Daniel G. Solorzano

Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research

This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies of people of color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective” research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about people of color. For the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling. Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of color. As they describe how they compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice.

Critical race and LatCrit theory and method: Counter-storytelling

Using critical race theory as a framework, the article utilizes counter-storytelling to examine the different forms of racial and gender discrimination experienced by Chicana and Chicano graduate students. After describing the critical race theory framework and counter-storytelling method, the article moves to a story of two composite and data-driven characters, Professor Leticia Garcia and graduate student Esperanza Gonzalez. Various theoretical and conceptual issues such as self-doubt, survivor guilt, impostor syndrome, and invisibility are woven into Esperanzas graduate school and Professor Garcias pre-tenure experiences.

Educational Inequities and Latina/o Undergraduate Students in the United States: A Critical Race Analysis of Their Educational Progress.

Using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework, the authors analyze the educational inequities and racialized barriers faced by Latina/o college students when navigating the educational pipeline leading to a college degree. The impact of racialized structures, policies, and practices is examined in the context of how they influence the educational attainment and academic progress of Latinas/os. The article concludes by offering CRT-based policy and practical approaches to enhancing the success of Latina/o college students.

A Critical Race Counterstory of Race, Racism, and Affirmative Action

We are entering yet another historical moment when American higher education is threatened with resegregation and the end of racebased affirmative action. After the passage of Proposition 209, the California Anti-Affirmative Action Initiative, African American, Latina/o, and Native American students experienced a proportional decline in admission to undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Given that this California pattern seems to be a national trend, the cumulative effect of the decline in admissions at public higher education institutions reduces the representation of people of color in leadership or professional service positions in U.S. society. Much of this move to resegregate U.S. higher education and end race-based affirmative action occurs under the banner of efforts to improve academic standards and quality. In order to place affirmative action programs in historical perspective, we must look at the landmark 1978 Regents of University of California v. Bakke lawsuit (Bakke). In this case, a White male applicant, Allen Bakke, was denied admission to the University of California (UC), Davis Medical School. Bakke filed a class action lawsuit arguing that UC Davis used race in its admissions to “set aside’’ 16 of its 100 slots for underrepresented minority students. In the Bakke case, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices came up with two 5-4 majority rulings on the use of race in admissions. In the first majority ruling, five Justices found that preferential racial quotas (i.e., set asides) in educational admissions violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. However, in a key dissent to this majority ruling, four Justices challenged the majority opinion and asserted that “where there is a need to overcome the effects of past racially discriminatory or exclusionary practices engaged in by a federally funded

Using Critical Race Theory, Paulo Freire’s Problem-Posing Method, and Case Study Research to Confront Race and Racism in Education

In this article, the authors use critical race theory (CRT), Paulo Freire’s problem-posing method, and case study research to introduce an alternative instructional and pedagogical methodology in teacher education. These approaches attempt to get at deep-rooted ideologies by creating a space in a social foundations course for teacher candidates to unlearn their stereotypical knowledge of race while analyzing and theorizing what it means to teach a diverse student population. When using such a methodology, the authors recommend that teacher candidates have access to a variety of cultural immersion and field experiences in communities of color. These experiences are critical to learning why they should and how they can talk about race and racism.

Racial Primes and Black Misandry on Historically White Campuses: Toward Critical Race Accountability in Educational Administration

Background: Racial primes are an outgrowth and inculcation of a well-structured, highly developed, racially conservative, “race-neutral” or “color-blind” racial socialization process in which children learn race-specific stereotypes about African Americans and other race/ethnic groups. As they get older, they continue to receive—both involuntary and voluntary—corroborating messages of anti-Black stereotypes from adults, friends, games, folklore, music, television, popular media, and the hidden curriculum. A result of this belief system is Black misandry. Black misandry refers to an exaggerated pathological aversion toward Black men created and reinforced in societal, institutional, and individual ideologies, practices, and behaviors. Findings: Through the use of focus group interview data from African American male students at four universities, it reveals that potent Black misandric beliefs exist in both academic and social spaces in the collegiate environment. Conclusions: Using critical race theory as a framework, the counterstory in this article provides an interpretation of how racially primed Black misandric beliefs influence the collegiate racial climate and how educational administrator might respond.

