Whiteucation: Privilege, Power, and Prejudice in School and Society 0815368925, 9780815368922

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Foreword by Sonya Douglass Horsford
Preface by Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis
Acknowledgements
1. “If Everyone Would Just Act White”: Education as a Global Investment in Whiteness
Globalization of Whiteness as Schooling
“Best Practice” as Perpetuation of Whiteness
Global White Savior Complex
Towards an Indigenous Global Education
Sentipensante Pedagogy
Conclusion: Indigenous-centric Education as Acts of Resistance
References
2. White Privilege and American Society: The State, White Opportunity Hoarding, and Inequality
White Privilege American Style: Institutionalized Opportunity Hoarding?
Institutional Opportunity Hoarding and Inequality
White Opportunity Hoarding in American Society: A Brief Overview
Historical and Contemporary Challenges to White Privilege
Note
References
3. The Unbearable Whiteness of Educational Leadership: A Historical Perspective on Racism in the American Principal’s Office
A Historical Perspective on Educational Leadership, Framed by Critical Race Theory
Educational Leadership in the United States: Pre-World War II
The Search for an Intellectual and Theoretical Base for Educational Administration
Educational Administration and Social Turbulence
Contemporary Implications for American School Leaders
Notes
References
4. White Privilege and Educational Leadership
Framework
Organization of the Chapter
Key Themes from PK-12 School Leadership and White Racial Privilege
What Racially Conscious Leaders Do (Can Do)
A Final Thought
References
5. Black and White Women’s Leadership: Disadvantage and Privilege
Introduction
Methodology
Findings and Discussion
Conclusion
References
6. Transcending Barriers in the Superintendency: The Resiliency Leadership Discourse of African American Women
Literature Review
Best Practices in Increasing Superintendent Diversity in Public Schools
Implications for Research
Implications for Policy
Implications for Practice
Conclusion
References
7. Whiteness as Policy: Reconstructing Racial Privilege through School Choice
Introduction
The Supremacy of Whiteness in Education Policy
Reifying Whiteness through School Choice Policies
White Ignorance, White Sensemaking, and School Choice
Evaluating School Choice Policies: Pushing through White Ignorance and beyond White Sensemaking
Advancing the Conversation around Whiteness and School Choice
Note
References
8. Black Girls, White Privilege, and Schooling
White Privilege
#BlackGirlsMatter
The Problem with Whiteness
Just For Black Girls
Note
References
9. A Photo-Testimonio: Educational Expectations for Resiliencies of First-Generation Latina STEM College Students
Introduction
Expectations about Latina, Low-Income, First-Generation College Students
Status of Latinas in the STEM Fields
Academic Resilience as Forms of Survival and Resistance in STEM
Findings
Implications
References
10. “Asians in the Library”: Sophistry and the Conflation of Affirmative and Negative Action
Introduction
Right Victim, Wrong Culprit: Asian/Americans and the Attack on Affirmative Action
“Negative” Action vs. “Affirmative” Action
How Does Sophistry Contribute to the Model Minority Stereotype?
What is Sophistry?
So We Should Rush to Disaggregate? Not So Fast …
Theoretically Moving Towards a New Sociology of Defining and Transcending Stereotypes
Notes
References
11. Myths around the Recruitment of Faculty of Color in the Academy
My Background
The Myths We Perpetuate in the Academy
Practical Recommendations
Epilogue
References
Author Biographies
Index

Citation preview

WHITEUCATION

This important volume explores how racism operates in schools and society, while also unpacking larger patterns of racist ideology and white privilege as it manifests across various levels of schooling. A diverse set of contributors analyze particular contexts of white privilege, providing key research findings, connections to policy, and exemplars of schools and universities that are overcoming these challenges. Whiteucation provides a multi-level and holistic perspective on how inequitable power dynamics and prejudice exist in schools, ultimately encouraging reflection, dialogue, and inquiry in spaces where white privilege needs to be questioned, interrogated, and dismantled. Jeffrey S. Brooks is Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor of Education at RMIT University, Australia. George Theoharis is Professor of Teaching and Leadership at Syracuse University, USA.

