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Article
Publication date: 4 December 2023

Jesse Rivers

The paper discusses a partnership between Huston–Tillotson University (HT), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), a…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper discusses a partnership between Huston–Tillotson University (HT), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), a minority-serving school district, both in Austin, Texas, with a grant provided by Apple Inc. (Apple). The purpose of the partnerships is that valuable relationships can increase the number of African American male teachers in primary and secondary education in minority-serving public schools. The African American Male Teacher Initiative (AAMTI) at HT was created as an innovative approach to recruit and select 20 African American males each year of a four-year grant provided by Apple.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reviewed the literature on the lack and need for African American male public school teachers. Once the data is established during a three-to-four-year period, a mixed-method approach will be utilized to examine data retrieved from interviews, surveys, demographics of student participants, numerical data and retention and graduation rates. This will establish whether strategic partnerships can successfully increase the number of qualified African American males in public education.

Findings

This paper proposes and provides research evidence that African American male teachers can positively impact all students in the classroom setting.

Research limitations/implications

There is limited data to test a hypothesis on the effectiveness of a partnership between the university and public school to increase the number of African American male teachers through recruitment – selection and retention efforts. Therefore, follow-up research is needed for the first graduating class of 2024.

Practical implications

The broader impact of this paper is to show that partnerships between universities and public schools with corporate sponsorship can positively increase the number of African American male teachers prepared to teach in public schools through strategic recruitment and selection efforts.

Social implications

This paper can serve as a model for universities and school districts to implement. High placement of prepared Black male teachers in public schools can reduce the school-to-prison pipeline and juvenile homicides and defeat generational poverty.

Originality/value

Much research highlights the problems associated with a lack of African American male teachers. This paper includes the challenges but offers a sound basis for practical solutions.

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2024

Dale C. Spencer, Rosemary Ricciardelli and Taryn Hepburn

The purpose of this article is to examine the expectations, challenges and tensions officers describe while engaged with public schools to demonstrate that officers engage with…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to examine the expectations, challenges and tensions officers describe while engaged with public schools to demonstrate that officers engage with students in public schools in a conscious, goal-oriented process to establish and maintain useful relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Data collection involved 104 semi-structured interviews (including follow up interviews) and 31 focus groups, conducted between 2014 and 2018 with police officers working in rural areas of a province in Atlantic Canada.

Findings

Utilizing the concept of social capital, we analyze practices of investments alongside the understanding of rurality as socially interconnected and the rural school as a particular site of interconnectedness for police officers. We demonstrate how, while accumulating social capital, officers face role tension and fundamental barriers when trying to integrate into rural school communities.

Originality/value

By demonstrating the specificities of building social capital in schools and community environments in a rural setting, we contribute to understandings regarding the unique opportunities and challenges faced by police in rural schools in integrating effectively into schools and responding to youth-specific problems.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 March 2024

Re'Nyqua Farrington

Given the historical legacy of policing Black bodies, this research focuses on the structures of anti-Blackness within school policing and the strategies students of Color…

15

Abstract

Purpose

Given the historical legacy of policing Black bodies, this research focuses on the structures of anti-Blackness within school policing and the strategies students of Color activists use as they work to defund or abolish police departments in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Design/methodology/approach

Specifically, this article looks to Twitter as a counter-storytelling space for students of Color activists to organize and build movements to end anti-Black school policing. Through the frameworks of critical race theory (CRT) and Black critical theory (BlackCrit), this research applies inductive coding to analyze 42 Twitter posts from three students of Color-led organizations based in Los Angeles.

Findings

This document analysis presents four themes, which describe four dominant strategies students of Color activists use in their campaigns to defund or abolish school police in the LAUSD: (1) centering Blackness and Black student experiences, (2) making demands for the elimination of funding and support for school police, (3) calling for a shift in funding to support Black students and (4) employing multiple tactics concurrently.

Research limitations/implications

These findings demonstrate the importance of developing and centering a critical understanding of anti-Blackness to achieve racial and educational justice within social movements.

Originality/value

Moreover, the demands of students of Color activists reflect visions of public schools free from anti-Black school policing.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 December 2023

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.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2023

Kia Turner, Darion Wallace, Danielle Miles-Langaigne and Essence Deras

This study aims to present radical abolition studies, which encourages us to (re)member that the abolition of institutions and systems is incomplete without the abolition of their…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to present radical abolition studies, which encourages us to (re)member that the abolition of institutions and systems is incomplete without the abolition of their attendant epistemes of domination. The authors draw on the etymology of the word radical to encourage abolitionist praxis to grab systemic harm at its epistemological roots. Within radical abolition studies, this study presents Black abolition theory, which aims to make explicit a theorization of Blackness and works to abolish the episteme of anti-Blackness.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper offers Black abolition theory within radical abolition studies to reground abolition in its Black theoretical roots and to interrogate the concept of anti-Blackness and other epistemes of domination in abolitionist study and practice. Using a close reading of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction, and subsequent books and articles in abolition studies and educational studies that reference it, the authors highlight Du Bois’ original conceptualization of abolitionism as an ultimate refutation of a racial-social order and anti-Blackness. The authors then put Michael Dumas and kihana ross’ theory of BlackCrit into conversation with abolitionist and educational theory to push forward Black abolition theory.

Findings

Radical abolition studies and its attendant strand of Black abolition theory presented in this paper encourages scholars and practitioners to go beyond the dismantling of current instantiations of systemic harm for Black and other minoritized people – such as the school as it currently operates – and encourages the questioning and dismantling of the epistemes of domination sitting at the foundation of these systems of harm.

Originality/value

Black abolition theory contextualizes abolition in education by rooting abolitionist educational praxis in Black lineages. More generally, radical abolition studies encourages further research, study and collaboration in partnership with others who have historically participated in the fight against being labeled as subhuman to upend all epistemes of domination.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

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