Race and opportunity in a public alternative school

This qualitative case-study explores questions about the stratifying role of public alternative schools created for ‘at-risk’ youth by analyzing the school experience of students who attend a single continuation high school and the process of student enrollment and referral to that school. Drawing on the concept of whiteness as property, this article demonstrates how the continuation high school maintained and protected the property functions of whiteness through acts of symbolic violence and the systematic removal of non-white students from the school district’s mainstream high school. Instead, students were placed in a substandard alternative school lacking in material and intellectual resources. Furthermore, teachers, counselors, and administrative staff at the mainstream and continuation high schools alike drew upon the racial ideology of merit to rationalize the overrepresentation of non-white youths at the study school and to ‘deracialize’ the student referral process.     

Dealing with racist incidents: what do beginning teachers learn from schools?

This article focuses on how schools respond to racist incidents, and what new teachers learn from their involvement in those processes. It analyses four incidents involving the pupils of four beginning teachers. The article suggests that in each case, schools either partly or wholly avoided addressing the incident, and that this avoidance can be understood in terms of the colour and power evasive discourse, which is the dominant discourse on race in Western societies, and in most schools. One aspect of this discourse is that racism is defined on the basis of individual intentions, not outcomes. The article argues that it may be possible to adopt a more race cognisant approach with student teachers and staff in schools, building on nascent understandings of institutional racism, which shifts the focus to outcomes rather than intentions. The article demonstrates this approach, analysing each incident in terms of its consequences for the learning of the new teacher, and for the promotion of race equality in the school. While the small number of incidents may initially appear heartening, their negative impact on both teacher confidence and children’s understanding may be significant. The findings suggest that in the changing context of initial teacher education in England, approaches to supporting both schools and new teachers in this often misunderstood area are much needed, and that one way forward may be to give teachers time and support to critically reflect on and discuss their experiences.     

An exploration of teacher attrition and mobility in high poverty racially segregated schools

The purpose of this study was to examine the mobility (movement to a new school) and attrition (quitting teaching) patterns of teachers in high poverty, racially segregated (HPRS) schools in the US. Using 2007–9 survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a multi-level multinomial logistic regression was performed to examine the contribution of teacher characteristics, school setting characteristics, and school climate with a focus on interactions between school climate variables. The findings demonstrated that school climate variables predicted increased odds of mobility and that teacher characteristics, school setting, and teachers’ perceptions of school climate predicted increased odds of teacher attrition. These findings suggest that teacher attrition and mobility from HPRS schools could be slowed by strategic placement of teachers based on their beliefs about students in poverty and students of color.     

How Australian Female Muslim Students Interpret Challenges in High School Sports

Abstract

The present study focuses on the experiences of female Muslim students in school sporting activities in Australian public high schools. Specifically, the study examines how the students interpret their engagement in relation to their Islamic background. The study aims to provide deeper understanding and greater awareness of female Muslim students’ participation in sporting activities within the public high school environment and the challenges they may face. The study employed critical race and social identity theories as an analytical framework. In addition, the study utilized qualitative research methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 female Muslim students and 4 teachers responsible for sporting activities in school. The findings of the study reveal that despite a variety of sporting activities provided by Australian public high schools, some of these activities were challenging for Muslim girls to participate in. The study also found that there is a strong relationship between students’ Islamic background and their participation in schools sporting activities. The study recommends that educators and teachers who work with youth from different background are provided training on equity issues arising from ethnicity, race, culture, religion and other identity categories.     

Distribution,Composition and Exclusion: How School Segregation Impacts Racist Disciplinary Patterns

This paper investigates a broad two-pronged social problem: the persistent segregation and fragmentation of school districts alongside the disproportionate application of school discipline to students of color. Previous work suggests many factors within schools that contribute to the unequal application of school discipline. We use hierarchical linear modeling to move beyond this immediate school context and ask how broader social processes, specifically multiple forms of school segregation, impact the disproportionate discipline administered to black students in secondary schools. Results demonstrate that schools located in more segregated districts tend to have lower racial disparities in suspensions for black students, thus painting a complex picture of the consequences of segregated schooling for students of color. The findings suggest that racial inequality can arise in many guises and that efforts to create racially integrated schools do not release districts from other important work related to racial equity. Integrated school districts should be even more concerned with creating policies and practices to raise awareness of and reduce racial disparities, specifically in school discipline.     

