Browsing by Subject "anti-racism"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item “I get it that you're worried about my school, but this is my education.” Connected literacies and critical pedagogies in anti-racist youth organizing(2019-08) Rombalski, AbigailIn the past half a decade, many youth in urban high schools have witnessed the raised racial and political consciousness of a nation on screens, in schools, and on the streets. Many students of color have already seen or felt school or state-sanctioned surveillance, violence, and segregation. Some white students in urban schools have begun to see their worlds differently and to ask how they, too, are implicated. In newly formed solidarities, urban youth have raised their voices to talk, to walk, to march, to meet, and to thrive in the streets, working collectively—and sometimes separately—towards a just future. Using an alternative format, this dissertation is structured as three separate but related papers. The first paper works to define youth activist pedagogies. The second paper explores the literacies of youth activists through the frames of connected literacies; freedom, struggle, and dialogism; and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993). The third paper examines youth-adult relationships and responsive participant observation within engaged research. As a whole, this dissertation examines the connected literacies and critical pedagogies of youth activists in urban schools, a unique group whose knowledges and activities are largely unknown or underutilized by teachers and schools. Through a two-year, youth-informed critical ethnographic study, informed by asset-based and participatory action research, I documented pedagogical and literacy activities of youth across interracial anti-racist youth groups in two urban high schools in the upper Midwest United States. The overall research questions of the study asked: How did interracial anti-racist youth groups frame literacies and learning; how did they learn; and how were literacies and learning connected to liberation? This study was youth-informed and connected across school, community, and digital space. I refused the dominant deficit discourses of urban education and youth, in order to see the strengths that were not only possible, but that already existed in youth knowledge, inquiry, and capacity. Interracial youth activists, led by BIPOC youth, mobilized throughout a major urban area, learning and leading in overlapping racial justice, arts, education, and Black liberation networks and activities. Critical race theories helped to illuminate the ways that activist youth pressed against racism while submerged within it. Across all three papers, and despite challenges, youth activists created ripple effects of consciousness raising and social change throughout themselves, their schools, and the city. Implications of this research suggest pedagogies, practices, and positioning to amplify youth-centered education in literacies for liberation.Item A Narrative Self-Study: The Intersection of Anti-Racism, Whiteness, and the Institutionalization of Ethnic Studies in K-12 Education(2022-05) Siebert, MollyIn November 2020, the school board governing Patinmay Public Schools (PPS) passed a policy change requiring ethnic studies coursework to graduate. For several years, numerous people have worked to make ethnic studies a possibility for all students. My story with ethnic studies in PPS, however, began more recently in August 2020. Utilizing methods from narrative inquiry and self-study, I examined opportunities and challenges encountered during the early stages of implementing the new ethnic studies graduation requirement. Desiring to be a co-conspirator (Love, 2019), it was critical for me to reflect on ways in which my identity as a white woman impacted my work implementing ethnic studies as a graduation requirement. By conducting a self-study, I hoped to grow in my own practice, with the ultimate goal of improving ethnic studies programming for students and teachers in Patinmay Public Schools. For this self-study, narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was utilized to explore, analyze, and make meaning of critical experiences from August 2020 to December 2021. By combining narrative inquiry with methods of self-study along with drawing on theories from Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), I developed a framework to analyze and interpret experiences, interactions, decision-making, and programmatic dilemmas in various social contexts. Further, I aimed to contribute to previous research and literature that examines whiteness , white identity, and race consciousness along with research on ethnic studies in K-12 educational settings.Findings from this narrative self-study add to previous research and literature on ethnic studies, interest convergence, and white emotionality. By passing a policy in which students are required to take ethnic studies to graduate, PPS appeared to be equity and justice-oriented at a time in which the nation was undergoing a racial reckoning. There was public support for the passage of this policy and district leadership was applauded for this monumental change. However, some folx in leadership positions were resistant to disrupt or change existing systems, which supports existing literature on interest convergence (e.g., Bell, 1980; Milner, 2008). Stories related to professional development, determining licensure areas for teaching ethnic studies, infusing ethnic studies versus stand-alone courses, protecting previous informal affinity spaces, and co-creation in our current educational system may be beneficial to both the ethnic studies research community and K-12 school districts across the United States. The narrative accounts exploring experiences of white shame and discomfort adds to existing literature on white emotionality (e.g., Ahmed, 2004; Love, 2019; Matias, 2016; Thandeka, 1999; Zembylas, 2018). Examining white emotions through the lens of anti-racism and belonging supports existing literature that as humans we fear abandonment and have a desire to belong (Lensmire, 2017; Thandeka, 1999). The findings illuminate that consciousness raising around white emotions is not enough. I argue that it is critical for white folx to also examine how emotions are being confronted and addressed—to take into consideration clean pain versus dirty pain (Menakem, 2017). Processing white emotionality through clean pain paves the way for healing. Through actions of transforming the self (brown, 2017), white folx become sites for disrupting whiteness and can better contribute to collective activism.Item Retrospectively purchasing ebooks to amplify diverse voices and perspectives at the University of Minnesota Libraries(2022-01-20) Carter, Sunshine J; Clarke, KL; Grant, Malaika; Marsolek, Wanda; Nelsen, Katherine