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1 – 10 of 18Judith M. Dunkerly and Julia Morris Poplin
The purpose of this study was to challenge the “single story” narrative the authors utilize counterstorytelling as an analytic tool to reveal the paradox of exploring human rights…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to challenge the “single story” narrative the authors utilize counterstorytelling as an analytic tool to reveal the paradox of exploring human rights with incarcerated BIPOC teens whose rights within the justice system are frequently ignored. Shared through their writing, drawing and discussions, the authors demonstrate how they wrote themselves into narratives that often sought to exclude them.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper centers on the interpretations of Universal Human Rights by Black adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system in the Southeastern region of the United States. Critical ethnography was selected as we see literacy as a socially situated and collaborative practice. Additionally, the authors draw from recent work on the humanization of qualitative methods, especially when engaging with historically oppressed populations. Data were analyzed using a bricolage approach and the framework of counterstorytelling to weave together the teens' narratives and experiences.
Findings
In using the analytic tool of counterstories, the authors look at ways in which the stories of colonially underserved BIPOC youth might act as a form of resistance. Similarly to the ways that those historically enslaved in the United States used narratives, folklore, “black-preacher tales” and fostered storytelling skills to resist the dominant narrative and redirects the storylines from damage to desire-centered. Central then to our findings is the notion of how to engage in the work of dismantling the inequitable system that even well-intentioned educators contribute to due to systemic racism.
Research limitations/implications
The research presented here is significant as it attempts to add to the growing body of research on creating spaces of resistance and justice for incarcerated youth. The authors seek to disrupt the “single story” often attributed to adolescents in the juvenile justice system by providing spaces for them to provide a counternarrative – one that is informed by and seeks to inform human rights education.
Practical implications
As researchers, the authors struggle with aspects related to authenticity, identity and agency for these participants. By situating them as “co-researchers” and by inviting them to decide where the research goes next, the authors capitalize on the expertise, ingenuity and experiences' of participants as colleagues in order to locate the pockets of hope that reside in research that attempts to be liberatory and impact the children on the juvenile justice system.
Social implications
This study emphasizes the importance of engaging in research that privileges the voices of the participants in research that shifts from damage to desire-centered. The authors consider what it may look like to re-situate qualitative research in service to those we study, to read not only their words but the worlds that inform them, to move toward liberatory research practice.
Originality/value
This study provides an example of how the use of counterstorytelling may offer a more complex and nuanced way for incarcerated youth to resist the stereotypes and single-story narratives often assigned to their experiences.
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In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to effectively end race-conscious admissions practices across the nation, this paper highlights the law’s commitment to…
Abstract
Purpose
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to effectively end race-conscious admissions practices across the nation, this paper highlights the law’s commitment to whiteness and antiblackness, invites us to mourn and to connect to possibility.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from the theoretical contributions of Cheryl Harris, Jarvis Givens and Chezare Warren, as well as the wisdom of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion, this paper utilizes CRT composite counterstory methodology to illuminate the antiblack reality of facially “race-neutral” admissions.
Findings
By manifesting the impossible situation that SFFA and the Supreme Court’s majority seek to normalize, the composite counterstory illuminates how Justice Jackson’s hypothetical enacts a fugitive pedagogy within a dominant legal system committed to whiteness as property; invites us to mourn, to connect to possibility and to remain committed to freedom as an intergenerational project that is inherently humanizing.
Originality/value
In a sobering moment where we face the end of race-conscious admissions, this paper uniquely grapples with the contradictions of affirmative action as minimally effective while also radically disruptive.
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Terrance Burgess and Felicia Moore Mensah
In this chapter, we present a case study that explicates the work that two Black boys undergo to write their narratives despite the low expectations of their academic abilities…
Abstract
In this chapter, we present a case study that explicates the work that two Black boys undergo to write their narratives despite the low expectations of their academic abilities espoused by their White teacher. Orienting ourselves within a critical race theory framework, we relied upon storytelling to tell the stories of John and Seth, two young Black boys whose science interests fueled their engagement across school subjects despite the semantic deficit-oriented positioning of their academic abilities by the White teachers and staff within their school. Throughout this chapter, we center their experiences to argue that understanding the inherent underrepresentation of Black men in science-based professions requires an examination of the pivotal educational moments preceding this disparity. Rich and culturally responsive science teaching may support equity for Black boys, but John and Seth's stories illustrate that these practices alone will only perpetuate the status quo unless teachers challenge their dispositions regarding who their students are and what they are capable of. We conclude by offering suggestions for practitioners to consider when designing and implementing equitable student-centered science instruction.
