White Folx: Who We Are in the Research, and What We Need to do with it

            I’ve been doing a lot of reflection, especially this week, on the need for educators and researchers to examine their own intersectionalities (Cross, 2011; Escamilla & Nathenson-Mejia, 2003; Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2021) before attempting culturally responsive work (Gay, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Largely, I can also thank our cohort. Being conscious of my own intersectional identity and doing work to reflect on the impact of my identity and the growth I’ve had helps me to better understand areas that need more attention. It would be impossible for me to learn my learners and truly see my students if I did not first work to understand my own position; it would also be impossible to ask them to do this same introspective work without first modeling and unpacking it. Cross (2011) discusses how research comes as a “professional obligation” that “carries immense consideration about my identities and experiences” (p. 40). While I personally have grand dreams and aspirations of working for a more equitable society, better opportunities for my students, and better and stronger relationships between schools and their communities, my first and best action is self-reflection.

My research goals are to do youth participatory action research (YPAR) and have students of color lead activism projects stemming from the young adult novels (YAL) we read (they select them) in our classroom. I want their voice and choice throughout the research, and I seek to not “give voice” so much as to “make space” for their activism (Cross, 2011, p. 44). As someone operating with great privilege, I must recognize my own privilege so as not to marginalize and unconsciously subordinate those I am seeking to work with. I must purposefully and intentionally “pull back the curtain” for them and utilize my positionality to remove and minimize the systemic barriers that would attempt to be too great. Cross (2011) gives me pause and care – not to seek to control or be a “tentacle” or an “invader” but to clearly listen and then “engage in the struggle to challenge inequities and the role of dominant research” and “play a constructive role in creating more democratic and just communities” (pp. 50-57). Many of the research goals my students might have in creating change in their communities are connected to neoliberal policies connected to housing, access to quality education, income equality, and safe communities (Anyon, 2014; Lipman, 2011). In what politicians would like to cast as a post-racial society, racial justice, just like racism itself, has been imagined as a fight against a person wearing a MAGA hat. In truth, creating change in urban communities requires an awareness of the public policy that seeks to create current conditions for the ultimate accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few.

Much of what Lipman (2011) and Anyon (2014) describe is happening right here in my community: gentrification, mixed income schooling, and the reduction of housing opportunities for people of color. Students and their families face nearly impossible odds before coming to school, and then when they arrive the adults in the building wonder why their test scores are not higher. Test scores fuel deficit views of students and their families with no effort to get to know the learners or their challenges. Our students are just expected to acclimate to expectations, or they are forced out into alternative programs and schools.

This year has seen an increase in discipline referrals and paneling tribunals at my local school. Every day I see more and more police officers in our building while counseling staff remains at a rate 500:1, which is consistent with abundant available research (Love, 2019; Martin et al., 2020; Noguera & Syeed, 2020; Watkins, 2017). With most teachers and researchers being white (Cross, 2011; Van Der Valk & Malley, 2019) it is essential that schools work to increase equity through getting to know the communities that attend their school so classrooms can more closely align with the culture and values of the families being served (Gay, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1995). When schools respond to the needs of the communities then students can thrive – when schools impose their values on students schools become places of suffering for students of color (Love, 2019). I am left asking why schools fail to read and act on the growing body of research on urban education, culturally responsive pedagogy, and racial justice. If the reason is political, like I have heard said, then at what point is politics a thinly disguised code word for racism and white supremacy? How obvious must it get that when there is abundant research available on what should happen to address problems and people in power simply look the other way?

References

Anyon, J. (2014). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement (Second edition. ed.). Routledge.

Cross, B. E. (2011). Research as an epistemological architect of marginalizing power in the intellectual enterprise. In K. A. Scott & W. Blanchett (Eds.), Research in urban educational settings: Lessons learned and implications for future practice (pp. 39-58). Information Age Publishing.

Escamilla, K., & Nathenson-Mejia, S. (2003). Preparing culturally responsive teachers: Using Latino children's literature in teacher education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 36(3), 238-248. http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/714044331

Esposito, J., & Evans-Winters, V. E. (2021). Introduction to intersectional qualitative research (First Edition. ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106-116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053002003

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995, 01/01/). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465-491.

Lipman, P. (2011). Racial politics of mixed-income schools and housing. In Racial politics of mixed-income schools and housing: Moralizing poverty, building the neoliberal city (1st ed., pp. 94-99). Routledge.

Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.

Martin, A. E., Fisher-Ari, T. R., & Kavanagh, K. M. (2020). "Our schools turned into literal police states.": Disciplinary power and novice teachers enduring a cheating scandal [Article]. Educational Studies, 56(3), 306-329. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2020.1745809

Noguera, P., & Syeed, E. (2020). City schools and the American dream 2: The enduring promise of public education. Teachers College Press,.

Van Der Valk, A., & Malley, A. (2019). What’s my complicity? Talking white fragility with Robin DiAngelo. Learning for Justice. https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/summer-2019/whats-my-complicity-talking-white-fragility-with-robin-diangelo?fbclid=IwAR2kHjL8OxFffiF3eAnO0Ete2OYNHMYSgouwn-C8aQEQZxhm5uB_zKUe9Gg

Watkins, W. H. (2017). Black curriculum orientations: A preliminary inquiry. In D. J. Flinders & S. J. Thornton (Eds.), The curriculum studies reader (5th ed., pp. 219-234). Routledge. (Original work published 1993)