Counter Stories Research Articles

Prevent and post-16 education: the implications for Muslim women

ABSTRACT The “Prevent Duty” requires that UK public sector bodies have a statutory responsibility to stop individuals from supporting terrorism or becoming terrorists, including within education settings. Despite existing research that highlights the experiences of Prevent for Muslim students, the topic of Muslim women students appears to have been largely neglected. This paper addresses the lack of empirical research that focuses on Muslim women in the post-16 education sector and the impact of the Prevent Duty. I add to existing research on Prevent within education by focusing upon Muslim women’s experiences concerning the strategy, by utilising Critical Race Feminism’s counter stories. The research draws on counter stories deriving from focus group and interview data to demonstrate the lived experiences of Prevent for young Muslim women in further and higher education within England. Within the empirical data collected, three themes were identified: 1) self-censoring; 2) the “visible Other”; and 3) the responsibilisation of Muslim women. The findings of this research demonstrate that there is a gendered impact of the Prevent strategy within post-16 education and it occurs in different avenues. Accordingly, I call for a concerted effort to draw further attention to the future of Prevent, particularly within the education sector.

Challenging Representations of Sámi Characters in Fiction for Young Readers

Abstract: This study focuses on challenging representations of Sámi characters and cultures in Swedish literary works for young readers: “Bamse möter Stallo” (Bamsy Meets Stállu, 2021), a cartoon intended for pre-literate and young readers, Lilli, Lávre och Saivofolket (Lilli, Lávre and the Sáivu People, 2021), a picturebook, and När vi var samer (When We Were Sámi, 2021), a graphic novel accessible for teenagers. The aim is to map how the Sámi characters and cultures are presented and represented, and by and for whom, using critical race theory. The research questions are: 1) How do verbal and visual elements in the analysed works contribute to the representations of the Sámi characters and cultures? 2) How might the critical race theory framework be relevant in the Swedish-Sámi context? The findings show how authors and illustrators use symmetrical, enhancing, complementary, or counterpointing interplay to pinpoint preconceived notions of Sáminess, inform the readers about historical and contemporary racism, challenge underlying perceptions that privilege Swedishness, and to tell stories and counter stories about Sápmi, the Sámi peoples, and Sámi cultures.

Counter Stories on the Meaning of Sport in the Lives of Black Youth Who Are Incarcerated

Although a significant focal point of research has been dedicated to the role of sport in the lives of youth, few articles have explored sporting experiences among incarcerated youth. Often overlooked, this population is highly disenfranchised and overrepresented by youth of color. Nonetheless, emerging research has proposed sport as an important developmental tool in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. Informed by critical race theory, the current study included semistructured interviews with nine incarcerated Black males, exploring the meaning of sport in their lives. Results included themes around family induction into sport, sport versus street life, sport teaching life skills, and sport as a distraction. Findings offer insight into how youth of color in the juvenile justice system conceptualize the role of sport and consequently, how sport may be harnessed for positive youth outcomes in correctional settings.

The (ecologically) imperial mode of sport at the exterminist stage of capitalism: Counter stories of Dakar Rally's ride in South America (2009–2019)

This paper explores the voices of resistance against the Dakar Rally's decade-long operation in South America. Drawing upon the three-prong framework of environmental justice (EJ), the analysis showcases how the less powerful stakeholders in the hosting countries articulated the deleterious consequences caused by the event to the local communities and ecologies. Moreover, by situating the Dakar Rally's expeditions in South America within the global capitalist economy, the paper explains why the most prestigious car rally is an exemplary manifestation of ecological imperialism, as it is not only a showcase of unsustainable industries (represented by fossil-fuel vehicles) with European colonial hubris but also a newer stage of an ongoing centuries-old process of extracting ecological resources from the Global South to benefit the increasingly mobile, vampire-like transnational capital.

Claiming Voice and Visibility for International East-Asian Kinesiology Students

ABSTRACT Confronting the distinctive challenges of international East Asian students is vital for the increasingly diverse United States higher education system. This study examines the experiences of six participants of East Asian descent during kinesiology doctoral programs at U.S. higher education institutions. The research design is qualitative inquiry rooted in Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit). There were several subthemes emerged; (a) language barriers and/or proficiency, (b) cross-cultural dissonance, (c) multi-faceted challenges, (d) limited social relationships, and (e) extension of Asian identity as faculty. Findings are discussed in light of AsianCrit with a particular focus on marginalization—invisible presence and silenced voices, intersectionality—perpetual foreigners and unwelcome outsiders, lack of social and cultural capital, and counter stories. Frequently positioned as outsiders with minimal voice and visibility, their learning and success can be supported by increased institutional diversity training, culturally responsive asset -based instruction, and culturally contextual orientation.