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WHITEUCATION Privilege, Power, and Prejudice in School and Society

Edited by Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis

First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-8153-6892-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-8153-6895-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-25348-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

CONTENTS

Foreword by Sonya Douglass Horsford Preface by Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis Acknowledgements 1 “If Everyone Would Just Act White”: Education as a Global Investment in Whiteness Christopher B. Knaus 2 White Privilege and American Society: The State, White Opportunity Hoarding, and Inequality Megan R. Underhill, David L. Brunsma, and W. Carson Byrd 3 The Unbearable Whiteness of Educational Leadership: A Historical Perspective on Racism in the American Principal’s Office Jeffrey S. Brooks 4 White Privilege and Educational Leadership George Theoharis

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5 Black and White Women’s Leadership: Disadvantage and Privilege Victoria Showunmi

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6 Transcending Barriers in the Superintendency: The Resiliency Leadership Discourse of African American Women Francemise Kingsberry and Gaëtane Jean-Marie

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Contents

7 Whiteness as Policy: Reconstructing Racial Privilege through School Choice Sarah Diem and Andrea M. Hawkman 8 Black Girls, White Privilege, and Schooling Terri N. Watson 9 A Photo-Testimonio: Educational Expectations for Resiliencies of First-Generation Latina STEM College Students Lindsay Romasanta and Daniel D. Liou

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10 “Asians in the Library”: Sophistry and the Conflation of Affirmative and Negative Action Nicholas D. Hartlep and Nicholas C. Ozment

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11 Myths around the Recruitment of Faculty of Color in the Academy Marybeth Gasman

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Author Biographies Index

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FOREWORD

My first encounter with the title of this book, more specifically the term Whiteucation, left me both intrigued and unsettled. For some reason, the amalgam of white and education—a clear departure from the race-neutral language of equity, diversity, and social justice—bothered me. Not because, as editors Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis explain in their introduction, Whiteucation makes explicit how white privilege, power, and prejudice function to maintain educational inequality and the “pervasive nature of whiteness” in U.S. schools. Nor is it because it calls out the normalization of whiteness as the standard for educational achievement against which all others are measured. Indeed, such racial realities have been central to my own interrogation of racial inequality in schools and desire to better understand how leaders can effectively educate all students within America’s system of racial caste (Horsford, 2011, 2017a). But what exactly are the goals of U.S. education? Is the focus to ensure students leaving K-12 schools are college-and-career ready, able to support themselves and their families while also contributing to their local communities, institutions, and society? Maybe it is to prepare the next generation of scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs as well as society’s laborers, underemployed, unemployed, exploited, incarcerated, and displaced. Or perhaps the true purpose is to develop a well-skilled workforce in an increasingly competitive, global capitalist economy that solidifies America’s standing in the world. Sadly, the economic goals of schooling have continued to outpace the humanistic ones whereas the very spaces that should and must serve as sites of creativity, inspiration, empowerment, and discovery, are increasingly associated with trauma, violence, dehumanization, and the sifting and sorting of children into their “rightful place” (Alexander, 2010) in U.S. society.

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Foreword

Given the white nationalist ideology guiding the current administration and growing interest in the subject of whiteness and discourses around white privilege, white supremacy, and anti-black racism, is yet another why this book could not have come at a better time. What exactly do we mean by whiteness (Leonardo, 2009)? Can whiteness exist without blackness? Is whiteness inherently anti-Black? Can equality for blacks coexist with white freedom? Can white educators effectively educate children who do not share their racial identity or classification? And what does this mean for the preparation of school leaders in racially separate and unequal schools? In Whiteucation: Privilege, Power, and Prejudice in Schools and Society, education leadership professors Brooks (author of Black School, White School, 2012) and Theoharis (author of The School Leaders Our Children Deserve, 2009) present a compelling volume featuring an impressive list of authors exploring multiple dimensions of whiteness and its intractable relationship with education in the U.S. and worldwide. As the nation’s population gets younger and more diverse in a multitude of ways, the field of education remains dominated by white, middleclass and policy elite perspectives reflecting a racial dialectic that represents the tensions associated with how power is racialized and enacted in the very spaces were children learn what it means to be American and the extent to which they can fit the mold. Thus, race is not personal, but political—a tool for social, spatial, and economic control of black and whites never intended to grant liberty and justice for all (Guinier, 2004; Horsford, 2011; Mills, 2017). And as I have argued elsewhere, “American inequality, including in its schools, is mired in an entrenched history of race and class, where racism conveniently becomes masked by economic arguments and class analyses that leave no room for analyses of racial discrimination and race-based grievances” (Horsford, 2017b). To be sure, the term “Whiteucation” illustrates how whiteness has dominated education and compels us to think critically about the historical, social, political, and economic realities and tensions associated with American education, which has always run contrary to its rhetoric of equalization and proverbial dream of upward social mobility and economic success (Watkins, 2001). One might argue that Whiteucation is in fact American education, and rather than call it something different or attempt to depict it as something worse, (i.e., “apartheid schools”), perhaps it is finally time we come to accept the ugly truth about America’s legacy of schooling and the role that leaders can and do play by either supporting and sustaining the current arrangement or resisting, or reimagining its current system and approach to education. Perhaps this is why the term “Whiteucation” challenged me the way it did, prompting me to consider another aptly ominously titled concept known as “racecraft,” which highlights the dialectical relationship between blackness and whiteness as a mystical, almost supernatural belief in the supremacy of whiteness. In their book of the same name, historians Karen and Barbara Fields offer a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary analysis of how the power we give “race”