学校教育中传承民族文化存在的问题及对策——以北川羌族自治县的学校教育为例

The Qiang are one of the most ancient ethnic groups in China, and their rich cul-ture is an important part of Chinese culture. Bei-chuan Qiang Autonomous County, in Sichuan province, is a unique Qiang Autonomous County in China, which has an exceptional foundation for transmitting Qiang ethnic culture through school education. However, the county’s transmission of Qiang ethnic culture through school education still faces some problems, such as lack of educational investment, poor teacher resources, lack of ethnic cultural inheritors, and students’ lack of ethnic self-confidence. In view of series dilemmas faced by Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in trans-mitting Qiang ethnic culture through school educa-tion, this article proposes the following suggestions based on our investigations:1 . Increase the investment in school educa-tion In view of the lack of educational investment, we suggest the following measure be adopted: 1 ) increase educational investment from various levels of the government, especially increasing special in-vestment in transmitting Qiang ethnic culture through school education;2 ) raise funds from the public;3 ) have the schools engage in their own fundraising, and 5 ) make efforts to get foreign aid. 2 . Strengthen the investment in improving teacher resources In view of the problem of poor teacher re-sources, we suggest the following measures: 1 ) strengthen policy support from the national level, and solve the problem of poor teacher resources through training teachers in universities for nation-alities. 2 ) invite Qiang cultural inheritors to be teachers; 3 ) strengthen the technical training of the school teachers, and improve the teachers’ skills;4) add more teacher positions, and improve the treatment of teachers;5 ) encourage teachers to devote their life to the education and inheritance of Qiang culture. 3 . To promote the motivation for studying eth-nic culture In view of the students’ lack of motivation for studying ethnic culture, and the lack of people who go on to inherit the ethnic cultural heritage, we suggest the following: 1 ) Beichuan Autonomous County should help the young Qiang people to be locally employed through developing ethnic econo-mies, and to inherit ethnic culture via developing tourism with ethnic characteristics. 2) Family edu-cation should be closely connected with school edu-cation;3 ) to include an exam on Qiang ethic cul-ture in school entrance examinations in order to re-flect the importance of ethnic culture study;4 ) to add some ethnic culture courses in schools for na-tionalities. 4 . To strengthen the ethnic pride and confi-dence of Qiang students In view of the issue of Qiang students’ lack of ethnic confidence and pride, we suggest the follow-ing:1 ) open Qiang language courses in schools in Qiang areas; 2 ) enlarge the usage range of the Qiang language; 3 ) help students to understand the charm of Qiang culture, and let them feel eth-nic pride. 5 . To standardize and promote a common Qiang language In view of the issue that Qiang have no written language, their spoken language is too complicat-ed, and there are too many dialects, we suggest that the National Languages and Scripts Work Committee should work with Qiang scholars and ex-perts to create a basic dialect of the Qiang-a com-mon Qiang language, which should be promoted in school education, just like mandarin Chinese in school education.     

Family–school relationships in immigrant children’s well-being: the intersection of demographics and school culture in the experiences of black African immigrants in the United States

This article explores the types of family–school relationships that promote academic, socio-economic, and social and emotional well-being of black African immigrant children in the United States. The data are ethnographic, drawing on one year of participant observation and interviews at two elementary schools. The findings are also set within the context of an analysis of data from the New Immigrant Survey. The article identifies mechanisms by which relationships between black African immigrants and schools are created and argues that intersections between demographics and school culture are central, particularly as related to the possibilities for relational power, which can allow parents and school staff to transcend persistent inequalities of race and discrimination.     

Challenging racism through schools: teacher attitudes to cultural diversity and multicultural education in Sydney,Australia

How school teachers act to challenge racism in schools is a vital concern in an immigrant society like Australia. A 10% response from a self-administered online survey of government (public) primary and secondary school teachers across Sydney, Australia’s largest EthniCity, examines attitudes of classroom teachers towards cultural diversity, goals of multicultural education, and strategies to implement anti-racist strategies. Principal components analysis (PCA) of attitudes tease out the varied influence of opinion on multicultural education, diversity, and anti-racism. Classroom teachers are overwhelmingly supportive of cultural diversity, multicultural education and strategies to combat racism and discrimination, and these views hardly vary across the different geographic zones of the city, unlike attitudes within the general community. However, teacher knowledge about the implementation of multicultural policy does vary, and is positively associated with the extent of population diversity and socio-economic status (SES) of the communities surrounding the schools.     

‘It wasn’t racism; it was more misunderstanding.’ White teachers,Latino/a students,and racial battle fatigue

This article explores how and why a group of Latino/a high school students identify and explain racism differently over the course of an 18-month participatory action research (PAR) project. To do this we examine what recent scholarship has termed racial microaggressions in what is thought of as the Post-Racial America public school system. Pulling examples from student and teacher interview, focus group, and class discussion data we first examine how these students’ teachers conceptualize and talk about racism, cross-racial relationships, and racial misunderstandings, and then we juxtapose that with students’ discursive work to make sense of the ways their teachers make their conceptualizations known and/or seen in school. Focusing on the K-12 context, this study finds racial battle fatigue may be why students switch between how they label these aggressions.     

