A considerable amount of work has been written on race and education in the British context since the 1960s. This work has largely focused on policy issues, curriculum development and teacher training. This work has been important largely for developments in multicultural education in the school context. In Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the teaching of race related modules and courses have flourished since the 1980s (Jacobs 2006). This interest, however, has not translated into work on praxis, that is, anti-racist teaching practices that aim to improve the situation that students and teachers face when challenging racism. This PhD study by publication begins to redress this by exploring student experiences and classroom dialogue. It adopts an interpretist methodological perspective and uses participant observation and interview methods. The observations and interviews are drawn from my classroom teaching, specifically, my modules dealing centrally with race and racism. Most of the writing around race and HEIs focuses on institutional matters rather than those that seek to enable praxis. The original contribution to knowledge advanced in this critical commentary and my published works submitted here is that it underlines the importance of anti-racism as it emerges organically within classroom engagement and exchange. Anti-racist practice, I claim, becomes fundamental to the learning process, where student experiences are first considered within the teaching process. This study focuses on students' learning experiences as found in my second and third level modules on the Sociology degree on which I teach at Wolverhampton University. My publications examine students' perspectives on racism as they arise in class. They explore student identities as they are experienced and classroom interaction. In this endeavour, I focus on the ways that Critical 5 Theory and Feminism and Critical Pedagogy can challenge students' prior perspectives on their identities and those of others. This work seeks to add to analyses of the ways that racism currently operates and could be challenged in HEIs. It argues that it can be challenged through more fully developing anti-racist educational practices that must engage with debates about ethnicity and identity in education, as discussed in Section One. This is because students’ lived experiences are core to an understanding of how racism impacts on students' lives. This commentary advances the argument that anti-racist debates in HEIs that organically evolve from classroom teaching and learning are paramount to the work of anti-racist education in HEi, because lived experience is seen to be powerful material that can counter mainstream discourse on racism. What is distinctive about my model of anti-racist teaching and learning practices is my anti-racist practice. This informs my academic work with students and encourages them to reconsider their thinking in classroom teaching and learning. The use of Critical Race Theory and Feminist theoretical and methodological approaches and Critical Pedagogy is central to my anti-racist teaching practices in HEis.

The use of data to drive or inform the decision making process is gaining traction in education. In response to the data driven decision making shift, an emerging group of scholars are beginning to discuss how the data movement in education may be viewed using a critical race theory (CRT) framework. With a focus on implications for racial equity, this study explores the ways and to what degree data are valued or practically applied in the decision making process in Manitoba. Participants for this qualitative research study include ten Manitoban school superintendents. Drawing attention to the ways in which data-driven practices like all other practice in education, are not neutral acts, this study looks to contribute to the growing research area on Canadian data-driven decision making and CRT. Findings from this study indicate that school divisions in the province of Manitoba are increasingly driven by data that privileges Western or colonial ways of knowing. Some recommendations for further research include, using achievement data to resist racial oppression, exploring the dangers of Gap Talk, and looking at whether data literacy includes notions of power and privilege. / February 2017

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Royce Ann Collins / Nutrition educators traditionally rely on quantitative research to design interventions for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) audiences, such a low-income African American mothers. Such studies indicated the dietary behaviors of this population related to increased risk for chronic disease. Few studies explored the factors that potentially influenced the perceived self-efficacy and affected the dietary habits of SNAP learners. This study addressed the gap between quantitative research findings about the dietary habits of low-income African American mothers and their perceptions of factors influencing those behaviors. A qualitative bounded multi-site case study design was used to explore factors theoretically linked to social cognitive theory (SCT) that affected the dietary habits of low-income African American mothers. The theoretical framework rested on the interaction between SCT and critical race theory (CRT). The research sample included fifteen women, five from each of three public housing sites. The research design included semi-structured interviews supported by multiple data sources. A pilot study took place. Constant comparison was the technique used to analyze the semi-structured interviews and code the findings. The emergent themes aligned with the theoretical framework to answer the research questions. Triangulation helped to ensure the study’s quality. The findings supported the SCT premise that behavioral, personal, and environmental factors interacted reciprocally to influence dietary habits. The findings supported the CRT tenets that race, history, narratives, and interest convergence mattered and influenced dietary habits. The results had implications for adult educators designing effective nutrition programs for diverse learners.

