Christopher B. Knaus

Shut up and listen: applied critical race theory in the classroom

This paper demonstrates that applying critical race theory to the classroom dramatically shifts the nature and scope of schooling for students of color in urban schools. In focusing on students, applied critical race theory centers the development of voice and expression, and de‐centers the high‐stakes pressures that limit student engagement. This overview of a writing class at a continuation high school clarifies the importance of student voice, but also of knowing how to engage in dialogue with students about the social context they navigate daily. Understanding how to foster critical voice in students provides educators the tools to create engaging classrooms, and acknowledges the intense emotional experiences that students bring (from home contexts) to the classroom. Without such acknowledgement at the core of schooling, educators are likely to reinforce the very stereotypes that lead students to reject what they often see as demeaning education. The article demonstrates instructional techniques that encourage student voice as a foundation for academic excellence, and argues that applying critical race theory ultimately requires re‐visioning the entire US educational system.

Racial Diversity Sounds Nice; Systems Transformation? Not So Much: Developing Urban Teachers of Color

This article argues that economic exclusion, standardized testing, and racially biased definitions of teacher quality continue the exclusion of teachers of color from the urban teaching force. The authors highlight two urban programs designed to address such barriers and situate such efforts within a critical race theory framework that identifies ways urban communities can increase control through local teacher development. The article concludes by presenting a teacher evaluation model that integrates school, district, and university perspectives with urban students, families, community-based organizations, and teacher self-perceptions to redefine teacher effectiveness.

What if we all Wore Hoodies

Shortly after the Trayvon Martin murder, I received a call from Juquon, an African American high school junior at the time. He wanted to express his feelings about Trayvon Martin, and was frustrated by the lack of collective action.

The Absence of Indigenous African Higher Education: Contextualizing Whiteness, Post-Apartheid Racism, and Intentionality

Abstract The concomitance of black-skinned student-populated colleges and universities on the African continent has created a quiescence regarding whiteness, racism, and disparity in African higher education. Resultantly, scant attention has been paid to the role and possibilities for Black populated colleges across the African continent to transform the political, social, and economic realities of African nation-states. In fact, the confluence of Western imperialism, slavery, genocide, and the contemporary frame of terrorism is highly correlated with the seeming permanence of war, oppression, and poverty across the African diaspora in general and on the African continent in specific.