A Necessary Pairing: Using Academic Outcomes and Critical Consciousness to Dismantle Curriculum as the Property of Whiteness in K-12 Ethnic Studies

Thinking Problems

There is debate around offering ethnic studies to high school students. Ethnic studies connects learning to students' lives and analyzes the workings of racism to construct avenues toward equity. As the debate unfolds, it is critical to examine ethnic studies' implications for youth development and the mechanisms that link it to student outcomes. One of ethnic studies' long-stated goals is fostering students' critical consciousness. Critical consciousness refers to critical reasoning around inequality (critical reflection), motivation to challenge inequality (critical motivation), and action taken to disrupt inequality (critical action). Little research has examined youth critical consciousness development within ethnic studies-a consciousness-raising system. Consequently, this longitudinal mixed-methods study examines students' critical consciousness development in ethnic studies and sheds light on the contextual characteristics (i.e., critical school socialization) that foster critical consciousness. Analyses of 459 ninth-grade students' (52% girls, 4% nonbinary; 1% Asian, 1% Black, 4% multiracial, 64% Latinx, 7% Native American, 15% described their own race, 7% skipped the question; Mage = 13.92) survey data, and focus group data with 19 students, revealed that ethnic studies-enrolled students grew more in their critical reflection than nonenrolled students. However, the quantitative data demonstrated decreasing critical motivation among all students, whereas the qualitative data suggested emergent critical motivation among ethnic studies-enrolled students. Furthermore, critical school socialization and teacher pedagogy were key to ethnic studies consciousness-raising. Altogether, this study highlights that ethnic studies fosters youth critical consciousness-a worthwhile outcome that should be considered in policy debates about ethnic studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

What's After Queer Theory? Queer Ethnic and IndigenousStudies Michael Hames-Garcia The decision to exercise intellectual sovereignty provides a crucial moment in the process from which resistance, hope, and most of all, imagination issue. —Robert Warrior, Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions1 To what historical trajectory would queerness attach itself, so that it could be legible to itself and to others? Which geographic locations would be meaningful for queer theory's central inquiries? —Sharon Patricia Holland, The Erotic Life of Racism2 The Emergence of a Field Reading contemporary work in the field of what, for the pur poses of this essay, I will call queer ethnic and indigenous studies generally gives me a feeling of great satisfaction.3 In the works that comprise this still-emerging field, I see the fruition of conversations I remember taking place among queer graduate students of color in the 1990s. To be more precise, many of the conversations that I and many other graduate students (queer, of color, and queer of color) had during the 1990s—whether in the hallways of our graduate pro grams, or over drinks after watching the latest Spike Lee film, or FeministStudies39, no. 2. © 2013 by Michael Hames-Garcia 384 Michael Hames-Garcia 385 Books Discussed in This Essay Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature. Edited by Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. The Erotic Life of Racism. By Sharon Patricia Holland. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization. Edited by Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick A. Ferguson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. Queer (Injustice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. By Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012. sitting around someone's apartment living room on floor cushions discussing Kobena Mercer or Coco Fusco in a queer theory reading group, or while puzzling through a challenging passage by Jacques Lacan or Frantz Fanon in bed on a Sunday morning — have turned out to be the seeds from which the orchard of queer ethnic and indig enous studies has grown. In addition to the women of color and les bian of color feminisms that were already available to us in the 1980s and 1990s, the early sentinel trees in this forest appeared during the last decade of the millenium: including Kobena Mercer's 1994 Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies; Evelynn Hammonds's 1994 article "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sex uality" in differences; Kevin Mumford's 1997 Interzones: BlackjWhiteSex Dis tricts inChicagoandNew York intheEarlyTwentieth Century; Cathy Cohen's 1997 article "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" in GLQ; David Eng and Alice Horn's 1998 collec tion Q & A: Queer inAsian America;José Esteban Muñoz's 1999 Disidenti fications:QueersofColorand thePerformance ofPolitics;and Emma Pérez's 1999 The Decolomal Imaginary: Writing Chicanas intoHistory}This trickle of books and articles transformed into a torrent in the following decade as the 386 Michael Hames-Garcia floodgates opened for scholars informed by the critical scholarship from ethnic studies, critical race theory, indigenous studies, queer theory, and feminism. Without wanting to suggest any absolute sepa ration among these fields, I would like to briefly tease out a few of the things that distinguish this emerging body of work from (1) women of color feminism and (2) queer theory, before going on to consider how the four texts under review here contribute to the field. It may be that the work of tracing continuities—particularly between this field and women of color feminism, as suggested by Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick A. Ferguson in their introduction to StrangeAffinities—is a generally more important project, but for the moment I am going to take the continuities for granted and see what can be learned from the discontinuities. In thinking about what distinguishes queer ethnic and indige nous studies from women of color and indigenous feminisms, the first,most obvious, answer lies in their relationship to queer theory. In other words, if women of...

