Francisco Rios

From Traditional to Liberal Racism: Living Racism in the Everyday

This article examines hundreds of entries in student journals collected at a university in the Mountain West and captures a striking contradiction between an articulated understanding of racism as “a thing of the past” and the reality of a persistent and pervasive racism. This qualitative study documents everyday racist events taking place in the life of students. These events are coded into either a traditional or modern “liberal” category to demonstrate the link between past and present race projects. The authors conclude that the contemporary “colorblind” discourse of the liberal era suggests an ongoing race project centered on the maintenance of white privilege. The mediating role institutions play between individual and structural relations of inequality implicates the university in the maintenance of white privilege.

Social Perspective Taking: Advancing Empathy and Advocating Justice

(2003). Social Perspective Taking: Advancing Empathy and Advocating Justice. Equity & Excellence in Education: Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 5-14.

Casting Wide the Net: Portfolio Assessment in Teacher Education.

As middle level teacher educators, we struggle with the very same assessment is sues that plague classroom teachers. How do we effectively, efficiently and meaning fully capture student learning? Once we have captured that learning, how do we fairly evaluate it? While we struggle with these questions, we are also cognizant that our student teachers pay very close attention to the ways in which we struggle with these issues in our own classrooms; thus, we model a set of answers to these questions. To use Eisners analogy, what nets are we weaving and what fish are we catching? In its 1992 report to Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) noted:

Changing the Face of Teaching: Barriers and Possibilities

Serina feels isolated much of the time. During class breaks, she usually sits by herself on the floor or on a bench in the sun. She is the only African American student in her cohort of teacher candidates. Serina had a disrupted family background and has many “issues of the heart” with which to contend. Her absences are treated more harshly than those of her classmates. The typical faculty mantra has been this: There can be no exceptions. If we make exceptions for her, what will the other students say? We will be sacrificing the quality of the program. We have to prepare her for real life. She has had to repeat two classes because of deep conflicts she experiences in the credential program. This conflict seems strange for a teacher credential program that asserts it teaches for social justice and prepares new teachers to honor the cultural capital of their students. Serina demonstrates a keen ability to synthesize information from a variety of sources and impart the knowledge in a rhythmical, lyrical form; unfortunately, this is not encouraged or considered an appropriate form to represent knowledge. She needs time to process knowledge, to talk about what she knows and feels, and to share her responses to learning and classroom experiences with people who will listen and affirm her way of knowing. Negotiation and advocacy from some of her instructors, generally faculty of color, has kept Serina in the program. Serina responds by becoming an observer, not a participant. In her own words, she is “a survivor.” The first thing that comes to mind when meeting Lalo, a 23-year-old teacher candidate in secondary English education, is his relaxed and confident manner, gained, in part, through his experience as the student body president of the land-grant university he attends. Passionate about multicultural education from a critical and social reconstructionist perspective, Lalo recently withdrew from his final year of subject specific pedagogy courses after his initial week of field experience in a public high school. Assigned to a classroom where the curriculum honored and perpetuated oppressive myths of Euro-American progress, where his experiences as a Latino did not count, where the traditional structures of schooling cemented the marginalization of students of color, Lalo fled to find other venues in which to work for social justice. His practicum experiences were that bad. Nacho comes from the local Latino community near the university where he finished his teaching credential. Although proud of the community, he also has learned to live with a large gang presence and his life is a testimony to resisting the allure of gang involvement. Nacho has shown tremendous resilience and great determination to complete both his bachelor’s degree and the teaching credential. Unfortunately, taking standardized tests is not his strength. Nacho has taken the state-mandated teacher assessment several times, each time failing to pass by just a few points. If only he could pass this test, Nacho knows he could have a powerful impact on the early adolescent Latinos in his local community. He could empathize with their lived struggles, create meaningful connections with them and their parents, and open up a world of academic learning. Ofelia, in her words, felt “called to teach” in a place where she could “make a difference” in the lives of Latina and Latino children. That’s why, as a 35-year-old woman, she left her position in a nonprofit agency to earn her teaching credential. As a sixth generation resident of Tucson, Arizona, she brings energy, warmth, and a wholehearted commitment to teaching for justice in her hometown. Yet, in the first month of her second year of teaching in an urban elementary school, she e-mailed,

Teaching and Learning Social Justice as an “Intellectual Community” Requirement: Pedagogical Opportunities and Student Understandings

This article describes efforts to introduce students in a first-year studies course to social justice principles with attention to the initial preparation of students for social activism. After describing the coursework and related activities, we share the findings—from observation and survey sources—associated with the initial social activism component of the course, specifically, and student learning about social justice, more broadly. Discussion of limitations and future research questions are included in the conclusion.

Thinking in Urban, Multicultural Classrooms Four Teachers' Perspectives

This study attempts to identify qualitative differences in how four teachers in an urban, multicultural high school think about classroom events based on their differing conceptions of multicultural education. Research methods are described including the coding scheme developed to analyze and compare the teachers. Results indicate that, with respect to attributions and principles of practice, these teachers do differ and that their thinking about multicultural education is a factor that contributes to this difference. Findings hint that, to the degree that a teachers conception of multicultural education becomes more sophisticated, the number and kind of attributions increase, which results in more complex thinking.

Developing a critical consciousness: positionality, pedagogy, and problems

This article relies on Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the development of a critical consciousness necessary to understand the contradictions between the post‐civil rights notion of abstract equality and the reality of structurally entrenched inequality. The authors’ ground their analysis in narratives on the development of their own critical consciousness and how it informs their pedagogy around teaching about the American Civil Rights Movement (CRM). The relationship between their own positionality and the pedagogical tools relevant in accessing their own critical consciousness serves as exemplar for understanding the impact of CRT on a critical education.

Stories Deep Within: Narratives of U.S. Teachers of Color from Diasporic Settings

In this qualitative investigation, racial and ethnic minority teachers (N = 6) used personal stories to elucidate their experiences with social injustices that have impacted their teaching in rural schools. These counter-stories serve to disrupt orthodox conceptions of teachers of color, to resituate their work in their cultural positions, and to demonstrate the ways in which their experiences with oppression and resistance affect their teaching in rural settings.

Envisioning the Arc of Social Justice in Middle Schools.

Education for social justice is both a goal and a process. To realize the ideals of a just middle school that creates ethical, caring, involved citizens, we need to think of our work as if we were architects, masons, engineers, and carpenters. As school professionals, we are building something not necessarily achievable in our lifetime, and we are also building a process—a process directed towards social justice. Social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of life chances is genuinely equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure—a society in which individuals are both self-determining (able to develop their full capaci ties) and interdependent (committed to interact

Multicultural Education as a Human Right: Framing Multicultural Education for Citizenship in a Global Age

Abstract This paper explores the various ways scholars in the field have framed the need for multicultural education. These include changing demographics and closing the academic gap, developing cross-cultural competence, confronting colonization and cultural hegemony, and promoting democratic citizenship. This paper asserts the value of framing multicultural education as a human right: the right to learn about oneself, to learn about others, and to learn citizenship skills associated with a deep democracy in a global age.