Affect and the force of counter stories: learning racial literacy through thinking and feeling

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to international scholarship on racial literacy in teacher education. Specifically, we consider filmic counter stories as bodies that carry an affective charge with the potential to ignite dialogic and embodied/emotional learning. The football documentary The Final Quarter is our case study. This film traces the racially explosive final years of First Nations Australian, Adam Goodes’ elite playing career. The film floodlights football as a site for public pedagogy where people learn racism, with the film offering means of developing racial literacy through examining its encounters. The paper describes racial literacy and establishes affect/embodiment as a contribution to the field. We analyse the film using an affective-discursive lens and genealogical methodology and consider implications for teacher education. We argue that language is insufficient for understanding racism and that the affective intensities activated by film may help to pedagogically illuminate the role of emotions in reproducing racism.

CRT, information, and disability: An intersectional commentary

Grounded in my perspective as a deaf, Black, and trans librarian who has worked in many Library and Information Science (LIS) roles, I argue in this paper that information scientists and professionals could close the gap in representation and information access by applying a knowledge of intersectionality to our work. I make the case for this by presenting examples of three Black historical “hidden figures” who shaped life as we know it in the USA, highlighting the erased dimensions of their lives as disabled people. Despite this geographical setting, these intersectional counter stories are relevant to addressing local areas of inequity in information access and resources worldwide. This community commentary paper addresses a serious gap in scholarship and practice around the erasure of disability from both Black history and LIS theory and practice, and follows in the Critical Race Theory (CRT) traditions of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) and counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to bridge this gulf. Applying CRT and related concepts to LIS work prepares the ground for immediate and future needs for equitable access to resources, by acknowledging those who may be hindered by their racial/ableist/queerphobic biases and the way they may unknowingly play into systemic oppression, just by their participation. This will maintain relevance and contribute to the creation of equity for Black and brown marginalized LIS staff and community members going forward. Having additional systemic support for our most marginalized staff members would create ripple effects in information access and cultural competency in the way we are able to see barriers and opportunities, and the field as a whole would benefit.

Stories of Teacher Candidates of Color in a Teacher Preparation Program: Using Community Cultural Wealth to Disrupt Majoritarian Narratives

Society portrays a deficit perspective on teachers and communities of color. Our research serves as a tool to name these inequitable stereotypes and disrupt majoritarian narratives by highlighting the stories of former teacher candidates of color (TCoC). This qualitative research study utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews with each participant to capture their counter stories. This research focuses on the General Knowledge Test (GKT), a licensure examination, which must be passed to gain entrance to the College of Education. Although our participants continued to experience difficulties during their teacher preparation program, they resisted against gatekeeping mechanisms and refused to allow the GKT to dictate their goals of becoming educators. We came to this research with a critical lens to centralize the counter-stories of TCoC and to raise questions about equity and justice. Using Critical Race Theory and Community Cultural Wealth, we attempt to disrupt and dismantle majoritarian narratives regarding TCoC.

Counter stories: The voices of Indigenous peoples undertaking educative roles in flexi schools

This paper reports on findings from the first author’s doctoral research examining the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff in Australian flexi schools. ‘Collaborative yarning methodology’ story boarding was used to hear (and theme) the collective experiences of Indigenous teaching and non-teaching staff in these alternative school settings where both they and Indigenous students make up larger numbers of staff than mainstream schools. Informed by Indigenist and critical race theory, 19 Indigenous staff members contributed to knowledge around three themes: Us Mob; Race and racism, and School Practice which incorporated discussions both of curriculum and of issues related to funding. Many Indigenous staff were working in flexi schools through choice and a sense of commitment to working with Indigenous youth. However other issues, such as experiences of racism, were still present despite the ‘social justice’ nature of flexi schools.

