Critical Race Study of Intergroup Dialogue Facilitator and Student Experiences in Virtual Learning

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic  university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study  methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning  experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to  topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study  highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a  historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a  commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is  significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a  virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

Thinking Problems

Teaching (Cooperative) Business: The “Bluefield Experiment” and the Future of Black Business Schools

The Google Expedition titled WWI Era Through the Eyes of the Chicago Defender explores African American experiences during the early years of the Great Migration (1910-1970). Conventional journalism relies on the false idea that journalists are meant to be, and can be, objective, outside observers. This report provides tools for journalists to create more nuanced, thorough storytelling endeavors. This report describes the theoretical framework and intent of the Virtual Reality (VR) project for students in grades 8 and above. It utilizes Feminist Standpoint Theory (FST) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to cultivate a VR experience that acknowledges particular, overlooked aspects of American history. The Expedition utilizes photographs and articles from the Chicago Defender, archival stills and motion pictures, and 360-degree images of present-day locations throughout the United States, including Chicago and Waco, TX. Using Google Expedition, students wear a VR headset while a teacher guides the student through the Expedition, which was created through the lens of CRT and FST to help students question current narratives and stereotypes that still pervade society and mass media.

The authors argue for a research and conceptual agenda that complicates and disrupts common narratives in teacher education that have serious implications for race. Building on the pivotal work of legal scholar Derrick Bell and through a critical race theory (CRT) lens, this article challenges researchers to broaden and complexify traditional ideologies related to: (1) characteristics of ideal teachers recruited into the field; (2) the amount of time teachers should be expected to remain in the field through alternative programs such as Teach for America; (3)weight placed on teacher entrance examinations; (4)racial diversity of P-12 teachers; (5)racial and ethnic makeup of teacher educators; and (6)over-reliance on subject matter knowledge in teacher preparation to the exclusion of other aspects of learning to teach. The authors argue given the present racial divide in schools between teachers and students it is imperative for teacher education programs to complicate and intensify the utility of race in their recruitment, retention, and support of teacher education practices and policies. The authors offer a counter narrative framework and agenda to advance policy and research through a CRT lens.

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.

Critical race theory (CRT) allows for the challenging of systematic manifestations of White privilege that subordinate people of color (Bell, 1992). Specifically, CRT places race at the center of analysis and explores the transformations of the relationships among race, racism, and power in various social, economic, political, and educational contexts (Crenshaw et al., 1995). A strength of CRT is that it allows for the capturing of counterstories or the narratives of marginalized groups that counter the perspectives of the majoritarian (Delgado, 1989). Because of CRT's focus on the in-depth understanding of stories, studies using a CRT lens often utilize qualitative methods (Parker, 1998; Parker & Lynn, 2002). However, in recent years, scholars have begun to contemplate whether or not CRT and quantitative methods are compatible. One perspective is that the positivistic/post-positivistic approach that is associated with quantitative methods is incompatible with the critical approach of race-based theories such as CRT; in addition, it does not allow for the telling of individual and multiple stories (Zuberi, 2003). The alternative perspective feels that critical quantitative approaches allow for the telling of "group" or "composite" counterstories, although through the use of numbers, and are therefore compatible with CRT (Carter & Hurtado, 2007).

Race and Social Policy, edited by Sandra Edmonds Crewe, views current-day racism toward Black Americans in the United States through the lens of critical race theory, the concept that systemic racism permeates laws, policies, and institutions. With its legal origins, critical race theory can also provide a framework for understanding social policy because it relates to racism. In the medical field, this theory may be a less well-known concept which readers can be introduced to integrate into their practice and understanding of the impact of policy decisions. This book includes 12 articles from a special edition of the journal Social Work in Public Health first published in 2019 (volume 34, issue 1). These articles were mostly written by social workers with a focus that would be most beneficial to social workers. Other disciplines involved in developmental and behavioral pediatric care may find them useful in understanding the social context around racial issues through the lens of critical race theory. These chapters investigate the bidirectional effects of social policy and racism in the United States beginning with the slave trade, emphasizing the importance of taking a historical perspective. Topics examined include poverty, the workplace, media, housing, elections, education, welfare, fatherhood, disability, justice, the elderly, and the Christian church. The first chapter provides an overview which most readers could find helpful in deciding which additional chapters may be most interesting and relevant to their practice. For example, as a pediatric clinician, the chapter on Black fathers was enlightening. Specifically, it connected current family structures with historical context, emphasizing the ways slavery devalued the family unit and led to mothers taking on the sole caregiving role. The book calls its readers to action and provides some suggested policy changes. For example, the welfare chapter recommends collecting racial demographic data, and the chapter on education highlights the importance of recruiting Black and Latinx teachers. However, some readers may expect and hope for more recommendations in all chapters. By including only, the original journal articles published in 2019, the authors have missed many opportunities for editing these articles to fit the audience of 2023 and beyond. Noting, for example, the racial disparities highlighted by COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a multitude of events since 2019 have made prominent the impact of systemic racism in the United States. Acknowledgement and analysis of these major incidents using a critical race theory frame would strengthen the text for readers in the present day. Furthermore, since the journal's publication in 2019, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of using equitable and inclusive language. In the past few years, many professional clinical organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have embraced and distributed guidelines for more equitable and inclusive language. However, this text does not acknowledge these language changes over time. Notably, chapter 9 “Inequities in Family Quality of Life for African American Families Raising Children with Disabilities” includes the use of the outdated term, “mental retardation,” which is now perceived as pejorative. While the data presented in the chapter were collected in 2011 before the publication of the DSM-5, it was unsettling to read the term in a book published in 2023 with no explicit acknowledgement of the way language has progressed over the past decade. A book emphasizing critical race theory and the marginalization of Black Americans should also be sensitive to the experiences of other marginalized groups. For health care professionals, critical race theory provides a framework for understanding the systemic racial inequities their patients continue to face. This book examines current social policy and provides some useful suggestions for improvements in policy to create a more equitable and racially sensitive society, but it could benefit from being updated to provide readers with more current information. Furthermore, for those affiliated with a university, these articles may be available in databases to which their universities subscribe. With limited modifications made since 2019, the book and journal articles are nearly the same.