Foreword ix

(which the authors liken to the practice of witchcraft) is precisely what gives race its power. In the context of education, race determines the very real and material distribution of access to tangible and intangible resources whether well-prepared teachers and administrators, cultures of affirmation and support, engaging and relevant curricula, learning technology and materials, and community-based partnerships and collaborations. Through its interrogation of white privilege, power, and prejudice, Whiteucation offers a timely contribution to our much-needed look at the role of whiteness in schools and society and pushes our thinking in provocative ways. Each contribution works to ensure that we are in fact uncomfortable with the current racial arrangement, which is likely the only way those in power, which includes those of you reading this book, will choose to do something about it. Sonya Douglass Horsford Teachers College, Columbia University

References Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Brooks, J. S. (2012). Black school, white school: Racism and educational (mis)leadership. New York: Teachers College Press. Fields, K. E., & Fields, B. J. (2014). Racecraft: The soul of inequality in American life. London: Verso. Guinier, L. (2004). From racial liberalism to racial literacy: Brown v. Board of education and the interest-divergence dilemma. Journal of American History, 91, 92–118. Horsford, S. D. (2011). Learning in a burning house: Educational inequality, ideology, and (dis) integration. New York: Teachers College Press. Horsford, S. D. (2017a). Making America’s schools great now: Reclaiming democracy and activist leadership under Trump. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 50(1). Horsford, S. D. (2017b). A Race to the top from the bottom of the well? The paradox of race and U.S. education reform. The Educational Forum, 81(2), 136–147. Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. New York: Routledge. Mills, C. (2017). Black rights/white wrongs: The critique of racial liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Theoharis, G. (2009). The school leaders our children deserve. New York: Teachers College Press. Watkins, W. H. (2001). The White architects of Black education: Ideology and power in America, 1865–1954. New York: Teachers College Press.

PREFACE

Jeffrey S. Brooks and George Theoharis RMIT UNIVERSITY AND SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

What is Whiteucation? An Introduction and Overview Scholars, policymakers, educators and school leaders have widely condemned the negative influence of racism in American schools and society and called for the abolition of white privilege in educational practice and policy (Bell, 1992; Leonardo, 2009). That said, the concept of white privilege, particularly with respect to how it is manifest in education, is poorly understood and contentious. Indeed, there are few studies that (a) contribute to a deep understanding of how racism operates at various levels of school and society, while also (b) identify larger patterns of racist ideology and behavior as they are manifest across various levels of schooling. This book, Whiteucation: Privilege, Power and Prejudice in School and Society, seeks to attend to both of these shortcomings. In an effort to provide depth and breadth to the work, the book includes a diverse set of outstanding authors whose expertise spans several levels of schooling—preschool through higher education—and society—local community, societal, and global. Considered as discrete works, each chapter is an incisive analysis of a particular manifestation and context of white privilege. Considered collectively, the book is a multi-level and holistic perspective on how the phenomenon establishes, creates and sustains inequitable power dynamics and sanctions prejudice in both school and society. Moreover, despite increasing and widespread racial diversity in the United States, many areas of educational practice and scholarship remain predominantly white, this book will encourage reflection, dialogue and inquiry in spaces where white privilege desperately needs to be questioned, interrogated and dismantled. But what is “Whiteucation”? By coining this neologism, we aim to point out the pervasive nature of whiteness in the United States education system.