US Republican lawmakers continue their nationwide crusade against Critical Race Theory because it unsettles the racial state. We argue that the partisan attacks on Ethnic Studies and CRT are motivated by White American fears of racial reconciliation. An honest review of our racial past and present through a critical race lens would upset the United States’ centuries-long colonial racial project, whose maintenance and containment are dependent on an enduring system of a hierarchical racial order grounded in White supremacy. Attacks on Ethnic Studies and CRT are about US political society preserving racial meaning in the US, by which safeguarding their entitled position within the racial order. The latest political tactic in educational policy to maintain White privilege is to empty meaning from racial categories, particularly the term ‘White’, through a colorblind linguistic subterfuge we call ‘arrested semantics’. As members of civil society, students and community members continue to mobilize to wrestle away political control over their education. Civil society continues to be a potent force against White supremacy, especially in the struggle for Ethnic Studies – whose curriculum is grounded in the premise that race has been the central organizing principle in US nation-state building. Indeed, US political society’s wealth-building capacity – and therefore sociopolitical and economic positioning, is predicated by the current racial order. We believe the reconciliation of racism will only occur by naming those agents who perpetuate racist policies and practices. Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies employ unequivocal language that can help us to identify the agents upholding White supremacy.

Democracy, Education, and Multiculturalism: Dilemmas of Citizenship in a Global World

ABSTRACTWe know little about the challenges districts and teachers face when establishing Ethnic Studies courses. In one school district, variation in teachers’ Ethnic Studies knowledge impeded the production of curricula and its implementation. This study examines how Ethnic Studies teachers responded to the problems of differential knowledge and orientation on race, power, and teacher positionality in the context of high school classrooms. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I argue that a praxis-oriented approach to teacher professional development can play a central role in preparing Ethnic Studies teachers. Through political education and critical race dialogue, teachers developed their critical consciousness, which then led to a collective identity and shared views on major elements of Ethnic Studies’ curricular perspectives and approach. This study holds significant implications for teacher education and professional development as schools, districts, and states create policies to contribute to an equitable and inclusive public education through Ethnic Studies curricula.

This research describes and assesses Critical Race Theory (CRT) pedagogy in a higher education ethnic studies course for police officers. CRT pedagogy aims to help students overcome “color-blind” thinking, which minimizes awareness of racism, by raising their critical understanding of racism and framing it as a pervasive and institutionalized reality that everyone has a responsibility to change. Using the Color Blind Racial Awareness (COBRA) Scale, critical awareness in three cluster areas, white privilege, institutional discrimination, and blatant racism, is measured among those completing the ethnic studies course and a comparison group of officers completing a different college course for police. Conclusions reflect on the impact of the course on students’ awareness of racism, the correlation of identity and awareness of racism, the hypothetical impact of such awareness in policing and possibilities for future research.

This chapter presents the potential of community cultural wealth to transform the process of schooling. It discusses the ways critical race theory (CRT) centers outsider, mestiza, and transgressive knowledges. CRT draws from and extends a broad literature base of critical theory in law, sociology, history, ethnic studies, and women's studies. Kimberle Crenshaw explains that various legal scholars felt limited by work that separated critical theory from conversations about race and racism. CRT emerged from criticisms of the critical legal studies (CLS) movement. CLS scholars questioned the role of the traditional legal system in legitimizing oppressive social structures. CRT addresses the social construct of race by examining the ideology of racism. CRT finds that racism is often well disguised in the rhetoric of shared 'normative' values and 'neutral' social scientific principles and practices CRT shifts the center of focus from notions of White, middle class culture to the cultures of communities of color.

This chapter argues that the term “social justice” is rarely defined in the field of education. In critical race theory, a focus on race and racism is essential to achieving social justice and therefore must be protected by word and in deeds. Critical race theory (CRT) was created to “expose and dismantle this social and legal status quo from an explicitly race-conscious and critical ‘outsider’ perspective”. Critical race theorists believe a task of CRT is to remind people of the deep and complex current nature of racial ideology and power. Critical race theory provides scholars with the tools to critique and question the ways in which people of color are represented, the resources that schools receive, and the public mandates structuring their lives. The commitment to racial justice in critical race theory is rooted in critical studies, ethnic studies, and women’s studies. Black scholars had no choice but to use their work as the primary means to combat racism in society.

