Understandings Of Race Research Articles

Studying Race and Religion

The authors provide an analytical review of the past 115 years of scholarship on race, ethnicity, and religion. Too often work in the study of race and ethnicity has not taken the influence of religion seriously enough, with the consequence being an incomplete understanding of racialization, racial and ethnic identity, and racial inequality. The authors examine key works in the field; conduct an assessment of articles published on race, ethnicity, and religion in six journals over a five-year period; and outline where scholarship should head in future years. Most notably, until the mutual influences of race, ethnicity and religion are better understood, the power of each is underestimated.

‘The last syllable of modernity’: Chaucer in the Caribbean

In the wake of European conquest, multi-racial societies draw on diverse cultural resources in order to conceive of resilient post-conquest identities. This essay builds on Emily Greenwood’s argument that Anglophone Caribbean literary ‘misquotations’ from classical Latin should be read as signs of W.E.B. DuBois’s ‘double consciousness.’ My essay elaborates on this idea for medieval studies by analyzing references to Chaucer in the Anglophone Caribbean. First, this study examines writers who invoke Chaucer in critical essays that address race and literature (Roger Mais, V.S. Naipaul, Edward Kamau Brathwaite). Second, the essay explores an allusion to the Canterbury Tales in Jean Rhys’s short story ‘Again the Antilles’ as a catalyst for a virtuoso creole performance. Finally, the study considers how more recent writers appropriate Chaucer to convey diasporic understandings of race and gender.

Measuring race and ethnicity in the censuses of Australia, Canada, and the United States: Parallels and paradoxes

Most national censuses include questions about race, colour, national origins, ethnicity, ancestry, and tribe in an effort to describe subgroups within their population. In this paper, we focus on changes over the last half-century in the racial and ethnic classification schemes of the censuses in three countries that share important historical and demographic features Australia, Canada, and the United States. We show that there are similarities, as well as some idiosyncratic features, in how these three nations define and describe racial and ethnic subgroups. We then argue that the gathering of data on the racial/ethnic subgroups in these three nations has followed a similar progression over the last half-century because of shifts in the understanding of race and ethnicity, data-gathering procedures, and the ongoing dialogue between each national population and its data-gathering institution.

Richard Sherman, Rhetoric, and Racial Animus in the Rebirth of the Bogeyman Myth

I first analyze the context and content of the interview, setting the stage for a larger discussion of rhetoric, racial animus, and the myth of the bogeyman. Next, I consider the evolving rhetoric of black danger in law and media, situating the coverage of the Sherman interview in the larger discursive framework of racialized media. Then, I expand the discussion of racial animus in sports media to encompass the pernicious myth of the bogeyman, which has reared its ugly head in the creation of the Richard Sherman saga. Last, I analyze the myth of the bogeyman in history, paying particular attention to its coloration in German and Romanian myth, and a painting by Francisco Goya to consider the now racialized violence that exists by the construction of Richard Sherman as modern-day bogeyman. I do this because I think it important to create multi-model models of understanding racism in order to best critique it. This approach also compliments my belief in the value of rhetorical and interdisciplinary inquiry into law. Richard Sherman, as a relatively dark-skinned black man, embodies a long-standing fear of darkness, that often goes undiscussed in public culture. I conclude with suggestions for further research and suggestions for ways in which the media and law can cease constructing black danger and supporting anti-black racism.

Commentary on Woodger’s ‘Large Group Work: Identity Development and Its Significance for Achieving Race Equality’

Introduction What is exciting about Woodger’s article is that it demonstrates how an experiential large group in a training context can be the instrument for effecting change. Change not only in the members as they get to know themselves better, not only in the learning that takes place about group dynamics or the subject of their education, which is stated to be about understanding of racism and identity in this case, but the beginnings of social change. I will comment on the group analytic concepts and practices that relate to this work, in particular the concept of the social unconscious, I will introduce Agazarian’s notions of stereotypical and functional subgroups, and end with some examples of large group experiences from the large group that is held at the Institute of Group Analysis, another training context that uses large groups.

Large Group Work: Identity Development and Its Significance for Achieving Race Equality

This article examines and analyses the effectiveness of experiential large group work (between 24–35 students) in delivering community and youth work training at Goldsmiths1. It specifically focuses on students’ development and experience in their understanding of racism and identity. The training has refined a model of learning and teaching that combines large group work and experiential learning. It is in this arena that students explore and critically reflect on their life and work experiences. They learn to process and articulate their feelings and understandings across a wide range of issues that come from learning how to inwardly reflect and to develop an awareness of themselves and change. The article explores the experience of group work training and the significance of students’ development of their racial identity in effectively addressing racism. It draws on both the work of Paulo Freire (1972; 1995) on education and Pat de Maré (1975; 1991) on large groups. The article begins by examining some of the literature on both race and large groups followed by an exploration of racial identity and its development in the group work process in terms of distinct phases. It then discusses the importance of the large group and its relevance to development of racial identities. It concludes by highlighting the significance of the issue of racial identity in addressing racism.