This study examines the privatization movement in the post-Katrina New Orleans education system. Less than a month after Katrina, a well-financed charter school movement was moving swiftly through the ravaged city. Nationally, a network of right-wing think tanks and school choice advocates descended on New Orleans shortly after the storm. Locally, state legislators and local leaders pushed from the inside for reform in the way of charter schools. Aided by a state takeover of schools and federal and corporate financing, the "great experiment" had begun. This study strives to cut through the façade of the charter school movement, and to investigate and explain the real motivations of the expected outcomes of the privatizers. Finally, the current injustices caused by the experiment being conducted in New Orleans are reviewed as an extension of the historical racial inequities of the school system.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / In 2002, voters in Massachusetts passed a referendum, commonly referred to as "Question 2," requiring that, "All children in Massachusetts public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English and all children shall be placed in English language classrooms" (M.G.L.c.71A§4). This dissertation investigates the system of education for secondary bilingual learners and their teachers resulting from the passage of Question 2 by examining assumptions and ideologies about race, culture, and language across policy and practice. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) and the construct of majoritarian stories, two distinct and complimentary analyses were conducted: a critical policy analysis of state level laws, regulations, and policy tools, and a critically conscious longitudinal case study of one teacher candidate who was prepared to work with bilingual learners and then taught bilingual learners during her first three years of teaching. The critical policy analysis, conducted as a frame analysis, exposes that legally sanctioned racism and linguicism are institutionalized and codified through Massachusetts state policy. Additionally, Massachusetts state policy consistently and strongly promotes four common majoritarian stories regarding the education of secondary bilingual learners and their teachers: there is no story about race, difference is deficit, meritocracy is appropriate, and English is all that matters. The longitudinal case study demonstrates the power of these majoritarian stories in classroom practice and how they limit the opportunities of bilingual learners and their teachers while also perpetuating institutionalized racism and linguicism. Taken together, the two analyses that make up this dissertation reveal a problematic system deeply affected by majoritarian stories that obscure the role white privilege and white normativity play in perpetuating issues of inequity for secondary bilingual learners and teachers. This dissertation argues that in order to disrupt institutionalized racism and linguicism, these stories must be consistently, proactively, and powerfully challenged across all levels of policy and practice. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The democratic elections in 1994 marked the formal end of apartheid. During apartheid 'race' was, for the most part, a somewhat rigid construct which, despite many nuances and complexities, typically seemed to frame whiteness as dominant, normative and largely invisible, and blackness as subordinate and marginalised. The transformations brought about in post-apartheid South Africa have heralded many positive reformations, such as macrolevel institutional changes. However, many of apartheid's racialised patterns of privilege and deprivation persist and 'race' continues to influence the identities of South Africans. Furthermore, an inherent tension exists in South Africa's social fabric, where ‘race’ and racism are often juxtaposed against narratives of the Rainbow Nation and colourblindness. This study, which is framed by critical 'race' theory and social constructionism, aims to explore the extent of the fluidity and rigidity of 'race', racialisation and racialised identities in post-apartheid South Africa by exploring the narratives of black and white first year students. This study collected the narratives of seven black and seven white first year South African university students. It was found that South African youth identities can be seen to be functioning in relation to and reaction against both South Africa’s racialised past as well as its present socio-cultural context. It was found that the racialised patterns which characterised apartheid still impact on black and white youth identity in contemporary South Africa. For instance, despite the many disruptions to whiteness post-1994, it was noted as still being a normative and dominant construct to some extent. Similarly, despite attempts to rectify power imbalances in the new South Africa, blackness is still constructed as being somewhat other and inferior. However, many alternative voices emerged which subverted these narratives, suggesting that identity is in a state of flux. Thus, despite the continued influence of apartheid’s racialised patterns of identity, shifts and schisms are appearing in post-apartheid racialised identity, where issues of racialised dominance and power relations are no longer as clear cut as they once were.

abstract: This dissertation investigates the origins of dual enrollment (DE) writing courses that give students the opportunity to receive college credit for writing in high school. While no previous research dates DE programs to before the 1970s, this dissertation analyzes the development of the self-proclaimed “longest-running” DE program that began at the University of Connecticut in 1955. In this work, I contend that the University of Connecticut’s DE program began as a complacent act that further advanced already privileged (white affluent) students and further marginalized students of color, which extends marginalizing aspects of the origins of the first-year writing requirement. I first establish the historical, social, and political context for the development of DE programs at the University of Connecticut with an overview Brown v. Board of Education, whites’ resistance to integration, and the white complacency of citizens in Connecticut in the 1950s. Using whiteness theory and feminist research methods, archival research conducted at the University of Connecticut focused on the development of DE programs shows an institutional absent presence, that is, there is an absence of reference to Brown, integration, or race of students where it concerns the construction, inception, and operation of the first DE writing courses. And finally, an attempt at a disparate impact analysis of current assessment practices that determine enrollment in DE writing courses highlights access and assessment as a connection between the history and the present state of DE programs and DE composition courses. With the inclusion of DE composition, my dissertation project fills at least some of the identified gap in historical research in Rhetoric and Composition Studies during the 1950s and extends arguments of how white complacency has and continues to influence the field and first-year writing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018