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Whiteness is part of the cultural, pedagogical, social, political organizational foundation of the United States’ school system. This system has normalized white perspectives, voices, behaviors and assumptions about education to the exclusion and marginalization of non-white students, teachers, and administrators. That may seem a strong claim, but it is a claim with numerous warrants: increased disciplinary and expulsion rates for students of color; low rates of students of color in advanced placement courses and an overrepresentation of students of color in remedial courses; teacher and principal attrition rates are higher in schools with high minoritized populations; for a high proportion of students of color, educational pipeline often ends in prison rather than with a higher degree (see Brooks, 2012; Hacker, 1992; Morris, 2014).1 Paraphrasing Columbia University Associate Professor Sonya Douglass Horsford, “the United States education system works for its intended purpose—it is designed as a sorting machine that discriminates along racial lines. It is not designed to serve all students well or equitably. It never has and unless we change it radically, it never will.”2 So, Whiteucation is a term that acknowledges an educational system that oppresses people along racial lines and prevents them from taking part in equitable educational processes or achieving equitable outcomes. In the case of this book, our context is the United States school system, save for Victoria Showunmi’s Chapter 5, which focuses on the United Kingdom. We include this as an outstanding piece of work in its own right, but also as a way to underscore that there is ample evidence in many countries around the world that students are subjected to a Whiteucation rather than an education.

About the Book This book is organized into a Foreword, written by Dr. Sonya Douglass Horsford, a leading scholar in the area of educational leadership and racism, and 11 chapters that explore white privilege and racism in various contexts and settings. Christopher B. Knaus (University of Washington Tacoma) kicks off the book with “‘If Everyone Would Just Act White’: Education as a Global Investment in Whiteness.” This chapter is an excellent beginning, as it discusses issues relevant to the topic in a broad context and concludes by suggesting a framework for indigenous education that centers indigenous ways of teaching and learning. This is followed by “White Privilege and American Society: The State, White Opportunity Hoarding, and Inequality” by Megan R. Underhill (University of North Carolina-Asheville), David L. Brunsma (Virginia Tech), and W. Carson Byrd (University of Louisville). The chapter explores and explains various ways that the U.S. educational system has perpetuated and privileged a white approach to education. Jeffrey S. Brooks’s (RMIT University) chapter, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Educational Leadership: A Historical Perspective on Racism in the American Principal’s Office,” makes several strong claims about the practice and study of leadership in the United States. This pairs well with George Theoharis’s (Syracuse University), “White

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Privilege and Educational Leadership” extends Brooks’s arguments and critiques principles that undergird current thinking about administration. Victoria Showunmi’s (University College London) chapter “Black and White Women’s Leadership: Disadvantage and Privilege” stands alone in the volume as a non-U.S.-focused study. It offers an important perspective on her topic, but should also give readers cause to reflect on the global scope of Whiteucation—it is not a distinctly American phenomenon. “Transcending Barriers in the Superintendency: The Resiliency Leadership Discourse of African American Women” by Francemise Kingsberry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Gaëtane Jean-Marie (University of Northern Iowa) also takes up the intersectional issues related to gender and white privilege, picking up on some of the same themes as in Showunmi’s work. Sarah Diem (University of Missouri) and Andrea M. Hawkman’s (Utah State University) chapter, “Whiteness as Policy: Reconstructing Racial Privilege through School Choice” is a fascinating examination of how racialized policies and practices have a reciprocal influence on one another. In “Black Girls, White Privilege, and Schooling,” Terri N. Watson (City College of New York) looks closely at the educational experiences of Black girls as a way to understand the impact of pervasive white privilege in education. Lindsay Romasanta (Arizona State University) and Daniel Liou (Arizona State University) investigate efforts to unlearn and unteach white privilege in a university setting in “A Photo-Testimonio: Educational Expectations for Resiliencies of First-Generation Latina STEM College Students.” Nicholas D. Hartlep (Metropolitan State University) and Nicholas C. Ozment (Independent Scholar) look at and interrogate Asian students as the model minority stereotype in “‘Asians in the Library’: Sophistry and the Conflation of Affirmative and Negative Action.” The book concludes with Marybeth Gasman’s (University of Pennsylvania) “Myths around the Recruitment of Faculty of Color in the Academy” which dispels many assumptions and identifies barriers that stand in the way of more equitable practices at the university level. We invite you to consider these chapters as individual research studies of white privilege and educational leadership, but also collectively as an overarching argument that education is imbued with inequity, racial injustice, and systematically unethical behaviour. For all the positive teaching and learning that happens in individual schools and classrooms, it is nested in a system that does not provide fair processes or outcomes.