JAZZ, THE WOUND: NEGATIVE IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND THE PROBLEM OF WEAK SUBJECTIVITY IN THEODOR ADORNO’S TWENTIETH CENTURY

This essay addresses the emergence of theories of “identity” in twentieth-century politics, aesthetics, and philosophy by considering Theodor Adorno's understanding of “negative identity” as a form of coercive categorization that nevertheless contains social knowledge. A historical account of the Frankfurt school's relation to questions of race, anti-Semitism, and the idea of culture, the essay analyzes Adorno's infamous jazz articles in light of the transatlantic history of Marxian political theory and its understanding of racism, subject–object relations, and models of cultural production. The result is an investigation of the history of the concept of identity, its emergence alongside the rise of cultural studies, and its relation to international cultural–aesthetic formations such as jazz. The article concludes with an examination of Adorno's critique of idealism, cultural identity, and nationalism in light of the “wounded” political subjectivity of the modern era.

Medicalizing Racism

Sociologist James M. Thomas (JT) examines how public and scientific accounts of racism draw upon medical and psychological models, and how this contributes to our understandings of racism as a medical, rather than social, problem.

A Culturally Responsive Alternative to “Drill and Kill” Literacy Strategies: Deep Roots, Civil Rights

This article describes two approaches to improving literacy in a high poverty, diverse urban high school. One curriculum program, “Striving Readers,” included a prescribed course of study for students reading below grade level along with schoolwide strategies. This approach did not improve targeted students’ reading scores or motivation to read. The alternative approach, “Deep Roots: Civil Rights,” was a culturally responsive curriculum that had a strong impact on the identified students’ academic development as well as their understanding of racism in this country. An examination of “Striving Readers” and “Deep Roots: Civil Rights” projects provides insight into the impact of the curriculum on student achievement and motivation. At a time when many schools are implementing the Common Core State Standards, this article is a reminder that a compelling, rigorous, culturally responsive curriculum best serves all our nation's schoolchildren. Projects such as “Deep Roots: Civil Rights” provide an effective alternative or complement to prescribed reading programs.

Weaving Social Foundations Through Dance Pedagogy: A Pedagogy of Uncovering

Today’s dance educators enter classrooms populated by increasingly diverse students in which teachers’ pedagogical knowledge necessitates heightened understandings of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality. Uncovering taken-for-granted assumptions, dominant stereotypes, and educational structures that reproduce social inequalities in schools requires teacher preparation in social foundations of education. This qualitative study examined an undergraduate dance pedagogy course weaving social foundations content taught through a critical feminist pedagogical perspective over a three-year period. Narrative data were drawn from student (n = 59) writing assignments and discussion posts. Inclusion approaches for social foundations are presented. The range and diversity of student narratives amplify the challenge of, and the need for, the inclusion of social foundations in dance teacher preparation.

Training educators in anti-racism and pluriculturalismo: recent experiences from Brazil

This article examines educator participation in training initiatives based on Brazilian federal education legislation (Law 10,639 from 2003) in one city in the state of São Paulo. Law 10,639/03 represents a significant moment in the institutionalization of ethno-racial policies in Brazil over the past 15 years. It makes obligatory the teaching of African and Black Brazilian history and culture in all school subjects, and requires in-depth study of black contributions in the social, economic, and political spheres. The article first contextualizes understandings of race and racism in Brazil, followed by an elaboration of the political and epistemological underpinnings of ethno-racial educational reforms focused on Afro-descendants. The article then analyzes the contradictory processes that emerge from teacher training initiatives where the perspectives of anti-racism, multiculturalism (pluriculturalismo), racial democracy, and miscegenation intermingle and get reconfigured into understandings that have the potential to advance as well as impede critical engagement with racism and racial inequality. Rather than view teacher training initiatives as default decolonization or inevitable co-optation, this article outlines a more complex and contradictory account of state-society collaborations on educational initiatives. The article reveals the practical challenges of decolonization to argue that anti-racist activism in the educational sphere must take seriously the variable and contingent results of such political efforts in order to meet teachers where they are at while also challenging them to go beyond these limitations.

Race in California's prison fire camps for men: prison politics, space, and the racialization of everyday life.

The vast majority of social scientists agree that race is "socially constructed." Yet many scholars of punishment and prisons still treat race as static, self-evident categories. One result is that not enough is known about the production, meanings, and consequences of race as experienced by prisoners and those who guard and manage them. The author's research on California's prison fire camps uncovers the micro-level ways in which race is performed and imbued with meaning; he reveals how racial understandings color people and settings. One puzzle is that prisoners in California's fire camps will fight natural disasters side by side, sharing water and provisions, but separate into racial groups when in the camp itself. In part to answer this (and in part to develop better understandings of race and prisons more generally), the author unpacks the variegated nature of punishment and the spatialization of race and advocates for research that is faithful to the constructivist framework.

Racial diversity in the suburbs: how race-neutral responses to demographic change perpetuate inequity in suburban school districts

Suburbs across the US are experiencing dramatic demographic shifts, yet there is little research available on how suburban school districts are dealing with these changes. In this article, we examine the discourses surrounding race and demographic change in three suburban school districts that have been undergoing rapid demographic changes and which contain demographically distinct areas within their district boundaries. Utilizing a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, we analyze how the policy context (federal and state) frames actors’ discourses and understandings of race, paying particular attention to the political and institutional factors affecting school policy. We illustrate how the discourse, in turn, is related to the actions (or inactions) taken by district and school leaders to respond to demographic change. We conclude the article by discussing policy implications and potential challenges districts may face in the future if efforts to purposively address racial changes continue to be avoided.

