Jennifer Esposito

Contextualizing critical action research: lessons from urban educators

In this paper, we argue that teacher‐researchers, especially those in politically contested school communities, should be encouraged to conduct critical action research that is contextually bound. Such a research methodology includes tenets of critical action research, postmodern and feminist theory, and attention to how oppression manifests in educational institutions. Utilizing reflections from our students of action research as well as our own reflective journals, we address three questions: How can action research be more applicable in urban contexts? How can action research be used in processes of urban education reform? How can educational researchers (both university and K–12) continue to advocate for an action research that is critical, emancipatory and empowering for all stakeholders?

Hill girls, consumption practices, power, and city style: raced and classed production of femininities in a higher education setting

This study investigated the ways a diverse group of university women in the USA utilised racialised and classed discourses of femininity in the creation of subjectivities. Interview and focus group data were collected over a two‐year time period and focused on how women navigated the higher education setting. Two forms of femininity, ‘Hill girl’ and ‘City style’, were salient. Hill girl femininity was based on markers such as white skin that had been tanned, and consumption practices. City style femininity was also defined through consumption practices and identification as a woman of colour. Material markers like race and class both limited and expanded the discourses available to women. New subjectivities were created with particular rights, while simultaneously making them subject to policing. The women in this study used contrasting and, at times, contradictory discourses to explore various forms of femininity that were connected to institutional power and privilege.

“Students Should not be Your Friends”: Testimonio by a Latina on Mothering One's Own, Othermothering, and Mentoring Students in the Academy

This article is an autoethnographic account of how I negotiated intersectional identities as a Latina, mother, and professor, mentoring students of color. Specifically, I examine the ways mothering shaped my relationships with the students I mentored. I engaged in “othermothering” and utilized “pedagogies of the home” by creating reciprocal relationships of caring and nurturing. Utilizing critical race theory (CRT) and testimonio, I argue that my identity as a mother of color successfully negotiating the tenure track impacted the ways in which I mentor(ed) students of color.

When Black Girls Fight: Interrogating, Interrupting, and (Re)Imagining Dangerous Scripts of Femininity in Urban Classrooms.

The recent death of Amy Joyner, a promising Wilmington, Delaware, high school sophomore demonstrates very clearly the ways in which Black girls are made vulnerable in urban schools. Joyner, an honor roll student, was jumped by a group of girls in the bathroom just before classes began. The alleged cause of the fight was jealousy over a boy. Black girls are bombarded with popular culture messages defining Black femininity along narrow notions of sex appeal, maintaining romantic relationships, and having the ability to fight. Black girls are neither invited in the process of critically examining their popular representation nor supported in thinking through its impact in their own lives. This aspect of the null curriculum, coupled with Black girls’ persistent criminalization, makes schools risky places for Black girls. They are left to navigate a society which misunderstands their gender performance without the support or opportunities they need to develop authentic definitions of self, all the while being held subject to beliefs, policies, and practices which surveil and contain them. Despite the neoliberal assault urban educators face, this article argues that urban educators have an epistemic responsibility to critically examine the denigration of Black womanhood in society, incorporate critical media literacy lessons as one response, and pedagogically support Black girls in the creation of counternarratives as a matter of ethical import. Without such practices, urban schools remain complicit in the physical and civic deaths of Amy Joyner, the girls who attacked her, and all other Black girls caught in the web of risk many urban schools leave unexamined.

Using Others in the Nicest Way Possible: On Colonial and Academic Practice(s), and an Ethic of Humility

In this article, we draw from two independent, completed projects that forced us to struggle with our ethics and how we understood the nature of the researcher–participant relationship. We move past the presumption that we social justice–minded qualitative researchers are “needed” to discuss how we understand ourselves to be meeting that need. Here, our intent is to trouble qualitative researchers’ underlying assumptions about help and harm when we are working against oppression and inequity and/or toward justice and equity, both for our subjects/participants and for society.

