H. Richard Milner

Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working Through Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen:

This author introduces a framework to guide researchers into a process of racial and cultural awareness, consciousness, and positionality as they conduct education research. The premise of the argument is that dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen can emerge for researchers when they do not pay careful attention to their own and others’ racialized and cultural systems of coming to know, knowing, and experiencing the world. Education research is used as an analytic site for discussion throughout this article, but the framework may be transferable to other academic disciplines. After a review of literature on race and culture in education and an outline of central tenets of critical race theory, a nonlinear framework is introduced that focuses on several interrelated qualities: researching the self, researching the self in relation to others, engaged reflection and representation, and shifting from the self to system.

But What is Urban Education

A few years ago, I was invited to a small Midwestern district to speak with district teachers, counselors, administrators, and staff about “Culture and Teaching.” Upon my arrival to the district office, the superintendent greeted me in the parking lot and rushed me into his vehicle. He explained as he started the car, and began driving that he wanted me to “see” one of the district’s “urban” schools before my presentation.

Preservice Teachers’ Learning about Cultural and Racial Diversity Implications for Urban Education

Several essential interactions or experiences that had an influence on preservice teachers’ learning and understanding about urban education and diversity are described and discussed. In particular, the author introduces a developmental typology that was used to analyze the preservice teachers’ learning and understanding as a result of a course designed to help preservice teachers develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and attitudes necessary to teach in highly diverse and urban school contexts. These developmental interactions that made a critical difference in the preservice teachers’ learning included cultural and racial awareness and insight, critical reflection, and a bridge between theory and practice. Understanding the influence of courses in teacher education that endeavor to provide learning spaces for preservice teachers is especially important as we document the most salient ways to provide all prospective teachers with what they need to make meaningful and significant differences in P-12 urban classrooms.

A Case Study of an African American Teacher's Self-Efficacy, Stereotype Threat, and Persistence.

Abstract The purpose of this qualitative investigation was to understand the sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) for an African American teacher in a suburban high school in the United States. As one of only three African American teachers in the school, she encountered many challenges that could have threatened her sense of efficacy and thus caused her to leave the school, yet she persevered. We attempted to identify and interpret the sources of efficacy that encouraged the teachers persistence in an unsupportive environment. In addition, we considered how the concept of stereotype threat might help us better understand the teachers situation. Findings of the case study have implications for teacher self-efficacy theory and research, as well as teacher persistence.

Reflection, Racial Competence, and Critical Pedagogy: How do we prepare pre-service teachers to pose tough questions?

In this article, the author argues that pre-service teachers may need to reflect about race and pursue racial competence as they are prepared to teach in multiracial schools. The question is how do teacher educators prepare pre-service teachers to pose tough questions about issues of race? Several matters are considered in the discussion, such as teacher reflection, race reflection, and some complexities of race in the teaching and learning process. The author concludes the article with an extensive discussion of critical pedagogy. In particular, the author advances two possible teaching methods (critically engaged dialogue, and race reflective journaling) that teacher educators may find useful as they attempt to facilitate reflections on race and assist pre-service teachers in pursuing racial competence through posing tough questions. In the final section, the author shares a chart that he developed and suggests that the chart be used in critically engaged dialogue and race reflective journaling as pre-service teachers pursue racial competence. Finally, the author encourages teacher educators to continue developing instructional methods and tools that allow pre-service teachers to pose tough questions about issues of race.

Analyzing Poverty, Learning, and Teaching Through a Critical Race Theory Lens

In this chapter, I explore poverty as an outside-of-school factor and its influence on the inside-of-school experiences and outcome of students. I consider the interconnected space of learning, instructional practices, and poverty. In particular, I use critical race theory as an analytic tool to unpack, shed light on, problematize, disrupt, and analyze how systems of oppression, marginalization, racism, inequity, hegemony, and discrimination are pervasively present and ingrained in the fabric of policies, practices, institutions, and systems in education that have important bearings on students—all students—even though most of the studies reviewed did not address race in this way. I analyze the interrelationship between race and poverty. My point in using race as an analytic site is not to suggest that people are in poverty because of their race but to demonstrate how race can be a salient factor in how people experience and inhabit the world and consequently education. My point is that we (those of us in education and who care about it) should work to eradicate poverty for all students, not just students of color. However, we need to understand and question why a disproportionate number of students of color live in poverty and are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. We should not ignore this reality: Proportionally, more people/students of color live in poverty than do White people. Why? Carefully examine Table 1. Adapted from Munin (2012) and Simms, Fortuny, and Henderson (2009), Table 1 demonstrates the disproportionate representation of White, Black, and Hispanic (Brown) low-income families in the United States. In Munin’s (2012) words,