Racist hate speech on UK university campuses remains an increasing concern. This article examines the widespread problem of racist hate speech through a multilayered theoretical approach; and suggests that a fuller appreciation of the problem can only be gained through a race-centred analysis. Drawing on Fraser’s work on the problematics of misrecognition and identity-reification, the article extends Levine-Rasky’s theoreticisation of power dynamics in the intersectionality between whiteness and middle-classness to intersections of whiteness with both middle-classness and working-classness as a contributing factor to mobilisation of lad cultures which is termed as white-laddism. The article advances the understanding of racist hate speech through a conjoined analysis of these concepts through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens. The conjoined analysis is informed by the Deleuzian ‘rhizomatic’ approach in order to examine the process by which multiple, diverse and non-hierarchical lines of connection between the concepts shape, dislocate, modify each other in variable ways. The detail behind the bigger picture helps further our understanding of the inadequate nature of equality policies and strategies that often look at issues in isolation, and thus fail to address the inequality and injustice being perpetuated on campuses.

Growing research evidence on the ethic of care suggests that caring should be an integral part of the pedagogical methods implemented in schools. However, the colour blind ‘community of care’ often described in the literature does not disaggregate lines of ethnicity or race and much of this existing literature concerns elementary‐ and middle‐school students. This phenomenological study examined teacher care for African American secondary students, through a theoretical lens of critical race and care theory, as it was represented through the counter stories of eight ‘successful’ African American teachers. Findings revealed that teachers’ definitions and perceptions of care reflected a blend of traditional care literature, critical race theory and the literature on African American teachers before and after the US Supreme Court’s landmark Brown decision on integration. Findings also reveal the possibility of a pedagogy that I refer to as ‘culturally relevant critical teacher care’.

Background/Context There is a growing body of literature about the educational experiences of students who are African immigrants in U.S. schools. This study looks closely at a Ugandan immigrant's educational experiences in the U.S. as well as the laws and policies that preempted her education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this study is to examine the disconnect between the rhetoric and practice of second language/bilingual laws in one school district in a Midwestern state, with regard to the experiences of an African immigrant whose has a diverse linguistic background. Research Design This study is crafted through a critical race theory lens and applies critical policy analysis to understand current practices. Using autoethnography, we provide a first-person reflection on the lived experiences of a young African immigrant student and her family. Then, drawing on critical race theory in concert with critical policy analysis, we examine the implementation and practice of second language/bilingual laws and policies in the state of Illinois. Findings/Results We find that the discourse and rhetoric surrounding second language/ bilingual laws and policies on federal, state, and local levels do not align with actual practices in school districts and classrooms. We describe how the lack of coherence between discourse and practice has contributed to delimiting an African immigrant student's access to mainstream language and linguistic education and other academic opportunities. Conclusions/Recommendations We conclude with recommendations to improve bilingual services to speakers of African languages: acknowledge that some African immigrant students possess a diverse linguistic background; address and challenge the dominant attitudes that deprive African immigrant students of a quality educational experience. We call upon administrators and policymakers to evaluate and correct the disconnect between second language/bilingual laws and policies. We recommend that cultural competence be central to second language/bilingual laws and policies throughout the planning and implementation processes.

Long‐standing theoretical education frameworks and methodologies have failed to provide space for the role mental health can play in mediating educational consequences. To illustrate the need for such space, Ebony McGee and David Stovall highlight the voices of black undergraduates they have served in the capacities of teacher, researcher, and mentor. Building from the theoretical contributions of intellectual giants like Frantz Fanon and W. E. B. Du Bois, the authors attempt to connect oppressive social systems to the psyche of the oppressed in a way that is relevant to black students. McGee and Stovall pose a challenge to the current research trend of attributing the survival of black students at traditionally white institutions primarily to grit, perseverance, and mental toughness, noting that research on the aforementioned qualities often fails to properly acknowledge multiple forms of suffering. Utilizing the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the authors also challenge the construct of grit to consider the extent to which the mental health concerns of black students go undetected. Although critical race theorists have unmasked and attacked the racial trauma experienced at all levels of the educational system, the connection of CRT to mental health and wellness research is in its embryonic stages. For these reasons, McGee and Stovall argue that CRT scholars need to incorporate praxis to address mental health and wellness in order to address a fuller spectrum of black students' racialized worlds. Ultimately, they seek interdisciplinary perspectives that can help identify and foster strategies to support black students in the project and process of healing from multiple forms of racialized trauma they experience within and beyond their educational encounters.

In this paper, I explore how American Buddhist and Catholic religious communities are dealing with racism both within and outside of their communities by analyzing two projects through the lens of critical race theory (CRT). The Buddhist project is Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in Our Buddhist Communities, which aims to promote racial diversity in American Buddhist sanghas. The Catholic project is Open Wide Our Hearts, The Enduring Call to Love: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism, which aims toward spiritual conversion and social activism. I analyze how each project defines racism, how they approach the problem, and how they envision the role of tradition and the community in perpetuating and ameliorating racism. By analyzing these two projects, I demonstrate how religious communities could benefit from CRT as a critical theoretical framework for their racial projects.