AND WE ARE STILL NOT SAVED:CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN

EDUCATION TEN YEARS LATER

Dixson, A.D. & Rousseau, C.K. Presented by Tealia DeBerry

Smaller classes

Qualified TeachersGraduate/ go on to

great schools

The “warm body”

approachLow grad

rate; move on to poor schools

PROGRAM A / PROGRAM B

80 % white

80 % black

“Race remains a significant factor in society in general and education in

particular”

“Race is under-theorized as a topic of scholarly inquiry in education”

INTRODUCTION

Race

Property

Rights

CRT IN EDUCATION MEETS AT THE INTERSECTION OF

• Property is a right rather than a physical object

• “the legal legitimation of expectations of power and control that enshrine the status quo as a neutral baseline.”

RACE AS A PROPERTY

30 ROCK

“Tracking can be viewed as one of the current means through which the property right of whiteness is asserted in education”African-American and Latino students

are

TRACKING

Disproportionately placed in in lowest tracks

Afforded Fewer educational opportunities

Low expectati

ons

Lack of academic rigor

Focus on discipline

K-12 Students Fernandez 2002Teranishi 2002

TRACKING IN K-12 AND HIGHER EDUCATION

College Students at Research I institutions

Solorzano 2001

TRACKING IN K-12 AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Invisibility

Low expectations by students and faculty

Assumptions by others about their

entrance

Feeling out of place

Perspectives were ignored

Lowered expectati

ons

Grad Students Solorzano 2008

TRACKING IN K-12 AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Epistemological racism

Scholarship rendered into the

margins

Apartheid of knowledge

‘Scholars’ and Faculty Villapando 2002Tate 1994

TRACKING IN K-12 AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Lower/ different

expectations

Lack of Voice

COMMONALITIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mo3TDMlRDk&feature=player_embedded

DO BLACK STUDENTS GET SUSPENDED MORE FREQUENTLY

THAN WHITE STUDENTS?

Much of the article deals with the idea of “voice”

“The construct of voice is important…the voice of people of color s required for a complete analysis of the educational

system”

VOICE

WHO HAS A VOICE IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Dominant

Narratives

Counter Narrativ

es

ACTIVITY

Counter-narrative

Dominant Narrative

“The exclusion and marginalization of black male students from the school is taken, not as a cause for concern, but as a predictable, albeit unfortunate outcome of a reasonably

fair system.”

With counter narratives, it is “possible to juxtapose the dominant discourse represented in the voices of other students with the counterstory told by the black male

students.

IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVES

There are two views of equality that Dixson and Rousseau examine in the aritle

RESTRICTIVEVS

EXPANSIVE

Restrictive

Expansive

Expansive

Equality is a result

Looks for consequenc

es

Enlists institutional

power

VIEWS OF EQUALITY

Restrictive

Equality is a process

Downplay the

outcomes

Seeks to right

future wrongs

VIEWS OF EQUALITY

• Tate (2003)• High school math teachers were asked

about the nature of equity• Blamed inequities on socioeconomic status

rather than systemic racism• Teachers responded by stating that they

“treated students equally”• This represents the restrictive view

Equity as equality of treatment/ no concern for outcomes

VIEWS OF EQUALITY

Assimilation and Color-blindness as norms in education

• “The color-blind ideal in law serves to maintain racial subordination”

COLOR-BLINDNESS

Color blind stance

Equality as a process

Prevents reflection on race

Micro Aggression

“A miraculous mirage- an example of the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform”- Derrick Bell (2004)

• A growing number of African-American students and Latino/a students attending schools with a large

proportion of minority students

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

Michigan Study (2001-2002)

63% of African-American/ Latino/a students attended schools that were 90-100% Minority

These schools faced conditions of

OREFIELD AND LEE (2004)

Concentrated

PovertyUnequal

educational

opportunity

The expansive viewattending to student outcomes and results

was not pursued.

BROWN V. BOARD OF ED.

• CRT as a fuel for social transformation must be applied to an education setting

• The work of ensuring equity in schools involves continued study of legal literature (this provides a much-needed framework)

• CRT scholars should untie to strategies regarding how to address educational inequities

CONCLUSION