Teacher Reflection and Race in Cultural Contexts: History, Meanings, and Methods in Teaching

Because reflection around race in cultural contexts and diversity are seldom taught or practiced among teachers, and because an increasingly large number of students of color are not succeeding in P-12 classrooms, this article attempts to advance a concept of race reflection in cultural contexts. Several issues are considered, including (a) the necessity of race reflection in cultural contexts for both White teachers and teachers of color; (b) racial and cultural mismatches between teachers and students, which could stifle learning; and (c) the need for pedagogical tools to enhance discussions and activities around difficult topics such as race. A chart is presented as one tool for race reflective dialogue and activity in teacher education and beyond. Additionally, two methods of race reflection in cultural contexts are provided for personal and group introspection: race reflective journaling and critically engaged racial dialogue.

Classroom Management in Diverse Classrooms.

Classroom management continues to be a serious concern for teachers and especially in urban and diverse learning environments. The authors present the culturally responsive classroom management practices of two teachers from an urban and diverse middle school to extend the construct, culturally responsive classroom management. The principles that emerged in this study included the importance and centrality of teachers’ (a) understanding equity and equality, (b) understanding power structures among students, (c) immersion into students’ life worlds, (d) understanding the Self in relation to Others, (e) granting students entry into their worlds, and (f) conceiving school as a community with family members. The authors conclude the discussion with implications for teachers and researchers.

Beyond a Test Score Explaining Opportunity Gaps in Educational Practice

The author shares an opportunity gap explanatory framework to assist educational researchers and theorists in analyzing, explaining, and naming educational practice, especially in highly diverse and urban social contexts. The author argues that too much attention is placed on achievement gaps and challenges researchers and theorists to expand their analyses to opportunity gaps. Focusing on opportunity allows researchers to examine the causes of disparities that exist between and among students in schools. Emerging from the author’s own research and from an established body of theory and research, the framework encompasses five interrelated tenets essential to understanding and explaining educational practice related to opportunity: color blindness, cultural conflicts, meritocracy, deficit mindsets and low expectations, and context-neutral mindsets and practices. Implications of the framework point to potential synergy in language and research emphases that can shed light in the educational literature on deeply inequitable systems, processes, structures, policies, and practices that can prevent some students from reaching their full capacity.

Developing a Multicultural Curriculum in a Predominantly White Teaching Context: Lessons From an African American Teacher in a Suburban English Classroom

Abstract The author sought to understand an African American English teachers multicultural curriculum transformation and teaching in a suburban, mostly White, high school. Building on Bankss (1998) model of multicultural curriculum integration, the study focused on a context that might otherwise be ignored because there was not a large student‐of‐color representation in the school. The teacher in the study was operating at one of the highest levels of Bankss model, the transformational approach. Although the teacher shared characteristics with many of the Black teachers explored in the literature, there was one important difference: much of the research and theory about Black teachers and their instruction focus on Black teachers and their effectiveness in predominantly Black settings. The Black teacher in this study taught in a predominantly White teaching context. The study suggested that even teachers highly conscious of race, culture, gender, and ethnicity may find it difficult to reach the highest level of Bankss model: the social action approach. Implications of this study suggest that multicultural curricula can be well developed and received in a predominantly White setting as long as the curriculum is thoughtfully and carefully transformed. However, the study pointed out that the pervasive discourses and belief systems against multicultural education in a school can discourage highly effective curriculum transformers, and there is a great need to help critically minded teachers persevere in the face of such adversity.