Michelle G. Knight

Disability Justifies Exclusion of Minority Students: A Critical History Grounded in Disability Studies

From a disability studies (DS) perspective, the authors analyze how the historical conflation of disability with other identity factors and the ideology of normalcy contribute to the disproportionality problem in K–12 special education. They argue that this conflation and ideology make labeling and segregated education seem natural and legitimate for students carrying the high-incidence, legally defined labels Learning Disabled (LD), Mentally Retarded (MR), and Emotionally Disturbed (ED). The authors then apply their insights to the scant literature on college access for students labeled LD. Although it appears that disabled students are succeeding at increasing rates, the overall picture obscures the continued effects of the historical legacy embedded in the intersections of race, class, gender, and disability for K–16 students

Sensing the urgency: envisioning a black humanist vision of care in teacher education

This article builds on the growing body of research on preparing African‐American pre‐service teachers for culturally diverse urban environments. I specifically focus on a two year qualitative case study of Amy, an African‐American pre‐service teacher, to highlight five themes of a Black humanist vision of care. These themes emphasize the following: (1) culturally affirming practices of multiple cultures; (2) the ‘fortitude’ to persevere in the midst of adversity; (3) both the ability to recognize and the willingness to address difference and inequities; (4) the importance of the whole child; and (5) the ability to see oneself as a teacher engaging as part of a collective in challenging inequities. Amys narrative underscores how these themes emerged within, between, and among her family experiences, K‐12 schooling experiences and experiences in the teacher education program. I conclude with implications of a Black humanist vision of care in within teacher education programs.This article builds on the growing body of research on preparing African‐American pre‐service teachers for culturally diverse urban environments. I specifically focus on a two year qualitative case study of Amy, an African‐American pre‐service teacher, to highlight five themes of a Black humanist vision of care. These themes emphasize the following: (1) culturally affirming practices of multiple cultures; (2) the ‘fortitude’ to persevere in the midst of adversity; (3) both the ability to recognize and the willingness to address difference and inequities; (4) the importance of the whole child; and (5) the ability to see oneself as a teacher engaging as part of a collective in challenging inequities. Amys narrative underscores how these themes emerged within, between, and among her family experiences, K‐12 schooling experiences and experiences in the teacher education program. I conclude with implications of a Black humanist vision of care in within teacher education programs.

Ethics in Qualitative Research: Multicultural Feminist Activist Research

amidst the decay has stayed with me in my work with students. Surrounded by drug dealers and dilapidated buildings, she symbolized for me an image of survival and hope as she carried a green plastic garbage bag containing her meager clothing up the darkened stairway to her familys apartment. A ninth grade Vietnamese student, Kathi was one of 30 students chosen in the spring of 1994 to attend an orientation at a university in California. She had never been to a university before or even out of Oakland. When we arrived on

(De)Constructing (In)Visible Parent/Guardian Consent Forms: Negotiating Power, Reflexivity, and the Collective Within Qualitative Research

This article focuses on the role of collective reflexivity within a year-long ethnographic study examining Black and Latino/Latina urban youth’s negotiations of college going in and out of school contexts. Through collective reflexivity, the parent/guardian consent form is examined as a methodological tool of data collection and a written representational text that hinders and/or facilitates access to Latino/Latina youth as research participants. After Puerto Rican and Dominican families did not return parent/guardian consent forms, the authors reconstituted the form as a site for feminist critical policy analysis. In (de)constructing the form, varied cultural perspectives of credibility, trust, authority, and reciprocity among Latino/Latina participants, the institutional review board, and the research team are analyzed, negotiated, and transformed. Throughout this process of creating a culturally responsive form, the authors negotiate language as power, recognize and implement cultural relevance as an ethic of research, and reconceptualize audience(s) within reciprocal matrices of power.

The Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender in the Teacher Preparation of an African American Social Justice Educator

