Derrick Bell,CRT, and educational leadership 1995–present

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a centered conceptual framework to understand American education and reform (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Solorzano and Yosso; 2001; Decuir and Dixon 2004). Indeed, educational leadership scholars have not been far behind in recognizing the explicative and powerful role of CRT studies in their work (Lopez 2003; Parker and Villalpando 2007). As we acknowledge the role of CRT, we cannot do so without reflecting on the life and works of the quintessential Critical Legal Studies (CLS) scholar Derrick Bell (1930–2011). In this article, we use Bell’s collective works to analyze current trends and research in educational leadership. We bring his works into conversation not only with conceptions of instructional and distributed leadership, but with the palpability that CRT has on the current state of educational reform. More specifically, we use Bell’s theories of interest convergence and conversations around ‘racial remedies’ to understand two recent trends in educational leadership: discourses of social justice leadership and the move toward data-driven leadership behaviors. We ask questions like: what has been the impact of research discourses social justice on the education of African American and Latino urban youth? And, how has the current social structures benefited from such discourses? We conclude with recommendations for educational leadership researchers and professors, and encourage them to consider race as an integral part of their works.     

Conceptualizing color-evasiveness: using dis/ability critical race theory to expand a color-blind racial ideology in education and society

Abstract

Color-blind racial ideology has historically been conceptualized as an ideology wherein race is immaterial. Efforts not to ‘see’ race insinuate that recognizing race is problematic; therefore, scholars have identified and critiqued color-blindness ideology. In this paper, we first examine Gotanda’s (1991) identification and critique of color-blind racial ideology, as it was crucial in troubling white supremacy. We then explore literature in both legal studies and education to determine how scholars have built upon Gotanda’s intellectual theoretical foundations. Finally, using a Dis/ability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) framework, we end by expanding to a racial ideology of color-evasiveness in education and society, as we believe that conceptualizing the refusal to recognize race as ‘color-blindness’ limits the ways this ideology can be dismantled.     

Living with racism in education and society: Derrick Bell’s ethical idealism and political pragmatism

Derrick Bell’s pronouncement and challenge that racism is likely permanent has captured the imagination of Critical Race Theorists in education. Equally important are his ideas about living with the concrete conditions of racism. This article focuses on a tension within Bell’s work. On the one hand, his writings are characterized by a certain ‘racial realism.’ In this perspective, Bell encourages race scholars and activists to abandon notions of one day ending racism. On the other hand, Bell also retains a certain idealism, most evident in his appeal to the ethical dimensions of critical race work. He invites intellectuals to join him in fighting racism even if the prospects for change are sometimes bleak. In his life as well as his work, Bell willingly sacrificed prestige and financial security for his ideals, and seemed puzzled when his friends and colleagues were reluctant to do the same. Bell’s racial realism and ethical idealism comprise two – sometimes warring – moments that permeate his work.     

The power of Hyphen-Nationalism: Martin Scorsese's sojourn from Italian American to White-Ethnic American

Martin Scorsese is one of the most celebrated American filmmakers of the last 50 years. This essay looks at his public story in films, books, television, radio, journals, and newspapers. This story reflects the personal and artistic journey of Scorsese and the collective rendition of this journey by Scorsese, critics, journalists, and others. It shows the intersection of the personal life, public biography, creative work, and critical reception of a public intellectual negotiating his ethnic and racial-identity for six decades. Informed by work in Race and Ethnic Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, and Critical Rhetoric Studies, this essay uses this story as a case study of the ideological power of white ethnic-identity and white racial-identity in the racial formation of post-civil rights America. I show how the public story of one of the most popular and critically acclaimed American artists over the last half-century transcribed the conversion of an ‘unmeltable’ Italian-American of the late 1960s Ethnic Revival to a White-Ethnic American of an end-of-the-century Hyphen-Nationalism. I demonstrate the power embedded in the institutional and cultural regime of Hyphen-Nationalism in the United States that acts to erase in personal memory, creative imagination, and art the power and legacy of white privilege.     