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April M. Clay and Jose W. Lalas
This chapter shows that students' counter-storytelling revealed feeling tolerated, invisible, isolated, and judged as well as needing to prove oneself, overcome stereotypes, and…
Abstract
This chapter shows that students' counter-storytelling revealed feeling tolerated, invisible, isolated, and judged as well as needing to prove oneself, overcome stereotypes, and act as the spokesperson for one's race based on the dissertation conducted by April M. Clay, one of the authors. Through critical race theory (CRT), it can be gathered from the responses that race and racism affect the African American students' quality of life in school. Whether they said race played a significant role explicitly or implicitly, the participants' counter-stories revealed a shared experience of feeling outcasted.
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To present and explore the need for alternative narratives to be included in library and information science (LIS) curricula.
Abstract
Purpose
To present and explore the need for alternative narratives to be included in library and information science (LIS) curricula.
Methodology/approach
This chapter examines LIS and its curricula through the Storytelling Project (STP) framework. STP theorizes that there are four types of stories: stock, concealed, resistance, and emerging/transforming stories.
Findings
Each of these story types exists in LIS, but in unequal proportion. LIS curriculum should include more stories of resistance and more emerging/transforming stories. These stories should also facilitate the emergence of the “new storytellers,” faculty members and instructors in LIS graduate programs who are working diligently to incorporate new stories into the classroom by creating learning environments that accommodate and encourage discussions of race, privilege, social justice, and other necessary and difficult issues.
Practical implications
The STP story typology forms a counter-storytelling matrix that can allow LIS educators an opportunity to diversify their content and teaching styles, ultimately enriching their students, their programs, and the profession.
Originality/value
This chapter expands LIS pedagogy by infusing elements of diversity, social justice, and theory from the related field of education.
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Maeve Wall, S. Shiver, Sonny Partola, Nicole Wilson Steffes and Rosie Ojeda
The authors suggest strategies for addressing and combating these attempts at racelighting.
Abstract
Purpose
The authors suggest strategies for addressing and combating these attempts at racelighting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors of this article– five anti-racist educators working in various educational settings in SLC– employ the Critical Race Theory counter-story methodology (Delgado and Stefancic, 1993) to confront resistance to educational equity in Utah. They do so by first providing a historical context of race and education in Utah before presenting four short counterstories addressing the racelighting efforts of students, fellow educators and administrators when confronted with the complexities of racial injustice.
Findings
These counterstories are particularly important in light of the recent increase in color-evasive and whitewashed messaging used to attack CRT and to deny the existence of racism in the SLC school system in K-post-secondary education, and in the U.S. as a whole.
Originality/value
These stories are set in a unique environment, yet they hold national relevance. The racial and religious demographics in Utah shed light on the foundational ethos of the country – white, Christian supremacy. They reveal what is at stake in defending it and some of the key mechanisms of that defense.
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This case study focusses on student conceptions of becoming an academic, and their perceptions of their institution’s role in supporting them, or creating barriers, on this…
Abstract
This case study focusses on student conceptions of becoming an academic, and their perceptions of their institution’s role in supporting them, or creating barriers, on this journey. In-depth qualitative research was conducted with nine undergraduate Fine Art and Design students from a range of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and White backgrounds to understand the impact that tutor relationships; the curriculum, creative pedagogies and the invisibility of diverse teaching staff might have on their journey through, and sense of belonging within, the academy. It is positioned amid the current BAME attainment gap in UK higher education (HE) and takes as its context the discourse on the lack of BAME academics in UK universities; an issue more pronounced in the creative disciplines (ECU, 2017a, p. 158).
The aim of the study was to understand how institutional practices might support or hinder students returning to the academy as staff, using Critical-Race Theory and whiteness and cultural capital frameworks to situate the research. The findings present an overwhelming interest amongst the students in teaching as a future career, and makes a case that students’ motivations and aspirations to teach, if fostered and supported, could partially remediate the current lack of BAME staff in HE.
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The school-to-prison pipeline is a booming pipeline that is the cause for alarm. Increasingly, this pipeline includes more of Chicano males, and this dynamic is reflected in low…
Abstract
The school-to-prison pipeline is a booming pipeline that is the cause for alarm. Increasingly, this pipeline includes more of Chicano males, and this dynamic is reflected in low rates of high school graduates going to college contrasted with the growing number of Chicanos in the juvenile justice and court systems. This study focuses on the impacts of the school-to-prison pipeline on Chicano students. Furthermore, utilizing a CRT and LatCrit framework, this study centers the experiential knowledge that Chicano students contribute to conceptualizing ways of disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. Themes of this study include the following: (1) Chicano student experiences with the school-to-prison pipeline, (2) innovation of discipline policy and practice, and (3) effective alternative practices to a zero tolerance framework. Through this, Chicano students point to a praxis grounded in community to clear educational pathways and interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.
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