Getting beyond the ‘symptom,’ acknowledging the ‘disease’: theorizing racist nativism

An important tenet of Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) is to challenge dominant ideologies that mask racist beliefs and practices perpetrated against People of Color in the United States, particularly Latinas/os. In this article we utilize a LatCrit framework to theorize further the concept of racist nativism in the current sociopolitical moment, which is marked by significant anti‐immigrant sentiment. In doing so, we hope to understand better the contemporary experiences of People of Color and Latinas/os specifically. We show how many racial and ethnic groups throughout US history have experienced racist nativism, but argue that those targeted by it today tend to be Latinas/os in general, and Mexican immigrants in particular. In conceptually extending the notion of racist nativism we endeavor to go beyond the ‘symptoms’ of racism and toward naming the ‘disease’ that plagues US society – white supremacy. We argue that the legacy of white supremacy not only remains with us today, but profoundly informs our racialized perceptions of a white American identity, whereby white Americans are perceived as native to the US and all others as non‐native.

Teachers, please learn our names!: racial microagressions and the K-12 classroom

Many Students of Color have encountered cultural disrespect within their K-12 education in regards to their names. While the racial undertones to the mispronouncing of names in schools are often understated, when analyzed within a context of historical and current day racism, the authors argue that these incidents are racial microagressions – subtle daily insults that, as a form of racism, support a racial and cultural hierarchy of minority inferiority. Furthermore, enduring these subtle experiences with racism can have a lasting impact on the self-perceptions and worldviews of a child. Using a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework and qualitative data, this study was designed to explore the racial microaggressions and internalized racial microaggressions of Students of Color in K-12 settings in regards to their names. Black, Latina/o Asian American, Pacific Islander and mixed race participants were solicited through various education electronic mail lists, and data was collected through short answer questionnaires and interviews. Coded for emergent themes, the data is organized into three sections: (1) Racial microaggressions and names in school; (2) Internalized racial microagressions; and (3) Addressing racial microagressions and internalized microagressions in schools. This article gives language to the racialized experiences many Students of Color endure. Additionally, it furthers our understanding of racial microaggressions by analyzing the complexity and impact from a multi-racial lens.

Racial Microaggressions as a Tool for Critical Race Research.

This conceptual article utilizes critical race theory (CRT) to explain how everyday forms of racism – racial microaggressions – emerge in the everyday experiences of People of Color. We provide a framework for understanding and analyzing racial microaggressions that demonstrates how everyday racist events are systemically mediated by institutionalized racism (i.e. structures and processes), and guided by ideologies of white supremacy that justify the superiority of a dominant group (whites) over non-dominant groups (People of Color). To demonstrate the conceptual utility of the framework, we utilize historical and contemporary examples of racial micoraggressions, and offer varied ways to use the framework in critical race research. We argue racial microaggressions can be a powerful ‘tool’ for identifying, disrupting, and dismantling the racism that marginalizes, subordinates and excludes People of Color in and outside of education.

Critical Race Theory and Education: Qualitative Research in the New Millennium

A century after the great American sociologist W.E.B. DuBois predicted that racism would continue to emerge as one of this country’s key problems, educational researchers, practitioners, and students are still in need of a language that will provide the necessary tools for effectively analyzing and coming to terms with the impact of race and racism on education. In part because of the reemergence of conservative pseudoscientific discourses in the 1990s and the predominance of class and gender epistemologies, discussions about race and racism in education have been either pushed to the margins or effectively destabilized. As faculty of color seeking to do transformative work that addresses issues of race and racism in education, we sometimes struggle with the limited ways in which our work and the work of other scholars concerned with race is interpreted and viewed by our colleagues. We have been fortunate because although the field of education has not wholly embraced race discourse, we have benefited significantly from the work of scholars in other fields such as ethnic studies, sociology, and law. We have borrowed heavily from and actively situated our work within these rich traditions—particularly ethnic studies (e.g., African American and Chicano studies). Even still, we continue to seek to find ways in which to create a discourse that engages larger questions of racial inequality in education and in society. For many of us, critical race theory (CRT) has begun to meet this growing need.