Marvin Lynn

What’s Race Got to Do With It? Critical Race Theory’s Conflicts With and Connections to Qualitative Research Methodology and Epistemology

This article will provide the theoretical and conceptual grounding for forthcoming discussions regarding how critical race theory (CRT), as a discourse of liberation, can be used as a methodological and epistemological tool to expose the ways race and racism affect the education and lives of racial minorities in the United States. To that extent, the goal is threefold. First, the authors seek to adequately define CRT by situating it within a specific socio-historical context. Second, they seek to present an argument for why there is a need for CRT in educational and qualitative research. In doing so, they discuss the ways concerns regarding race and racism have or have not been addressed previously in educational research. Finally, they speculate about what lies ahead. In doing so, they fully assess the possible points of agreement and conflicts between CRT and qualitative research in education.

Critical Race Theory and the Perspectives of Black Men Teachers in the Los Angeles Public Schools.

When asked why he teaches in urban schools, a respondent softly uttered these words: “I teach ‘cause I keep seein’ me’’. This is an emotional and revealing statement made by a 35-year-old Black man who worked as a middle school teacher in South Central Los Angeles. Having grown up in impoverished conditions in South Central Los Angeles, his schooling experience was less than optimal. Here, he expresses in plain but powerful language his commitment to teaching Black1 children, particularly males, who live amidst difficult circumstances. If one takes the statement at face value, it might appear as if he is simply suggesting that he has made the choice to work in an environment where there are large numbers of students who have racial and ethnic characteristics that are similar to his own. While a deeper analysis of this statement reveals this to be the case, it also reveals something much more complex. It suggests that conditions for Black children in America’s urban schools have not changed much in the twenty to twenty-five years since he attended elementary and middle school in a neighboring community. His observation is substantiated and given life by the work of educational sociologist, William Trent (1990) who argues:

Inserting the ‘Race’ into Critical Pedagogy: An analysis of ‘race‐based epistemologies’

(2004). Inserting the ‘Race’ into Critical Pedagogy: An analysis of ‘race‐based epistemologies’. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 153-165.

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.

Dancing between two worlds: a portrait of the life of a black male teacher in South Central LA

This article offers a portrait of a young black male teacher in an urban school in South Central Los Angeles. In the portrait, the words of the subject are intertwined with the thoughts and reactions of the researcher as a way in which to capture his life history narrative and offer his reading of the world. The article discusses the participant’s reflections on growing up in South Central, Los Angeles and how it shaped his identity. In particular, the portrait discusses the participant’s experiences in middle school, high school and college. The article concludes with some reflections about how Critical Race Theory—as a discourse on race and racism in the law and society—helps us to better understand the lives black men lead.

Hiding the Politically Obvious A Critical Race Theory Preview of Diversity as Racial Neutrality in Higher Education

What have colleges and universities done to increase student of color enrollment since the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger? This article provides a critical race theory (CRT) snapshot of selective data and institutions since these landmark decisions. We find that even though Grutter gives the go-ahead to use affirmative action, higher education has failed politically to take on this challenge. When taken together, the Gratz and Grutter decisions allow higher education institutions to engage in symbolic affirmative action measures that appear as diversity measures but are operationalized as race neutral when one examines the data of continuing overall declines of students of color at many institutions. The authors conclude with a CRT call for a more expansive affirmative action with higher education administrators doing more to justify affirmative action through Grutter.