an afterthought. While governments and private donors funnel money into majority white schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and other institutions that have high enrollments of Black students, are struggling to survive, with state legislatures siphoning away federal funds that are legally owed to these schools. In The State Must Provide, Adam Harris reckons with the history of a higher education system that has systematically excluded Black people from its benefits. Harris weaves through the legal, social, and political obstacles erected to block equitable education in the United States, studying the Black Americans who fought their way to an education, pivotal Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, and the government’s role in creating and upholding a segregated education system. He explores the role that Civil War–era legislation intended to bring agricultural education to the masses had in creating the HBCUs that have played such a major part in educating Black students when other state and private institutions refused to accept them. The State Must Provide is the definitive chronicle of higher education’s failed attempts at equality and the long road still in front of us to remedy centuries of racial discrimination—and poses a daring solution to help solve the underfunding of HBCUs. Told through a vivid cast of characters, The State Must Provide examines what happened before and after schools were supposedly integrated in the twentieth century, and why higher education remains broken to this day.
The racial achievement gap in U.S. education is a pervasive and consistent problem, an unavoidable fact of public schooling in this country. Because This Is Not for Us is a multi-site critical race ethnography of policy and institutional relationships in an large urban West Coast school district, focused on the practices that created and sustain the achievement gap in that district's schools. In this daring and provocative work, author Sabina Elena Vaught examines how this gap, and the policies and practices that sustain it, is produced and reproduced by structures of racism and race attitudes operative in education. She interweaves numerous interviews with and observations of teachers, principals, students, school board members, community leaders, and others to describe the complex arrangement of racial power in schooling, and concludes that the institutional relationships that create and support policy practices ensure the continued undereducation of Black and Brown youth.