Notes 1 Sadly, this list could be much longer, but we include a few of the inequitable outcomes here to illustrate a point. We refer readers interested in a more fulsome exploration to review the references we cite here. 2 Dr. Horsford said something close to this during a session at the 2016 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. This is paraphrasing reconstructed from my notes (Brooks) rather than a direct quote.

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References Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York: Basic Books. Brooks, J. S. (2012). Black school, white school: Racism and educational (mis)leadership. Teachers College Press: New York. Hacker, A. (1992) Two Nations: Black and white, separate, hostile, unequal. New York: Scribner. Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. New York: Routledge. Morris, M. (2014). Black stats: African Americans by the numbers in the twenty-first century. New York: The New Press.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank their families, loved ones, colleagues, RMIT University and Syracuse University for their generous support during the research and writing associated with the book. We also thank the authors in the volume for their insightful contributions and Routledge for their commitment to the project, especially our Editor, Heather Jarrow.

1 “IF EVERYONE WOULD JUST ACT WHITE” Education as a Global Investment in Whiteness Christopher B. Knaus UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON TACOMA

While the world’s populace consists primarily of people of color, schools across the globe have applied whiteness to school design, curriculum, and pedagogy. Indeed, despite the multilingual nature of the world’s incredibly diverse societies, Western languages and ideologies are preferred—and enforced, depending on perspective— in schools across the reaches of the (former) colonies. In China, Japan, Thailand, Ethiopia, and Tonga, to name just a few countries that were never formally colonized by the West, English has become the language of instruction in many schools, particularly schools designed for upward mobility. The implementation of Western-framed schools is so widespread that one may travel Earth visiting schools and scarcely see any meaningful variance in what are called classrooms. Regardless of culture, language, and historical context, schools across the globe look remarkably similar—typically there is one lead teacher, many students, and often the same chalkboard amplification of the teacher’s voice, technological innovations such as smartboards and tablets aside. The result of the implementation of Western-framed schooling has ensured that Richard Wright’s quote (embedded in the chapter title) is as accurate today as it was when published some 60 years ago (Wright, 1956). Across the globe, children, regardless of social, linguistic, political, or economic context, are told that being educated in the West is the primary—and preferred— route to economic and intellectual development. This chapter clarifies how this global investment in whiteness, or the value system through which countries implant education that requires Western-framed schooling, has committed the world’s children to Wright’s notion of being molded as Westerners (Wright, 1957). The problems of such a global investment’s colonial impact have been argued extensively (Collins, 2000; Freire, 1973; Krishnamurti, 1953; Lulat, 2005; Smith, 1999). This chapter situates this investment as both a cause of global inequalities and an intentional justification for systems of racism

2 Christopher B. Knaus

that appear permanent (Bell, 1993). The commitment to molding children into Westerners is a global investment in maintaining what Mills (1997) refers to as the racial contract that maintains racism at all levels of society. In what comes next, I clarify whiteness as the foundation of schooling across the globe, and situate how the uneven implementation of an intentionally colonial school system fosters inequality, internalized racism, a perpetual need for Western aid, and globalized infrastructures of capitalism. I then situate how “best” practice has become defined entirely by adherence to white-aligned schooling practices, which is problematic at best and promotes a context of educational genocide at worst (Knaus & RogersArd, 2012). After centering the global commitment to whiteness as a primary cause of inequality, I position Rendón’s (2009) sentipensante pedagogy as an indigenousinformed departure from Western schooling.