Responding to recent demographic shifts in the United States, teacher educators have become increasingly concerned with preparing preservice teachers to teach diverse student populations in urban schools. Currently, for example, Latino/a and Black students comprise the majority population in 100 of the largest cities in the United States (Moll, 2002). These demographic changes lead to new curricular and pedagogical practices, as teachers are being better prepared to build on the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of the economically poor and/or ethnic minority students who attend under-resourced urban schools. The goal of teacher preparation is to enable preservice teachers to acquire the knowledge and skills to provide a high quality education to all student populations, instead of one which prepares poor and/or ethnic minority populations for predetermined low-paid service sector jobs. Inevitably, preparing preservice teachers to work with diverse student populations in under-resourced urban schools becomes inseparably linked to struggles for social justice in education and society. There has been considerable attention to the impact on schooling that derives from these demographic changes and social justice goals. However, much of the research on teacher preparation focuses overwhelmingly on helping White, middle class, female preservice teachers understand classroom issues of diversity, inequality, and equity and the issues faced by teacher educators seeking to prepare them (Sheets, 2001; Sleeter, 2001; Zeichner, 1992). While it is important to prepare White middle class females to work in culturally and linguistically diverse urban schools as social justice educators, it is equally important for preservice teacher educators to examine normalized curricular and pedagogical practices that focus solely on the needs of White middle class female

Toward Participatory Communal Citizenship: Rendering Visible the Civic Teaching, Learning, and Actions of African Immigrant Youth and Young Adults

Rendering visible African immigrants’ shared and differing experiences of civic learning and action, the authors present findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework of African immigrant identities constructions and civic engagement, we highlight a multilayered view of civic teaching, learning, and action within and across contexts of families, identities, and schooling in the United States, Africa, and globally. In so doing, the research affirms African immigrant youth’s racial and ethnic identities toward broadened understandings of civic engagement such as participatory communal citizenship. The findings support the need for teacher educator preparation for immigrant youth and curriculum within secondary schools in a diverse U.S. society.

Through Urban Youth's Eyes: Negotiating K-16 Policies, Practices, and their Futures

Increasing demographic shifts and policy changes in college admissions and remediation, and a high-stakes testing culture have evoked debates over the best way to promote access to postsecondary institutions. The author con-ducted a 2-year ethnographic study with 25 working-class, 9th- and 10th-grade, Black and Latino/Latina students to examine how they interpret and negotiate college-going processes. Specifically, the author utilized feminist critical theories to analyze City University of New York (CUNY) admissions policies, youths daily experiences, and college-focused school reform efforts to create more equitable structures for postsecondary access. Based on individual and focus group interviews, observations, and written documentation, the findings suggest three interrelated strategies of negotiation: (a) challenging negative perceptions and expectations of urban youth, (b) “passing” academic coursework, and (c) connecting high school and college testing cultures. These findings have implications for the alignment of K-16 polices and practices and for creating a 9th-10th-grade college-going culture in high schools.

My American Dream The Interplay Between Structure and Agency in West African Immigrants’ Educational Experiences in the United States

This article presents findings of a qualitative, interpretive case study of the experiences of 1.5- and 2nd-generation West African immigrants who self-identify as pursuing the American Dream, defined by them as academic attainment and career success. Employing structuration theory, the authors examine the interplay between structures and agency in participants’ educational and professional decision making. Participants’ perspectives on the American Dream are filled with references to dominant narratives of hard work, economic success, and the power of formal education. At the same time, findings illuminate a conceptual shift in understanding the nature of hard work and personal freedom experienced in pursuit of the American Dream as participants recognized that as African immigrants, they had to work harder to achieve the Dream while highlighting the role and influence of family expectations and schooling structures. Their expanded notions of the Dream include understandings of individual agency, social supports and constraints, and cultural forces.

Opening our eyes, changing our practices: learning through the transnational lifeworlds of teachers

This article examines the inclusion of a culturally relevant curricular practice of social identity papers within teacher education in the USA that incorporates the transnational lifeworlds of teachers. Using tenets of feminist interdisciplinary frameworks, we highlight how this curricular practice allows teachers and teacher candidates in urban and rural contexts to examine transnational lifeworlds and their influence on culturally relevant practices in relation to notions of oppression and privilege. We focus on linguistic border crossings and both/and perspectives of teacher’s social identities. More research is needed to better understand the construction of teacher’s social identities within and across transnational lifeworlds and the ways it impacts their practices and student’s academic and social achievement.

From microscope to mirror: doctoral students’ evolving positionalities through engagement with culturally sensitive research

This study examines the experiences of doctoral students in a qualitative research course that centers culture throughout the research process. Data sources include one-on-one interviews, written documentation of course assignments, research team meetings, and doctoral students’ conference proposals and publications examining civic learning and action and notions of citizenship of second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Using Tillman’s framework for culturally sensitive research (CSR), we draw attention to the ways doctoral students as emerging scholars come to understand and enact their positionalities in research, especially in relation to data analysis, interpretation, and representation. This study expands notions of CSR to include a focus on research with African immigrants and strengthens possibilities for doctoral preparation in education that focuses on culture, race, and immigrant populations.