Derrick Bell’s post-Brown moves toward critical race theory

The late Professor Derrick Bell is renowned as the intellectual architect who drafted the blueprints that guided the initial development of critical race theory (CRT). Prior to the advent of CRT, Professor Bell wrote extensively on initiatives designed to improve the lives of African Americans. Among his most influential scholarship, ‘Serving Two Masters’ from the 1976 Yale Law Review emerged as a seminal foundational piece for CRT. We found that Bell’s post-Brown litigation and frustrations were captured in several powerful law review journals from 1970–1976. During this time, he wrote extensively on minority admissions programs, school litigation strategies, racial remediation, equal employment, and of course the Brown decision and its aftermath. These early works attended to the details of how legal remediation for racism in various forms could be considered and approached, but more often were ignored and denied. These same works showed the contradictions built into legal strategies. By working through the details of specific racial remediation strategies, Derrick Bell realized the ubiquity of the negative influences of post-Brown integration goals in all aspects of African American life, including the law. His seminal 1976 Yale Law Review piece emerged not from theory, per se, but from very specific engagements with reasoning about post-Brown policies and practices that failed to serve the interests of most African American families. For Bell, hope seemed to wax and wane as clarity emerged. This article analyses Bell’s law review articles that were published between 1970 and 1976, when he began full-fledged writing that ultimately provided a blueprint for the CRT movement in the academy.     

‘I’m not being offensive but…’: intersecting discourses of discrimination towards Muslim children in school

This article examines forms of implicit discrimination towards Muslim children in children’s discourses of Otherness. Findings in this paper draw on qualitative data exploring the discourses of 17 children from a Year 6 class in a culturally diverse primary school in the East of England. Building on Critical Race Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, this article shows that children’s discourses of Otherness acted in tacit discriminatory ways by constructing difference as problematic, which positioned Muslim children as the ‘bad Other’. These findings show the intersectionality of discrimination experienced by Muslim children in school, and offer a reflection on the role of multiculturalism in schools and the limitations of uncritical discourses of tolerance in fostering an understanding of difference and Otherness.     

Under the cloak of professionalism: covert racism in teacher education

This study focuses on manifestations of racism and colonialism in teacher education. I build on the theoretical framing of Critical Race Theory and decolonization in order to expose racist and colonial assumptions at the core of teacher education. I highlight in particular the work of covert racism under the cloak of teachers’ professionalism. I focus on what I call ‘professional microaggressions’: subtle forms of racism and colonialism hidden beneath professional definitions. By interviewing graduates of a well-established Indigenous teacher education program in British Columbia, Canada, I examine the mechanisms that still hinder the success of Indigenous teacher candidates in teacher education and in the school system. The study highlights the resilience, resistance, and strategic planning that Indigenous teachers use to challenge the system while advancing their position within it. Lastly, I suggest ways to support Indigenous teacher candidates in teacher education.     

Thinking through the flesh: a critical autoethnography of racial body politics in urban teacher education

Although the ubiquitous nature of whiteness has been scrutinized in research on teacher preparation in the United States, scholarship on how this concept impinges upon the field’s overall culture, as well as on pedagogy, is scarce. Thus, I perform a critical autoethnographic study on the relationships among whiteness, pedagogy, and urban teacher education. The inquiry threads Critical Race Theory and feminist theorizing on (Black) bodies, affects, and assemblages, and extends from extant literature illustrating that the dichotomous thinking characteristic of whiteness undergirds the disembodied approaches to teaching and learning prevalent in teacher education programs. This, I discover, leaves one White pre-service teacher ill-equipped to discern and disrupt the materialization of whiteness in an (inter)corporeal encounter with a Black youth in an urban classroom. Additionally, a pedagogy of disembodiment hinders this pre-service teacher from developing robust understandings of how latent within his lived-in, socio-historically situated White body is the potent potential to exacerbate the psychic pain that racism inflicts upon the racially othered children and youth who navigate urban classrooms under the scorching glare of whiteness. These findings underpin my call for urban teacher educators to embrace a pedagogy of embodiment in order to build pre-service teachers’ capacities to teach racially marginalized children and youth in ways that broaden the boundaries of the human beyond the scope of whiteness.     