Globalization of Whiteness as Schooling Richard Wright’s clarification about being molded into a Westerner recognizes that efforts to civilize the world through Western schooling have fostered many of the world’s inequalities (Wright, 1956). The spread of Western-based education has been based upon contemporary colonization and imperialism that position schools as the primary vehicle for implementing whiteness, white privilege, and capitalism. Indeed, as Lulat clarifies, colonialism “required the training of an indigenous political elite for the purposes of governance; though not in competition with the colonial elite it must be emphasized, but subservient to it” (Lulat, 2005, p. 208). Western-based education has long served as a tool to pacify indigenous populations, primarily through either withholding schooling—and thus, participation in a violently imposed Western colonial economy—or through forced schooling and the related intentional silencing of culture, language, and identity (see Adams, 1995; Gillborn, 2008; Lulat, 2005; MacDonald, 2004; Smith, 1999; Williams, 2005; Woodson, 1933/1990). While MacBeath and Swaffield clarify the context of Ghana, their argument is global: When the British officially colonized Ghana (then the Gold Coast), they used schools to educate intermediaries for colonisation (Segura, 2009). This was essential to their policy of indirect rule so as to impose superiority of knowledge, language, and culture, and cut pupils off from their families in order to create new indigenous elites who would align themselves with the culture, values, and world view of the coloniser (Antwi, 1992; McWilliam & Kwamena-Poh, 1975). (MacBeath and Swaffield, 2013, p. 51) This intellectual colonization through schooling upheld a clear notion of racism; indeed, schools were implemented as a means to continue to justify domination in subsequent generations (Gillborn, 2008). Lulat (2005, p. 16) argues that “the

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subjugation and domination of the African people, both physically and mentally, that constituted the colonial project was facilitated at the ideological level by the colonial belief that the Africans were an intellectually inferior people …” This belief has guided the development of schooling across the African continent, and indeed, throughout the world. When colonial powers were overthrown by indigenous revolutionaries—many of whom had been educated in the West— new strategies for ensuring long-term reliance upon the West were needed. MacBeath and Swaffield remind us that intellectual reliance already permeated notions of schooling, and therefore schools were already in place to maintain colonial relationships. … the transition from colonialism to independence and self-government in Ghana has not brought with it a sudden release from a colonial mind set. Nowhere is this more apparent than in education, where the post-colonial school, in many essential respects, continues to bear the imprint of its colonial legacy. (MacBeath and Swaffield, 2013, pp. 49–50) Wright argued that this “colonial legacy was built into the development mindset, such that all progress and social change are measured in terms of the degree to which Asian and African countries resemble Western countries …” (Wright, 1956, p. 191). He went on to clarify, “The systems and the manners of it have varied, but there has not been and there is not a Western colonial regime which has not imposed, to a greater or lesser degree, on the people it ruled the doctrine of their own racial inferiority” (ibid., p. 151). In short, the West has interpreted education solely through the violent imposition of schools that have intentionally been used to promote and justify racial inferiority across the globe. The massification of schools as places where students learn to embrace whiteness as the only knowledge worth knowing, through individualized systems of success and failure, became the tool to silence vast populations of people of color (Macedo & Bartolomé, 1999). Ultimately, this tool was and is implemented through intertwined systems of aid, governmental support, and resources, framed specifically to improve the educational infrastructure of the world’s impoverished nations (Lulat, 2005). The irony, of course, is that participation as colonial elite has become the ultimate goal, spread throughout early child-rearing, childhood education, P-12, and higher education systems bent upon enforcing colonization, imperialism, and white supremacy. Thus, the world’s most elite universities represent bastions of whiteness, held down by largely white and male faculties as a direct reflection of the capitalistic marketplace’s own preference for white male CEOs. In turn, most other educational edifices increasingly focus on preparing students for participation in elite universities, or, at least going to four-year colleges (Goyette, 2008; Rosenbaum, 2001).

