Tia Sherèe Gaynor

Through The Wire: Training Culturally Competent Leaders for a New Era

Abstract This paper investigated how the use of The Wire, a fictional television drama that first aired in 2002, is used in public administration/affairs related courses. Using Carrizales’ (2010) framework for culturally competent curricula, the author evaluated how the show is applied to impart skills and knowledge based within the framework’s four components. This study examined select course syllabi that make primary use of The Wire. Findings demonstrate the usability and effectiveness of The Wire as a tool to develop a culturally competent curriculum and the importance and necessity of supplementing traditional instructional methods with innovative practices of the 21st century. Central to this study is the argument that using the show expands the teaching of traditional theoretical models and instruction methods to include a wide range of views and perspectives.

Counternarratives as Critical Perspectives in Public Administration Curricula

This article argues for the inclusion of critical perspectives in public administration curricula to explore the historical and contemporary processes that contribute to disparity and injustice. The counternarratives examined in the article include social construction, inclusive feminism, critical urban planning, and democratic cultural pluralism. Critical perspectives or counternarratives are presented as challenges to hegemonic scripts that will aid in creating a workforce that is not only equipped to operate within a global society but understands the economic and social context that operationalize “others” in society.

Facilitating Difficult Dialogues in the Classroom: A Pedagogical Imperative

The recent social unrest in the United States, sparked by increased social media attention to the deaths of Black individuals at the hands of police (e.g., “The Counted,” 2016), has led to a national conversation about the issues of institutional racism and racial injustice. This growing conversation has been fostered by the Black Lives Matter movement, which is illuminating these problems for larger segments of the U.S. (and international) community. The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States emerged in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a self-appointed vigilante, George Zimmerman, and picked up momentum in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson. As explained by activist, and cofounder of #BlackLivesMatter Alicia Garza (2014), “When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity,” and in particular that these are the “consequence of state violence” (para. 12). The creation of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter can be understood as a natural outgrowth of the conversations circulating on #BlackTwitter about systemic state violence against people

Effective Citizen Participation in Environmental Issues What Can Local Governments Learn

Citizen engagement in local decision-making processes is improving, especially with respect to environmental issues. This research evaluates environmental participation in three jurisdictions. We attempt to explain the success of participation by looking at the benefits of engagement. In all three cases, a significant degree of collaboration between local governments and not-for-profit organizations was present. Institutional commitment to engage the public was evident in the case of Newark, New Jersey, while Tonawanda, New York, delegated citizen engagement functions to the local environmental justice group. Even in less democratic regimes like Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, active environmental participation at local levels was found to be effective.

Social Construction and the Criminalization of Identity: State-Sanctioned Oppression and an Unethical Administration

What is considered a crime and who is considered a criminal is largely based on social constructions that have a longstanding presence in U.S. history. In the United States, the social construction of crime and criminality is disproportionately attributed to the behaviors of those with marginalized racial, sexual, and gender identities. This article explores sources and instances of systemic injustice by making explicit connections between the social construction of crime and criminality and the criminalization of identity. Negative social constructions shape the behaviors of public actors and institutions in such a way that they serve as sources and promoters of systemic and institutional injustice.

Inequality at the Intersection of the Defense of Marriage Act and the Voting Rights Act: A Review of the 2013 Supreme Court Decisions

Two important decisions were made by the Supreme Court of the United States in the summer of 2013. Reactions to the decisions were polarized: Some rejoiced, while others rejected the justices’ rulings. Whereas the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and its allies found satisfaction in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) decision, communities of color and those sympathetic to the civil rights movement of the 1960s saw an inevitable return to the Jim Crow era in the Voting Rights Act decision. The intention of each decision was to recognize equality, but inequality continues to exist where race, class, and sexuality intersect in the two decisions. Using critical race theory (CRT), this essay explores the inequalities at the intersection of the Supreme Court decisions on DOMA and the Voting Rights Act. Using two of the core tenets of critical race theory, intersectionality and interest convergence, the essay highlights how these civil rights decisions inevitably perpetuated the inequality that they sought to address.

Teaching democracy: A review of public administration introductory courses

ABSTRACT The concept of democracy is a critical area of study and practice within the field of public administration. From democratic governance to democratic values, and by extension social equity, justice, cultural competence, and fairness, democracy, as a term, continues to be conceptualized in varying ways. An underlying assumption of public service work, however, is that administrators – who have been trained through public administration programs – are taught the values and strategies to practice democracy within a U.S. context. This research examines the extent to which academic public administration programs teach and promote democracy. Through an evaluation of public administration programs the authors evaluate the exclusion or inclusion of democracy related principles in introductory courses. Using the content analysis method, syllabi of introductory public administration courses underscore the marginalized inclusion of democratic perspectives and values.