Reclaiming ourselves through Testimonio pedagogy: reflections on a curriculum design lab in teacher education

This article details one teacher preparation course centering Latin American Testimonio narratives of struggle/survival amid structural oppression for use in secondary curriculum. As our class of predominantly Latina/o students and two Latina instructors engaged Testimonio pedagogy, we fashioned a hopeful alternative to our own experiences of intergenerational oppression. While research indicates that the experiences and histories of pre-service Teachers of Color lend pedagogical strength and critical consciousness to teacher education, three Latina pre-service students highlight the ways in which Testimonio became more than a pedagogical approach. Testimonio’s collectivity, resistance, hope, and assertions of voice and dignity moved through them not as educators first but as (great-grand)daughters of oppressed though still-resilient People(s). Testimonio emboldened these Latina pre-service educators to recognize and validate their own inherited multiliteracies, (re)claim their connectedness to land, and articulate their visions for more equitable schooling. This work advances research into the essentiality of engaging race and ethnicity in K-12 and teacher education curriculum and pedagogy.     

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.     

The salience of Black mentors on the teaching praxis of Latino male teachers

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing population of Latino students, little has been done to recognize the potential cultural assets and resilience that Latino communities and Latino teachers can bring to the educational environment. Using Critical Race Theory, in this article, each participant shares their experiences with their Black mentors. This article shares the ways in which Black teachers continue to exemplify Black teaching excellence now with a group that isn’t Black.     

‘They were constantly on the losing side of things’: the pedagogical power of an African-American teacher candidate bearing witness in teacher education

The stories of students and teacher candidates of Color (Just as singular racial/ethnic identities are capitalized (i.e. African-American, Asian, Latina, Native American etc.), I capitalize Color to honor the various identities that many ‘non-white’ people hold near and dear. I recognize the nuances in doing so- such as the reality that the term ‘people of Color’ actually erases identity while the term also highlights a shared experience (though also nuanced) of being ‘non-white’ in a white supremacist society.) hold powerful lessons and insights for teacher education programs and educational reform efforts. Yet, rarely do educators and policy-makers solicit or critically engage the educational narratives of these stakeholders. In particular, research confirms that we know little about how students’ of Color educational experiences are impacted by race(ism) and culture and how those experiences subsequently inform their ideas about teaching. This study, framed by critical race theory (CRT), examines an African-American (African-American is used intentionally here as this is how Ariel identifies racially.) teacher candidate’s racialized K-12 and postsecondary school experiences to more fully understand the connection between lived experience and developing teacher identity. Ariel’s story reflects her own school experiences; her focus on her peers’ school experiences when asked about her own; and how those experiences, informed by race and culture, contribute to her development of pedagogy. Analytical considerations illustrate that memory and remembrance, witnessing and bearing witness, and testimony are deliberate and powerful acts in the development of pedagogy and should be central to teacher education curriculum.     

Hearing the voice of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander training stakeholders using research methodologies and theoretical frames of reference

Abstract

Researchers in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts within Australia are frequently faced with the challenges of working in an intercultural space where channels of communication are garbled with interference created by the complexities of misunderstood worldviews, languages, values and expectations. A concern of many researchers in these contexts is to ensure that the voices of research participants in remote communities are not only accurately represented, but are allowed to transcend the noise of dominant paradigms, policies and practices. This article brings together the experiences of four non-indigenous researchers in the space of remote vocational education and training. The authors present two vignettes from research in the context of health, employment and education. These vignettes highlight some of the conundrums for researchers as they attempt to harmonize the aims of research with the expectations of organizations involved. The purpose of the article is to explore the utility of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Indigenist methodologies, culturally responsive methodologies and those positioned at the ‘cultural interface’ (Nakata 2007). In so doing this article makes some assessments about the fit of CRT methodologies for such contexts.     

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.     

How student teachers (don’t) talk about race: An intersectional analysis

This study explores how student teacher talk about their students illuminates the identities ascribed to these same students. It uses a hybrid intersectional framework based on Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Latino Critical Theory and methodologies (like examining majoritarian stories, counter-storytelling, coded talk, and post-civil rights race talk) to uncover how student teacher talk reveals oppressive discourses of race, disability (and language status). This article focuses on how the medicalization of disability facilitates student teachers not identifying the racialization of disability in school. It demonstrates the need for educational research to employ an intersectionality lens when exploring educational issues related to students’ identities.     