略论中国人类学的华西学派

本文认为,学派是一门科学中由于学说与师承的不同而形成的派别。中国人类学是近百年来由国外引进的一门学科,在国内已有相当发展并形成一些学派,如"南派"和"北派"。除此以外,是否还有其他的派别,值得研究。作者论述了中国人类学的华西学派,即以20世纪初到50年代在成都建立的华西协合大学为中心的学派及该学派形成和发展的过程、特点等。     

The Role of Family SES and Language Background in Shaping the Well-Being of Children of Asian Origin in the Context of School Mobility

Using a sample of children of Asian origin from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (N ≈ 1,480), this study examines the relationship between school mobility and children’s well-being trajectories from kindergarten to fifth grade, paying particular attention to whether such relationships differ by child language status and family socioeconomic status. Considering a rich set of characteristics including family and school environments, the growth curve analyses indicate that children who had ever changed schools during these years performed worse on their reading and math scores, as well as being reported by teachers to have worse internalizing behaviors. This was only true when these children were from low-SES families or when their language background was predominately non-English-speaking. In contrast, children who changed schools at least once performed as well as, if not better than, their peers if they were from high-SES families or if they had a bilingual background (speaking both English and a non-English language). This study explores both the risk and the protective factors that help explain the well-being trajectories of children of Asian origins.     

Language and cultural capital in school experience of Polish children in Scotland

This article addresses the complex relationship between migration and education in the context of recent intra-European labour mobility. It considers how this mobility impacts the education and life chances of migrant students attending schools in Scotland, UK. By examining the experiences of Polish migrant children and youth at schools in Scotland, the article engages with the issues of language, cultural capital transferability and social positioning. Drawing on qualitative data from 65 in-depth interviews with school children aged 5–17?years, their parents and teachers, as well as observations in the contexts of school and home, the article points to a range of factors affecting the transition of migrant pupils to new schools and social environments.     

‘You are not born being racist,are you?’ Discussing racism with primary aged-children

Ethnic-racial socialisation is broadly described as processes by which both minority and majority children and young people learn about and negotiate racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. This article extends the existing ethnic-racial socialisation literature in three significant ways: (1) it explores ways children make sense of their experiences of racial and ethnic diversity and racism; (2) it considers ways children identify racism and make distinctions between racism and racialisation; and (3) it examines teacher and parent ethnic-racial socialisation messages about race, ethnicity and racism with children. This research is based on classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with teachers, parents and students aged 8–12?years attending four Australian metropolitan primary schools. The findings reveal that both teachers and parents tended to discuss racism reactively rather than proactively. The extent to which racism was discussed in classroom settings depended on: teachers’ personal and professional capability; awareness of racism and its perceived relevance based on student and community experiences; and whether they felt supported in the broader school and community context. For parents, key drivers for talking about racism were their children’s experiences and racial issues reported in the media. For both parents and teachers, a key issue in these discussions was determining whether something constituted either racism or racialisation. Strategies on how ethnic-racial socialisation within the school system can be improved are discussed.     

Unpacking internalized racism: teachers of color striving for racially just classrooms

Within racial inequitable educational conditions, students of color in US schools are susceptible to internalizing racism. If these students go on to be teachers, the consequences can be particularly detrimental if internalized racism influences their teaching. Framed in Critical Race Theory, this article investigates the process pre-service teachers of color took in unpacking their internalized racism as they strive for racially just classrooms. In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with black (four) Latina (four) and Asian American (four) women enrolled in a social justice-oriented urban teacher education program in California. Data revealed that participants in this study: (1) had experienced racism and internalized racism in their K-12 education; (2) had done self-work prior to enrolling in their teacher education program to begin the process of unpacking internalized racism; and (3) felt that critical dialogues about internalized racism within teacher preparation was essential to develop pedagogy that challenges racial inequality. This study adds to the field by taking a cross-racial approach to understanding the struggles of teachers of color with internalized racism in their own lives. It additionally outlines an important process many teachers of color go through to develop racially just classrooms.     