Where is the love? An interrogation of love in VH1’s Love and Hip Hop New York and a call to educators to respond to anti-love messages

Love and Hip Hop, one of VH1’s most successful series, entered the annals of reality television in 2011 serving a weekly dose of “girl fights”, infidelity, “paper chasing”, and sex in the hip-hop industry. Since then, the show has grown in popularity with each new season—expanding to develop new series with the same premise in different locations. This allows the show to portray different cultural conceptions of hip-hop (with Love and Hip Hop Atlanta featuring the sounds and fashions of Dirty South and Spanish rap, in contradistinction to those of Love and Hip Hop New York or Hollywood) and to increase the frequency and intensity of romantic relationship drama on the show through an ever-changing roster of cast members. With each new season, those who do not produce compelling storylines are replaced by those who do. Whether in New York, Atlanta, or Hollywood however, the show follows hip-hop industry workers as they navigate love and relationships within the context of their work. The men on the show, who are hip-hop producers, managers, and rap artists, overwhelmingly act through narrow tropes of masculinity—often cheating on or belittling the women whom they are in romantic relationships with. The women, who are urban models, rap and R&B artists, stylists, managers, and producers, also operate through narrow conceptions of femininity—typically presenting narratives of financial and emotional independence, even as they repeatedly subject themselves to maltreatment by their romantic partners. Through their depiction of cast members who are almost entirely of color, Love and Hip Hop and other reality shows like it (e.g., Real Housewives of Atlanta, Basketball Wives, The Bad Girls Club, Chrissy & Mr. Jones, T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle) present a racialized narrative suggesting that people of color live conflict-ridden and materialistic lives, especially within the context of romantic relationships. This representation is harmful to children and youth, especially those who are marginalized by virtue of their race and class. For people who identify with the cast members, the show normalizes the idea that relationships are stressful, contentious, and painful and as a result, young people come to understand these behaviors as regular aspects of love. Love and Hip Hop and reality television, then, serves as a site of popular education

Using Popular Culture Texts in the Classroom to Interrogate Issues of Gender Transgression Related Bullying

This article examines how undergraduate instructors of pre-service educators can address complex issues of sexuality and sexual orientation within the classroom. First, we explain our own backgrounds and positionalities to provide a context for our ensuing ideas and discussions. Second, by reviewing the literature on homophobic bullying, we outline why it is imperative that preservice teachers understand and mobilize around issues of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex rights. Third, we offer suggestions as to how to relate to undergraduate students when talking about sexuality and sexual orientation. We propose that using popular culture is an effective and engaging way of connecting to preservice teachers who have not previously had to confront their own homophobia and heterosexism. We suggest that using popular films or TV shows, such as Ugly Betty, has the potential to open up space for dialogue and critical engagement with issues such as explicit or implicit homophobia. We believe that critical media literacy skills are necessary tools for young people who are constantly bombarded with oftentimes stereotypical images and personifications of GLBTQI people within the mainstream media. Consequently, although we propose that popular culture be used as an educative space within the undergraduate classroom, it must be used both carefully and critically. Finally, we discuss why it is imperative that undergraduate professors address these issues within the classroom by referencing recent tragedies that are directly connected to homophobic bullying.

“Would You Wear That to Church?!”: The Production of “Ladies” in an All Girls’ After-School Club in the Southeast United States

This study investigated how Black middle school girls negotiated an after-school club, with a specific focus on ways of knowing and acting as “ladies.” Drawing from Fordham’s intersectional analyse...

Ethical Quandaries: Qualitative Research in a Neoliberal Age

We have witnessed our universities becoming neoliberal institutions as monetary goals surmount academic ones and knowledge becomes a commodity. As professors in a neoliberal institution, we mourn in this moment as we are forced to become skilled at negotiating the power of neoliberalism and our qualitative passion for social justice. Although this mourning manifests itself on multiple fronts, after outlining our ethics and sharing personal vignettes, we discuss the ethical tensions of teaching qualitative research, a marginalized paradigm, in this neoliberal moment.

Researching the bridge called our backs: the invisibility of ‘us’ in qualitative communities

Abstract The article and the following discussion were prompted after the authors’ participation in a recent qualitative research conference. In the article, a Black woman and Latina scholar share their experiences and reflections as scholar researchers. As a point of entry, they discuss how even qualitative research communities can be marginalizing spaces for scholars of color. Using theoretical perspectives of feminists of color, the authors provide snapshots into their personal dialogue around issues of research, theory, and practice. By examining their own personal and professional shared stories of coming to their scholarly identities, qualitative researchers will be able to better understand how women scholars of color grapple with and embrace a multiple consciousness to navigate academia and research communities. Based on these intellectual struggles and forms of resistance, the authors put forth suggestions for qualitative research theory and practice. The article has implications for qualitative research, higher education, and feminist theory.