“I would rather be informed than misinformed”: critical conversations supporting transnational religious identity across time and space

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how a transnational immigrant youth’s engagement on social media supported her identity formation and allowed space to advance more just framing of Islam across school and online communities.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study draws on data collected across two years, including interviews, classroom observations and social media posts. Using digital religion and counterstorying as a constructive theoretical frame, the authors asked: What was the role of social media in supporting a transnational immigrant youth’s critical media literacy practices within and beyond school. How, if at all, did these practices shift over time?FindingsFindings highlight how I. Mohamud used social media in support of her identity development as a female, Muslim youth in a political climate antithetical to such liberation and how through an online community she engaged in counter stories to negative framing of Islam.Originality/valueOur collaborative writing answers Lam and Warriner’s (2012) call for research exploring how individuals from migrant backgrounds interact with “diverse media representations and mobilize different interpretive frames for understanding societal events and personal experiences” (p. 207). Moreover, this study further answers El-Haj and Bonet (2012) call for research investigating “ways that youth inhabit particular identities in specific contexts and interactions and across time” (p. 41).

Narrative, Compassion, and Counter Stories

Critical race theory (CRT) tools of evaluating stock stories and counter stories can help clinicians and researchers illuminate experiences of those at the margins in order to gain insights into the normalized injustices that are hidden from view in a dominant narrative. To do this work requires vigilance and intentionality. Here, CRT is applied to a patient case involving overevaluation for nonaccidental trauma (NAT) to describe the impact on patient care and experience of competing perspectives. CRT is also applied to assess the literature on the harms of inequities in NAT evaluations.

School Desegregation as Multi-generational Narratives of Afropessimism

The Kansas City, Missouri School District (KCMSD) avoided federal oversight to comply with the desegregation ruling for nearly 30 years after Brown v. Board of Education by establishing a neighborhood concept for school attendance boundaries. Jenkins v. Missouri ended in 1995 with a U.S. Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools in this district. Our research project used BlackCrit and oral history to examine the experiences of 15 participants, who were educators, students, parents, and community members that formed the legacy of school desegregation. Their counter stories shed critical light on how they continue to grapple with persistent inequalities in today’s schools. Themes from their stories resonated with vivid accounts of the desegregation plan that guided their educational experiences; the community’s reactions to desegregation; views about integration; dangerous memories of institutional racism and antiblackness; and lessons from a contested field. Significantly, our participants’ local stories have the potential to invigorate efforts for Black liberation.

Accurate, age-appropriate and sensitive: reconsidering how to teach the Utah Studies fourth grade social studies core

Accurate, age-appropriate and sensitive: reconsidering how to teach the Utah Studies fourth grade social studies core

A beginning teacher’s living of counter stories in a high-needs school in rural China

ABSTRACT This narrative inquiry explores a beginning teacher’s counter story experiences in a high-needs secondary school in rural China. The study examines storied data culled from interviews, observations, and digital photos and videos of the participant’s daily life. The research intent was to discover how the participant teacher lived counter stories with his students and teacher colleagues amid the competing and conflicting dominant narratives inside and outside the school. The study discusses how teacher reflection, ‘intelligent rebellion’, and teacher community are related to a teacher’s sense of self and construction of counter stories. This research provides local, national and international insights into teacher retention and development in a professionally challenging rural school landscape.

A narrative-based exploration of aging, precariousness and housing instability among low-income older adults in Canada

ABSTRACT In this article we focus upon low-income older adults’ lived experiences of aging, precariousness and housing instability/homelessness in Hamilton, Canada. Precariousness includes involuntary or incentivized displacement, as well as ‘health discounting’ in the face of rising shelter costs, inappropriate housing, periods of homelessness and involuntary housing immobility. The lived experiences of aging, precariousness and housing instability were collected through arts-based methodologies, whereby participants were given tablets to record their photos, videos and written diaries of their housing-related experiences. Additionally, participants took part in individual semi-structured interviews and participant observation in community-based settings. The recounting of participant experiences through a sensemaking frame allows for an exploration of the question of what it means to be ‘devalued’ as one ages to the extent that securing shelter is an overwhelming and stressful journey. Participant narratives provide compelling counter stories contesting popular notions that older adults will be taken care of as they age by the state or private savings. In sharing these stories, we are attempting to bring ‘recognizability’ to the experiences of aging, precariousness and housing/homelessness in order to contribute to the conditions through which low-income older adults’ experiences can be folded into policy co-design geared towards affordable housing.