Border stories: using critical race and Latino critical theories to understand the experiences of Latino/a children

The number of school-age children of color in US schools is increasing, while the teaching force continues to be dominated by white teachers. According to the 2013 Digest of Education Statistics in the 2011–2012 school year, 81.9% of public school teachers were white, while the projected number of Hispanic students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools is expected to increase 33% between 2011 and 2022. In my experience, the issue of immigration is often ignored by the majority white teacher population, but, as I will share in this article, it is part of the lived experience of Latino children. I present my students’ border stories as discussed in relation to Latino children’s literature. I am using the words ‘border stories’ to represent the narratives my students shared about their families’ experiences crossing the US–Mexico border as well as what they felt about the societal discourse around ‘illegal immigrants.’ Critical race theory (CRT) and Latino critical theory (LatCrit) are used to frame these border stories to speak against the majoritarian story.     

‘Let’s make a little drum’: limitations and contradictory effects of cultural approaches in Indigenous education

Initiatives to improve low levels of educational attainment amongst Indigenous students in the Canadian Prairies have long emphasized cultural approaches and ignored how racism affects achievement. Taking up the debates offered by critical race theory, and utilizing post-structural theorizing of knowledge and subjectivities, this article provides a discourse analysis of educators’ contradictory deployments of cultural discourses. The analysis highlights the inadequacy of cultural narratives for explaining the inequality experienced by Indigenous students. I show how naming racism in schools is difficult for teachers because cultural integration efforts are taken as evidence that equality is being achieved, and I trace the ways in which this leads to the naturalization of schooling exclusions and unequal subjectivities. Readers are brought to rethink the integration of Indigenous culture in schools as a singular pathway to student success, and the importance of centering race and racism.     

Advocacy and surveillance: primary schools teachers’ relationships with asylum-seeking mothers in Ireland

The article analyses the findings of a small-scale qualitative study in Ireland that examines interactions between asylum-seeking mothers and primary school teachers, and highlights the significance of teachers’ understandings of asylum in shaping home-school communications. Mothers and children in this study were living in Direct Provision, collective accommodation for asylum seekers in Ireland. The research identifies a number of concerns including: poor communication between the school and mothers, only English being used as a medium of communication with the mothers, and mothers being directly and indirectly excluded from Parent Associations. Interactions of teachers with asylum-seeker mothers demonstrated a lack of recognition that their situation is different from other migrants/newcomers and is particularly challenging because of the because of living in Direct Provision and under the threat of deportation. The research shows that primary schools are drawn into ambiguous relationships with asylum-seeking mothers in their attempts at advocacy and surveillance, as they are expected to facilitate integration, while at the same time dealing with the uncertainty facing asylum-seeking parents and children.     

History lessons: inequality,diversity and the national curriculum

This article explores the continued importance of teaching a diverse curriculum at a time when issues of racial and ethnic equality and diversity have been increasingly sidelined in the political discussion around ‘British’ values and identities, and how these should be taught in schools. The 2014 History National curriculum, in particular, provoked widespread controversy around what British history is, who gets included in this story and how best to engage young people in increasingly diverse classrooms with the subject. The new curriculum provides both opportunities for, and constraints on, addressing issues of racial and ethnic equality and diversity, but how these are put into practice in an increasingly fragmented school system remains less clear. Drawing on the findings of two research projects in schools across England and Wales, this article examines the challenges and opportunities facing teachers and young people in the classroom in the teaching and learning of diverse British histories. We argue that it is not only the content of what children and young people are taught in schools that is at issue, but how teachers are supported to teach diverse curricula effectively and confidently.     

Three cultural models of teacher interaction valued by Mexican students at a US high school

Using students’ interviews as data source, this study explores the interactional experiences of several Mexican students at a US high school in the Midwest with their teachers and discusses how three cultural models of teacher interaction valued by the students impact their affiliation, motivation, and engagement with school. Emphasis is given to the students’ voices to explore how teachers are perceived by them. The study found that several teachers displayed negative stereotypes influenced by cultural and social biases toward Mexicans and the anti-immigrant climate in society. Insights are provided regarding the manner in which Mexican students’ teacher interaction influences their high drop out rate, their low academic achievement, and their low graduation statistics. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need to improve teachers’ cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity toward Mexican students.     

Exposure to School and Residential Diversity: A New Test of Perpetuation Theory

Perpetuation theorists have recently hypothesized intergenerational consequences associated with participation in racially/ethnically diverse environments; however, few studies have considered possible intergenerational implications when offering empirical tests of perpetuation theory. By linking longitudinal administrative, geographic, and census data from students who attended Jefferson County Public Schools—one of the most racially/ethnically desegregated school districts in the USA—we specifically test whether early exposure to racial/ethnic diversity in neighborhoods and in high schools is associated with students living in more racially/ethnically diverse neighborhoods later in life. Using multilevel models, we find that early exposure to diversity in both neighborhoods and schools is significantly related to neighborhood diversity in both early and mid-adulthood and for both black and white students. However, the strength of these relationships diminished over time.