Looking Forward, Looking Back: Framing the Future for Teaching for Social Justice in Early Childhood Education

THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that throughout the preschool years children are not only becoming more aware of themselves and their surroundings but they are also developing their moral frameworks by absorbing the attitudes and values of their family, culture and society. Undeniably the preschool years are crucial in shaping cultural and racial understandings and are critical in forming attitudes towards difference and diversity. Consequently, for a future characterised by justice, peace and understanding it is imperative that early childhood educators take responsibility in guiding children towards a positive attitude regarding difference and diversity, and upholding equity, justice and human dignity. However, teachers may struggle to find suitable pedagogical strategies that work to support and promote teaching for social justice and inclusion. This article highlights a doctoral study conducted in Australia that built upon successes in the US and UK that incorporated the use of children's literature in prior-to-school settings. This article will outline the strategies that were successfully implemented by teachers involved in this collaborative study using children's literature to promote and support teaching for social justice and inclusion. It is anticipated that teaching for social justice in the early years will form a foundation that will guide learners towards a lifelong concern for the valuing of difference, diversity, human dignity and justice.

Forced Perspective: Police Officers' Personal Opinions and Racial Data Collection in Nebraska

Law enforcement officers in Nebraska, as in many other states, are required to collect data concerning the perceived race of persons contacted in traffic stops and the cause for the stop. This data is then used to identify patterns of possible racial profiling. Nebraska's system forces officers to choose between six races. Interviews of officers in one police department found that their personal understandings of race did not conform with the six categories provided. This flawed collection approach, when framed within an analysis of the issues inherent in racial profiling, shows the need for policy reform in data-collection schemes.

The collection of race-based data in the USA: a call for radical change

Two important new books by Greg Carter and Kenneth Prewitt provide detailed historical perspectives on how understandings of race and race categories have evolved since the founding of the republic. Prewitt focuses on an analysis of racial classification in the US census – the so-called ‘statistical races’ –and its changing role in US policy, culminating in recommendations for radical change. Carter takes as his theme population mixing across the races, offering a positive, even celebratory, but little known account of the moments and movements that have praised mixing. As pressures mount on the ‘statistical races’ in the late twentieth century, Prewitt uses the political space opened up by these debates to offer fundamental changes to US methods of ethno-racial data collection, including the removal of these questions from the census. The jury is in recess for further deliberations.

Resonance and reach: discussions on racism between the UK and Germany from the late 1970s

In this paper I investigate the resonance of the volume The Empire Strikes Back within the debates on racism in Germany since the late 1970s. I am interested in this long-term intellectual exchange in light of the current need to conceptualize racism in a European framework and thereby reflect upon the characteristics, concepts and possibilities of such a framework. I begin by situating the debate at that time within the context of the New Left. What connected both situations, in Germany and the UK, was an inscription of the then-ongoing anti-colonial and decolonial struggles of the South in the North, not least through the ‘retaliatory effect’ of migration movements and struggles of migration arriving in Europe. I argue that the understandings of racism and anti-racism are grounded in a materialist framework and that the concept of articulation helped and continues to help thinking the complexity and heterogeneity of the social.

Rereading The Empire Strikes Back

This piece reviews key aspects of the volume The Empire Strikes Back in order to reconsider the approaches to analysing state racism and economic crisis and to suggest parallels for our time. The piece examines the manner in which the authors seek to position an understanding of racism at the heart of any class analysis. The piece also considers the representation of black feminism in the collection.

The Pilates Pelvis: Racial Implications of the Immobile Hips

This article examines the treatment of the pelvis in the Pilates exercises “Single Leg Stretch” and “Leg Circles.” The teaching practices of the hips, as commonly explained in Pilates educational manuals, reinforce behaviors of a noble-class and racially “white” aesthetic. Central to this article is the troubling notion of white racial superiority and, specifically, the colonizing, prejudicial, and denigrating mentality found in the superiority of whiteness and its embodied behaviors. Using the two Pilates exercises, I illuminate how perceived kinesthetic understandings of race in the body may be normalized and privileged. By examining the intersections between dance and Pilates history, this article reveals the ways embodied discourses in Pilates are “white” in nature, and situates Pilates as a product of historically constructed social behaviors of dominant Anglo-European culture.

Reframing Race and Place

This article looks at Japanese attitudes toward indigenous people in the North American West and their place on the land that Japanese immigrants hoped to settle and develop. Examples of popular conceptions and of Japanese diplomats’ efforts to position Japanese settlers in reference to other settlers and indigenous people are not intended as a comprehensive survey of Japanese immigrant attitudes but as a few examples indicating the important work remaining for scholars to bridge the gap between immigration and indigenous history. They invite further work on the interrelations between marginalized groups and a more complex understanding of racism and immigration.