The purpose of this study is to explore Black Canadian English language learning students’ acquisition and use of Black Stylised English. I will be looking at the use of Black Stylised English with respect to these students’ experiences of racial microaggressions, defined as everyday subtle acts of racism. This study poses the question: How does experiencing racial microaggression impact Black Canadian ELL students’ acquisition of Black English as a second language? This study was conducted in 2015 and draws on Critical Race Theory methodology with a focus on storytelling and counter-storytelling as a means to disrupt the dominant narrative. The participants were Black Canadian ELL students from immigrant families living in a metropolitan city in Northeastern Ontario attending after-school programs. A purposefully selected sample of 24 students who self-identified as Black and four support workers were examined. Data for this study was collected at three different after-school program sites. The first after-school program was located in a suburb at a seniors’ residence where students volunteered. The second after-school program was located in the downtown area and catered to newly arrived immigrants. The third site was located in the west end of the city and focused on the academic success of students from low-income families. The study found the following: first, all participants had experienced racial microaggressions. Second, there are similarities and differences in the participants’ experiences depending on the context. Third, experiencing racial microaggressions had an emotional effect on participants. Fourth, most participants did not know how to respond directly to racial microaggressions. Fifth, although they did not know how to respond to racial microaggressions, the boy participants used Black Stylized English as a defence mechanism to cope with the racial microaggressions. The girl participants acquired and used BSE to fit-in with other Black girls. In response to racial microaggressions the girl participants focused on losing their accents in order fit-in with their racialized White counterparts. Sixth, after-school programs operate on the basis of the authorized multicultural discourse.

Equality in educational access has long been an area of concern for U.S. educators, policy makers, and advocates. Congress issued a mandate in 1969 to identify the needs of gifted students and to ensure that those needs were being met. However, the needs of gifted minority students were not specifically addressed. Little is known about how African American mothers are affected by the demands of raising and advocating for their gifted child. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative inquiry was to explore the lived experiences of African American mothers raising gifted children. The theory of womanism was used to explore the experiential anecdotes offered by the participants and to guide in analysis of developing themes. In addition, critical race theory was used to further examine the narratives offered by the participant mothers. Nine African American mothers whose children were identified as academically and intellectually gifted participated in interviews; analysis of data included use of the hermeneutic circle and resulted in the identification of 4 essential themes and 8 subthemes. Subthemes, that seemed particularly meaningful to participants, included othermothering, exasperation, resilience, and the Black male experience. Findings highlight the mothers'€™ resilience when dealing with instances of microaggressions and microinsults. Additionally, findings elucidated their desire to see every child succeed through othermothering behaviors. Implications for positive social change include contributing to the body of knowledge regarding the needs and challenges affecting African American mothers raising gifted children.

Student conduct plays an integral role in the functioning of an institution and the moral development of students. As multiple models of student conduct exist, such as the Model Student Conduct Code or a Restorative Justice Approach, it is critical to have an understanding of the various structures and how to choose the most effective structure for addressing the diversifying needs of the campus community. Most college and university campuses use the Model Student Conduct Code (Dannells, 1997) which tends to place a heavy emphasis on authority and is more legalistic which creates an “adversarial environment” (Lowery & Dannells, 2004) on college and university campuses. It can be argued that the traditional student conduct code does not make space for individuals to engage in dialogue and for learning to take place. The focus of this dissertation is to understand the experiences of facilitators as they develop, implement, and use restorative justice models on college and university campuses, which provide a guiding framework for dialogue between victims/harmed parties and offenders/respondents and may be better suited as a means of managing bias and hate-motivated incidents. Restorative practices have been implemented in criminal justice, and K-12 environments and are seen by some as an antidote to overly legalistic campus conduct processes (Karp, 2004). This phenomenological research explores the experiences of individuals who have facilitated a campus-based restorative process and how that experience may impact their view of and the opportunities to improve campus climate through the lens of Critical Race Theory and Models of Moral development. Through this study, conduct and other campus administrators can gain valuable information on how restorative processes are developed, how facilitators gained and maintained institutional support, and how successful facilitators find the process in meeting their goals of student learning. Campus administrators will also gain insight on the perceived effectiveness of restorative practices as a tool for managing incidents of bias and the perception of the campus climate.