“Why Are All the White Students Sitting in the Back of Class?” A Critical Race Theory Approach to Race Dialogue in Ethnic Studies†

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Dominick N. Quinney
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Qualitative Work

Ethnic Studies classrooms in many respects are spaces wherein healing, solidarity, and social change occur, particularly surrounding discussions about race. The discussion around race is a language in itself—complete with levels of engagement. Students from privileged groups may not have many opportunities to explore the language of race and marginalization, thus being an “outsider” to the language of these experiences. This often times leads to miscommunication and missing meaningful engagement toward collective social action and change in classroom spaces. As a result, students have powerful emotional responses to these topics, and if students’ affective and intellectual responses are not acknowledged and respected, teachers can be met with what is perceived as impermeable resistance. Drawing from the framework of Critical Race Theory, this qualitative work presents tenets of race as a language that allows for understanding identity formation and entry point into conversations of race and ethnicity. Furthermore, consistent dialogue as a way of gaining proficiency and a space for marginalized identities to share their lived experiences as a way to build upon their proficiency. This research assists in expanding the work in the pedagogy of Ethnic Studies as a space to radically connect, heal, and implement social change.

Critical Race Theory for Speech-Language Pathology

2021 ◽  
pp. 84-104
Author(s):  
Chelsea Privette
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Speech Language Pathology ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Language Pathology ◽  
Systems Of Domination

Race has yet to be discussed as a significant factor in the field of speech-language pathology. Race is often conflated with nonmainstream dialects and discussed in purely linguistic terms. However, the terms we use to describe dialects are highly racialized, centering white mainstream norms and treating nonmainstream varieties of English as “different” and, therefore, inferior. Hierarchical thinking about language contributes to the misdiagnosis in Black and other communities of color because racialized language ideologies have been left unstated. This chapter demonstrates through a critical race theory approach how structural racism shapes the field's conceptualization of language and competence. Using an intersectional lens in particular, this chapter discusses race, disability, and language ideology as systems of domination that compound the effects of racism for communities of color. CRT is then used to reveal, critique, and intervene on the historically embedded racist structures that continue to manifest in speech-language pathology research, teaching, and practice today.

scholarly journals Colour-blind educational leadership policy: A critical race theory analysis of school principalship standards in South Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 174114322097367
Author(s):  
Pontso Moorosi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
South African ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Leadership Policy ◽  
School Principalship

In the light of recent media reports of racism in South African schools, this paper examines the role of school principalship standards in addressing race in South African educational leadership. The paper draws on tenets of critical race theory to examine how issues of race are addressed in the Policy for School Principalship Standard in South Africa and the implications thereof for leadership preparation and leadership practice. The methodology involves the employment of content analysis underpinned by key tenets of critical race theory that challenge notions of colour-blindness, meritocracy and neutrality. The analysis reveals that there is no explicit mention or treatment of race and ethnicity as social constructs in the principalship standards. It also reveals that diversity and culture are used more, suggesting the emphasis on difference rather than inequality. The paper argues that, although driven by principles of social justice, the Policy for School Principalship Standard is colour-blind. Through this omission, the policy denies the existence of racism and fails to recognise the power and influence of school leaders (and principals, in particular) in shaping the race dynamic in schools. The paper ends with implications for the improvement of leadership policy and practice.

scholarly journals Correcting whose errors? The principle of error correction from an ethnographic lens

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-380
Author(s):  
Virginia Zavala
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Error Correction ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Changing Society

Labovian sociolinguistics constitutes an important paradigm that brings to the forefront issues of social justice in linguistics and asks about the debt the scholar has towards the community once s/he gets information from it. Nevertheless, as many scholars have discussed, and even though this paradigm has focused on changing society for the better, it has serious limitations on how it conceptualizes the relationship between language and society. Based on critical race theory and language ideologies, Lewis powerfully contributes to this discussion by critiquing the principle of error correction (PEC) proposed by Labov as a particular way of conceptualizing social change. As Lewis points out at the end of the article, this principle reflects an ‘earlier era’ and needs to be reconsidered in light of the significant transformations not only in the study of language in society developed in recent decades but also in critical theory and humanities in general.

Race and Ethnicity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amritjit Singh ◽  
Aaron Babcock
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
American Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory

Racial patterns at any given time have been intertwined with local contexts, economic and political conditions, technological change, and a growing awareness of the socially constructed nature of race and gender. Race in the modern sense of the term emerged first in the 18th century amid the transformative changes of the industrial revolution, a growing slave trade, and the spread of European settler colonialism and imperialism in Asia, Africa, and the Western hemisphere. As a means of categorizing populations, race was a useful tool in justifying both slavery and imperialism. A further solidification of racial taxonomy developed over the course of the 19th century in which peoples and nations were grouped as genetically distinct. Race was thus essentialized and difference became widely accepted as biological and measurable. In the early decades of the 20th century, the view of race as biologically determined and immutable gradually gave way to sociological and anthropological reconsiderations of previously held assumptions. Contemporaneous to this reorientation of thinking on race was the growth of ethnicity as a related but distinct form of grouping populations that reframed identity as rooted in a shared national and sociopolitical history. In the 20th century, race across scholarly disciplines began to be divested gradually of its biological and genetic aspects and a recognition of race as a legal and social construction had emerged, especially in Postcolonial Theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT). In fact, what was viewed as “race” around 1900 (e.g., the Irish race, the Jewish race) came to be defined as “ethnicity” in the 20th century. For centuries, however, race has been used as a means for exercising power and control and as a defense of a racial caste system that privileges select groups. Through their many creative uses of memory and history, writers and artists in the United States and elsewhere have long responded in multiple genres by offering their own versions and visions of individual and community, complicating in the process our understandings of race, ethnicity, gender, nation, majoritarianism, and citizenship—the tangled issues that continue to haunt Americans and many others around the globe. Historians, literary scholars, and theorists have also played an active role in challenging old orthodoxies on race and ethnicity through multiple overlapping approaches, including African American Studies, Ethnic American Studies, Black Feminism, Postcolonial Studies, and Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Interrogating Classroom Relationships and Events: Using Portraiture and Critical Race Theory in Education Research

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thandeka K. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Education Research ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Classroom Relationships ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Urban Classrooms ◽  
Gender In Education

This article explores the use of the methodology of portraiture and the analytic framework of critical race theory (CRT) to evaluate success and failure in urban classrooms. Portraiture and CRT share a number of features that make the two a viable pair for conducting research in urban schools. In combination, portraiture and CRT allow researchers to evoke the personal, the professional, and the political to illuminate issues of race, class, and gender in education research and to create possibilities for urban school reform as social action.

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