In this paper, critical race theory and critical race praxis for educational research are used to frame an analysis of the 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA98) that limits access to financial aid for students who have been convicted of a drug felony. The authors explain how the HEA98 disenfranchises Black and Latinx college student populations. This policy is a form of institutional racism against the disproportionately large number of Black and Latinx individuals that have been convicted of drug-related crimes, which creates a caste system of college access and support. This policy analysis highlights data on incarcerated populations that link the policing of drug offenses to racial profiling and discrimination (e.g., “the War on Drugs” and the 1994 Crime Bill), questions the motivations for reducing access to education in drug offenders, reviews causes and inhibitors of recidivism in drug offenders to make the case for the promotion of education in recently-released offenders, and highlights empirical data that supports expanding access to these people. The authors conclude the paper with recommendations to progress toward racial educational equity. This paper is directed toward higher education scholars, practitioners, and policy makers who possess a strategic critical orientation towards racial equity in education.

The frequent police killings during the COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning among Americans from all backgrounds and propelled the Black Lives Matter movement into a global force. This manuscript addresses major issues to aid practitioners in the effective treatment of African Americans via the lens of Critical Race Theory and the Bioecological Model. We place the impacts of racism on Black families in historical context and outline the sources of Black family resilience. We critique structural racism embedded in all aspects of psychology and allied fields. We provide an overview of racial socialization and related issues affecting the parenting decisions in Black families, as well as a detailed overview of impacts of structural racism on couple dynamics. Recommendations are made for engaging racial issues in therapy, providing emotional support and validation to couples and families experiencing discrimination and racial trauma, and using Black cultural strengths as therapeutic resources.

This article focuses on a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) that fostered young people of color’s critical consciousness. Their critical consciousness emerged through praxis (reflection/action) while focusing on preserving ethnic studies in Tucson, Arizona. Because the SJEP home was in ethnic studies, the youth also struggled to keep their program alive. The Arizona Department of Education claimed the program bred ‘radicals’ who wanted to overthrow the government and therefore lobbied the state legislature to ban K-12 ethnic studies in public schools. In January 2012, the ban went into effect, shutting down ethnic studies classes as well as the SJEP. Young people’s qualitative research on their struggle led to action to save the education that gave them hope for a more equitable and just world. The article addresses the praxis of YPAR, which sparks a thought process leading to the drive to take action. Observing and documenting educational injustices inspire the need to seek radical change of Self and schools. Through the reflection and action facilitated by YPAR, young people of color construct a message about the importance of ethnic studies for individual as well as social transformation.

Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators’ reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to leadership. The four of the most prominent themes that emerged from this qualitative study, including Increased Critical Self Awareness and Reflection, Critical Awareness Influencing Decision Making, Disconnect Between What is Known, What is said, and What is practiced, and Racial Battle Fatigue. Despite the resolute and rampant backlash against Critical Race Theory, the findings from this study underscore its relevance to education. Implications of these findings beseech educational leaders and policymakers to consider implementing professional development and accountability measures that center race in educational equity.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (a) to use the theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to highlight and understand the vision, process, and practice of creating an Ethnic Studies program in an urban public school district, and (b) to inform social justice praxis by producing counter-hegemonic knowledge about K-12 Ethnic Studies programs. By focusing on K-12 Ethnic Studies, this paper seeks to show how everyday social justice praxis interrupts “race-neutral” or colorblind master narratives and White cultural hegemony in traditional social studies (Ross, 2001; Apple 2004; Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Hursh & Ross, 2000).

A century after the great American sociologist W.E.B. DuBois predicted that racism would continue to emerge as one of this country’s key problems, educational researchers, practitioners, and students are still in need of a language that will provide the necessary tools for effectively analyzing and coming to terms with the impact of race and racism on education. In part because of the reemergence of conservative pseudoscientific discourses in the 1990s and the predominance of class and gender epistemologies, discussions about race and racism in education have been either pushed to the margins or effectively destabilized. As faculty of color seeking to do transformative work that addresses issues of race and racism in education, we sometimes struggle with the limited ways in which our work and the work of other scholars concerned with race is interpreted and viewed by our colleagues. We have been fortunate because although the field of education has not wholly embraced race discourse, we have benefited significantly from the work of scholars in other fields such as ethnic studies, sociology, and law. We have borrowed heavily from and actively situated our work within these rich traditions—particularly ethnic studies (e.g., African American and Chicano studies). Even still, we continue to seek to find ways in which to create a discourse that engages larger questions of racial inequality in education and in society. For many of us, critical race theory (CRT) has begun to meet this growing need.