Exposing the white avatar: projections,justifications, and the ever-evolving American racism

In the context of the United States, mainstream entertainment genres continue to recycle dominant racial ideologies typified by the perspectives of white men. American minstrelsy, literature, and film are key sites for whiteness to manifest itself in the design and projection of online personae via white avatars. These projections of whiteness also reify the US racial structure, one that subjects the perspectives of people of color to misrepresentation and further racial marginalization. This theoretical interpretative article employs Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to investigate how these projections of whiteness are historically rooted and have evolved in the post-racial era. Using popular virtual gaming and social media examples, this paper critically deconstructs how the creation of white personae via avatars maintains and justifies the hegemonic power of whiteness.     

‘People take for granted that you know how to dance Salsa and Merengue’: transnational diasporas,visual discourses and racialized knowledge in Sweden's contemporary Latin music boom

In recent years US-based Latin culture has gained worldwide popularity through artists such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Ricky Martin. Taking the national context as an emerging vantage point from which to consider globalization processes, this article explores the growing popularity of ‘Latin music’ as a specific contemporary expression of global popular culture and its impact on young Latina women's everyday lives and identity work in Sweden. Based on interviews and focus group discussions with 29 high school young Latina women between 14–20 years of age, born and/or brought up in Sweden, the article examines how musical arenas and their appeal to hybrid identities are construed in contemporary articulations of commodity cultures and representations. In the particular context of Sweden, the article looks at how young Latina women negotiate popular representations of latinidad through an intentional and unintentional embodiment of these images. It is argued that while visual discourses and representations of popular culture tend to fix young women in preconceived ideas of ethnicity, race and gender, the young women themselves find a myriad of ways of reconstructing stereotyping ideas and creating diasporic links with other Latino/a diasporas, especially in the United States.     

An exploration of the relationships between student racial background and the school sub-contexts of office discipline referrals: a critical race theory analysis

A growing body of research indicates that exclusionary school discipline practices disproportionately impact students of color. Some scholars have theorized that racial disparities likely vary across school sub-contexts, as implicit bias in perceptions of student behavior may be more influential in locations where students and adults have weaker relationships (e.g. bathrooms and hallways, compared to the classroom). Guided by Critical Race Theory, this study used administrative data from a large urban school district (n = 20,166 discipline incidents, 9,170 students, and 185 schools) to consider the relationship between student race and the locations where youth are disciplined. Results indicate that Black, Latino/a, and Multiracial youth were no more likely than White students to have a discipline incident take place outside the classroom. These findings suggest attention is needed to the role of systemic bias and colorblind policies and practices in discipline disparities.     

Trayvon Martin and the curriculum of tragedy: critical race lessons for education

In what ways do the tragedies centered on the lives of black youth, particularly black male youth, inform teachers, education policymakers, and teacher educators about what knowledge is most worth knowing? In this counter/story, we will examine the details of the life and death of Trayvon Martin. From these details, we will extract and interpret a curriculum of tragedy that draws from Derrick Bell’s particular contributions to critical race theory (CRT) applies its central tenets. This article will conclude with lesson for black education for teachers, education policymakers and teacher educators.     

Racing tradition: Catholic schooling and the maintenance of boundaries

This article seeks to add to the underdeveloped strain of inquiry on the raced social experience of students in private and parochial institutions. We examine the role Catholic schools in the city of Chicago play in the maintenance and creation of racially problematic policies, spaces, and rhetoric. The research uncovers a multitude of responses framing African American students as an exotic other in mission and action through the leveraging of liturgical, ideological, and political language and practice. Using Cultural Studies and Critical Race Theory the work seeks to create a discursive space for representation and resistance in the repositioning of dominant and sanguineous narratives about Catholic schooling both in the US and globally. We use moments when race became particularly and often painfully salient in our experiences of Catholic schooling to expose the structural and racial inequity perpetuated in establishing and enforcing racial barriers to success through religion-for-segregation educational policies.