4 Christopher B. Knaus

Across the globe, the correlate of elite universities with social, political, and economic goals—especially at the individual level—directly reinforces white colonialism. In their text on the global context of whiteness, Watson, HowardWagner, and Spanierman (2015) argue how contemporary efforts are strategically silencing acts of resistance: “Discrete areas of study, settler colonialism, racism, and color blindness didn’t quite capture what we have seen emerge in this historical moment: the wholesale onslaught of sociopolitical efforts towards equity and justice around the world” (p. xiv). The recent U.S. election of a president with direct ties to white supremacist organizations demonstrates both how effective and how pervasive this onslaught is. Watson et al. go on to suggest that: Neoliberalism is an instantiation of that work; whiteness is busily about the business of defining that imagined community according to race, ethnicity, and income, making full citizenship and preservation of human rights dependent on whiteness and wealth, or whiteness and a narrowly defined citizenship. (Watson et al., 2015, p. xv) Thus, the U.S. president’s 2017 election was based upon legislating this narrowed definition of citizenship, as attempts at baring Muslim and Latino participation in U.S. society parallel ongoing efforts to limit voting rights of African American communities. The spread of education as whiteness directly aligns to corporate interests that are encouraged by the narrowing of schooling to reflect capitalistic training grounds. Indeed, educational innovations from the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union, continue to shape, for example, Australia’s historical and continued foundation in colonial schooling (Dinham, 2015). Within this increasingly and globally exported framing of whiteness, education, and specifically schools, becomes the tool through which whiteness is taught and justified (Gillborn, 2008), and the link to capitalistic participation becomes hidden beneath false notions of merit and democracy. A great demonstration of the success of schooling is that the world’s poor often look to Western-framed schooling as the way out of poverty. While the massification of the traditional Western classroom has become a global effort, unifying British, American, and European powers like never before, the underlying thread of whiteness has ensured a way of thinking that perpetuates white supremacy in ways that no formal colonizing regime could ever enact so successfully (LadsonBillings, 1999; Leonardo, 2009; Macedo & Bartolomé, 1999). Indeed, the global implementation of schools as the central tool to implement systems of whiteness reflects what Charles Mills refers to as the racial contract to promote white supremacy (Gillborn, 2005; Mills, 1997). These systems have been promoted as filters for the best and the brightest—those who fail to succeed are first deemed uneducable, then dismissed back into the world of poverty from which they

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fleetingly allowed themselves to see the mantra of education for upward mobility as applying to them. As a global phenomenon, education for whiteness ensures systems of schooling that perpetuate whiteness as property rights bestowed by successful navigation through schooling systems. The very definitions of merit and knowledge have thus become rooted in one overarching, culturally dominating framework that intentionally perpetuates bias towards white ways of thinking and expression (Leonardo, 2002). As Segura (2009) argues within a specific context, “Colonial powers and donors have set up structures of schooling that carry political meaning and values, and they continue to limit and create possibilities of what school is in Ghana” (p. 13). These limits on what school could actually be lays at the heart of white privilege, as the very infrastructure of schooling has remained intentionally rooted in whiteness (Dei, 2012). MacBeath and Swaffield clarify: … the structure of schools and the nature of the school day continue to mimic the “Western” layout of classrooms, with rows of seats, blackboards, textbooks and subject timetables, and with inflexible starting times, so that if school starts at 7:45 in the morning, pupils who arrive late tend to be punished by excluding them from lessons and making them tidy the compound. (MacBeath and Swaffield, 2013, p. 52) While the structure and operation of schooling replicates Western values, knowledges, and approaches, this global commitment to whiteness is reflected in every aspect of implementation (Dei, 2012). While referring specifically to the United States, James Baldwin (1985) highlights the obvious curricular bias in whiteness as schools: “History is a hymn to White people, and all us others have been discovered—by White people …” (p. 80). In Timor-Leste, Beck and Araujo (2013) report how “from 2012 Portuguese has been mandated as the language of instruction. This mandate has been legislated despite the ongoing difficulties faced by both teachers and students in using Portuguese” (p. 166). They further contend that “the curriculum has been devised by both Portuguese and Brazilian curriculum specialists, many of whom have never visited TimorLeste …” (ibid., p. 167). With a mismatched language of instruction and curriculum built from afar, an outside-in education is being situated not only in Timor-Leste, but across the globe. Every aspect of schooling is treated as if human beings all share the same language, culture, tradition, and norms—or at least should be taught to. Beck and Araujo explain: While these textbooks are now being written specifically for Timor-Leste, they were originally designed for the Portuguese context, and were simply transferred from Portugal to Timor-Leste, ignoring the special circumstances of the emerging country and its needs. (Beck and Araujo, 2013, p. 167)