‘University is a non‐Muslim experience, you know? The experience is as good as it can be’: Satisfied settling in Muslim students’ experiences and implications for Muslim student voice

We report findings from a cross‐institutional investigation testing the applicability of a new concept, ‘satisfied settling’, which describes the ways in which students are unconsciously ‘settling for less’ in terms of their university experiences. The context of exploration for this article was that of Muslim students’ experiences as a critical area which has received little previous focus. Our results describe a staged cognitive process undertaken by students to subconsciously excuse institutional failures to support their religious needs by settling for lower levels of satisfaction. The ‘counter stories’ told by 19 Muslim students (via semi‐structured interviews) detail how their voices are heard or silenced around the deep importance of religious provisions in their university experiences. Satisfied settling was ultimately found to translate across institutional contexts, and the applicability of the concept is discussed in extending to other marginalised student groups.

Counter stories: life experiences of refugee background mature students in higher education in Ireland

ABSTRACT Refugee Background Mature Students, with many having come from the global South to seek asylum, form a minority group in higher education. This qualitative study uses a Critical Race Theory framework to examine the lived experience of four Refugee Background Mature Students from Angola and Nigeria with a focus on microaggresions, the everyday occurrences of racism. On campus, their learning is informed by past experiences, asylum systems, including time spent in Direct Provision. Repeated microaggressions in Direct Provision silence or attempt to silence in the face of power. These students encounter the assaults of further microaggressions on campus, horizontally from peers and vertically from lecturers. These negative experiences occur in tandem with support from individual academics they meet during their degree courses. The unevenness of experience suggests that higher education institutions need to incorporate the specific needs of RBMSs across an institution to fully support diversity on campus.

An Exploratory Case Study of the Merger of Two Companies: Problems in Staff Adaptation Process

The paper reports on the merger of two independent financial services institutions. It is explored how the employees of a financial services institution (FSI) experienced its recent merger through the analysis of different narratives circulating within the organization. An exploratory case-study research project was conducted framed by the key concepts of organizational culture, change, and narrative research. A narrative approach was adopted to analyze the research material focusing the main analysis, which concentrates on analyzing the structure of narratives following the five elements of agency, temporality, event, context and format. The findings show how employees at FSI created counter stories to the positive messages, leadership sent across, threatening not only their economic situation, working conditions and roles but also their sense of self and their personal identities. The results of the empirical study strengthen the suggestion that narratives represent a powerful means to explore the underlying individual and social processes involved in situations of organizational change that may foster resistance to change ultimately inhibiting successful post-merger integrations. The empirical findings represent the groundwork for further, more comprehensive and elaborate research drawing upon a more diverse set of partici-pants from various levels representing all organizational departments.

UNDERLYING MASTER NARRATIVE AND COUNTER-STORIES ON SELECTED AMERICAN ONLINE NEWS

This paper extrapolates the contrasting discourse of master narrative and counter stories through an analysis of online news articles dealing with the marginalization of African-American students in Newark. The discourse of master narrative works to maintain the ongoing racism that limits the opportunity of African-American community in Newark educational field. The claim of equal opportunity, as is propagated by the discourse of Cami Anderson, the superintendent of Newark works to conceal the prevailing ideology of Whiteness and color-blind view that deny special privileged to the Whites. Employing Faircloughs CDA (2010) under the framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the study underlines micro-structures of linguistic features within the wider scope of racism in American education. This paper argues that Whiteness as ideology remains prevalent in American educational system, and one avenue to subvert this view by increasing the involvement of marginalized group in the policy making decision. The discourse of the public, as seen in Barakas narration aligns with the African-American communitys struggle for equal access to through its advocatory tone as a catalyst for social change.

“That Sure is Racist”: Classroom Race Talk as Resistance

This work analyzed three grade 9 English Language Arts classroom discussions and contributions by Black youth as resistance acts. Using a framework of resistance based on an indigenous understanding of progress provided insight into how student resistance emerged in language as metaphor and stories. Thematic analysis of the three classroom discussions indicate student resistance is captured in the naming of what is often left silent or often silenced. Through transgressing evasion and silence, students’ counter stories and experiences shared in the classroom named social realities inscribed in their day-to-day experiences, as well as how schools are complicit in silencing the lives and history of Black and indigenous people. This work demonstrates the importance of situating resistance as counter narratives that work to reconfigure interpretations of personal and social identities situated more completely within embodied experiences.