Racial Theory In School Leadership

Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.

A school principal guiding his or her school towards more equitable practices may encounter a number of cascading issues that can ultimately affect the schools practices. In the following I will describe a possible cascading of events that may occur as a result of a principal initiating teacher professional development (PD) using Glenn Singleton’s 2014 book, entitled Courageous Conversations About Race. The first cascading event became evident during the first PD, where staff engagement was limited and what followed was during the next PD focused on Courageous Conversations several disgruntled teachers making a subliminal protest by simultaneously taking personal days to not participate. In fact, the teachers who called out had let the other

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

The intersectionality of race and racism in education and how researchers’ conception of race may affect the research methods used are best understood multidimensionally (Feagin & Elias, 2013). This means that there is no one way to understand why race may affect the research method used, the way in which systemic racism may play a role in the researcher or the individuals they choose to study, the scope of the work that they select, and the way in which they report their findings. So far this term, we have read articles and text that describe race and racism through different lends on why there are discrepancies in the literature and research.

The overarching theme of critical race theory is centered on race and racism, however in higher education, critical race scholars recognize that racial identity and this form of oppression (racism) intersects with other subordinated identities (such as gender, class, religion, ability/disability, sexual orientation, etc.) and forms of oppression (sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc.) to influence People of Color’s lived experiences (Bartlett & Brayboy, 2005; Brayboy 2005; Kumasi, 2011; Lynn & Adams, 2002; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). This means that in higher education, critical race theory challenges the dominate discourse on race and racism as it relates to educational theory, policy and practice (Solórzano, 1998).

I chose to read the article “Leveraging Conflict for Social Justice: How “Leadable” Moments Can Transform School Culture” by Enrique Aleman, Jr. The article discusses how an elementary school principle implements her vision of success within a school district that has a diverse group of students with low socioeconomical status. She envisions an environment where faculty, staff, students and parents are working together to create an idyllic school atmosphere. Whenever conflict manifests itself between key stakeholders the principle capitalizes on the instances as “leadable” moments associated with social justice. This case describes how a principle is tested by a teacher’s response to racist and bigoted language, and the implications surrounding the parents and district concerns regarding diversity and equal education opportunities for all students involved (Aleman, 2009).

Hope, E., Skoog, A., & Jagers, R. (n.d.). It 'll Never Be the White Kids, It 'll Always Be Us: Black High School Students ' Evolving Critical Analysis of Racial Discrimination and Inequity in Schools. Journal of Adolescent Research, 30, 83-112. doi:10.1177/07435584I4550688

As minority students increased in urban public schools, they have now become the majority of the school population and have brought difficult topics to the surface; race and ethnicity. In Another Inconvenient Truth: Race and Ethnicity Matter, Hawley and Nieto published their beliefs on how cultural differences are not to be tucked away and hidden in an educational setting, but embraced and celebrated to promote education by the teacher in an academic journal: Educational Leadership. Their appeals and claims provide various instruction to guide professional educators to overcome the achievement gap.

Iverson uses critical race theory (CRT) to examine how discourses of diversity, circulating in educational policies, reflect and produce realities for people of color on university campus. Analysis reveals four predominant discourses shaping images of people of color: access, disadvantage, marketplace, and democracy. This article aims to enhance understanding about how racial inequality is reproduced through educational policies. CRT originated in the 1970s to contest the absence of attention to race in the courts and in law. Data from an analysis of 21 diversity action plans issued at 20 U.S. land-grant universities. Use of NVivo computer software designed for qualitative data analysis. He sought universities that had a diversity committee,

Significance. Recent events in the U.S. society have made clear that issues of race remain a pertinent predicament that needs to be resolved. In fact, data collected from the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) on public and private school principals (NCES, 2016) revealed that 38% of the principals who took the survey reported racial tension between students taking place occasionally and another 2% reported that racial tension occurred frequently in their schools. In short, school leaders who continue to abide to colorblind ideology limit the potential for schools to become vehicles for the change our society needs.

American society likes to believe that race relations in our country are no longer strained. We do not want to hear about the need for affirmative action or about the growing numbers of white supremacist groups. In order to appease our collective conscious, we put aside the disturbing fact that racism is alive and well in the great U.S.A. It hides in the workplace, it subtly shows its ugly face in the media, and it affects the education of minority students nationwide. In the following excerpts from an interview with a middle class African American male, the reader will find strong evidence that race plays a major role in determining the type and quality of education a student receives.

The foundation of this paper is situated in the (counter)narratives of three black female school leaders. A central tenet of CRT is to validate the “voices” of people of color. Scholars of CRT in education argue that data collected of the stories told by educators in educational spaces of their experience in recognizing and confronting “isms,” be seen as valid (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Solórzano & Bernal, 2001; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001, 2002b). Solorzano and Yosso (2002a) present five constructive uses of counternarratives or counter stories: (1) creates a community among those at the margins of society; (2) challenges the ideological thinking of center-wing members; (3) both discloses the existence of other possibilities and unites communities with the same goals; (4) constructs

Fourth-year Irvis Fellow Osly Flores this collected, analyzed and wrote his dissertation. He successfully defended his dissertation in the summer 2017. He presented and co-presented papers at three national conferences in 2016-2017: University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), and Critical Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA). For his presentation for CRSEA, he collaborated with two Diversity Fellows in the School of Education at Pitt. He has also submitted one manuscript as single author to the Journal of School Leadership and two co-author manuscripts with his advisor, Dr. Michael Gunzenhauser, to Urban Education and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Speaking out about the mistreatment of racialized students in education can be complicated when there is a strong influence in the culture of power, as Delpit discusses in her essay. The people in the culture of power are generally white, middle-class people and they experience irrepressible privilege within the education system. The power Delpit refers to is unintentionally sanctioned in classrooms today; however, people have not attempted to change this unequal power structure. Delpit discusses that there is “the power of the teacher over the students; the power of the publishers of textbooks and of the developers of the curriculum to determine the view of the world presented” (Delpit 283). Students of color recognize throughout time; the privileged white people are consistently in control of the way everyone else is educated. It is already engraved in their minds that white people have control over the culture of power; therefore, it is extremely hard to change the current structure. When students of color recognize this strong hierarchy of white people and underrepresentation of colored people in power, they turn away from wanting to receive an education.