6 Christopher B. Knaus

In addition to the denial of imperial history, linguistically silencing and irrelevant curricular contexts, and a framework of schooling forcibly handed down by colonial countries, the focus on academic standards, however imperial, makes little rational sense within war-torn countries. Indeed, children in the midst of unstable regimes are forced to learn within colonizing schools. Since alterative notions of schooling have yet to be fully implemented at the nation-state level, the influence of Western ideals seemingly offers the only respite. The impact of the only sense of knowledge coming from the West, and imparted through schools, cannot be understated. Wright clarifies the individualization of this impact through the notion of the “frog perspective”: This “frog perspective” which causes Asians, Africans, American or West Indian Negroes to feel their situation in terms of an “above” and a “below” reveals another facet of the white world, that is, its “whiteness” as seen and felt by those who are looking from below upwards. (Wright, 1957, p. 8) Wright’s point is that Western and whiteness-framed schooling creates a condition in which colonized populations begin to assess their intellectual worth by the virtues of the colonial educational infrastructure. While many exceptions and pockets of indigenous resistance have maintained across histories, adherence to the frog perspective has a discombobulating effect: “This contradiction of being both Western and a man of color creates a psychological distance, so to speak, between me and my environment” (ibid. p. 49). In this distance, whiteness as schools becomes a dehumanizing effort, as those who are not yet “civilized” assess their self-worth through the colonizer’s measurement system, and this is especially so in contexts without competing indigenous knowledge systems to combat the negativity of whiteness. The impact of the rampant implementation of whiteness as schooling silences indigenous knowledges, thereby encouraging a context of educational genocide for future generations of global youth of color (Knaus & Rogers-Ard, 2012). Intellectually, schools have intended to validate white knowledge and demean everyone else, precisely through educational policy and implementation procedures that are rooted in whiteness (Gillborn, 2005). This systematic demeaning of everyone else perpetuates inequality as a direct outcome of the implementation of whiteness, and the additional uneven implementation further ensures that populations within developing countries stratify along similar lines as have Western countries. This stratification increases reliance upon Western aid; indeed, as in order to better implement white schools, common definitions of schooling, teaching, and effectively doing both are enforced by development and funding agencies.

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“Best Practice” as Perpetuation of Whiteness While much of the world seems to agree on increasing access to schools, the actual content of that education is continually questioned. As local struggles for who should teach, how they should teach, and what content should be taught are waged, the battle for how to assess all of this has become globalized. Indeed, as educational infrastructures maintain and reflect inequality everywhere in the world, assessment of curriculum, teaching, and school leadership in terms of impact on increasing globally-aligned standardized test scores has become a multinational industry (Au, 2008; Dinham, 2015). Within this global education trade, moreover, best practice has thus become the uneven implementation of education systems to maintain a localized version of structural inequality, while supporting corporate access to entire school systems as sources of capital (Au & Ferrare, 2015; Gillborn, 2005; Hogan, Sellar, & Lingard, 2015). Thus, while Western countries struggle with unequal supports and outcomes for minoritized students, developing countries focus on access to unequal systems rather than wrestling with democratic discussions as to what children should be learning within a society (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Knaus & Brown, 2016). The ongoing result is that local, indigenous efforts, languages, and knowledges are devalued, underfunded, and framed as anti-intellectual (Loomis, Rodriguez, & Tillman, 2008). The global commitment to equating best practice as the promotion of whiteness as education ensures continual devaluation of indigenous knowledge. Mills argues that: … a democratic vote will generally preserve the status quo, and the interests of the society as a whole can be conflated with an unmarked whiteness represented as “universal,” and set in contrast to minority “special interests” guilty of putting their selfish group demands ahead of the general good. (Mills, 2015, p. 79) While specifically referring to predominantly white countries, Mills’s argument extends to colonial contexts. Indeed, even without the actual presence of large white populations, the governing infrastructure of many countries has become linked to maintaining the status quo of privilege set up and maintained by colonial-era policy. The simplistic notion of education as a universal idea necessarily applied to Western schooling serves as the problematic foundation under which “best practice” is viewed. In another naïve claim, diversity reflects simply adding in ethnic content and/or ethnic students, which allows mainstream academia to remain steeped in the foundation of whiteness (Banks, 1993; Gay, 2000). As an example, HowardWagner situates the way in which Australian governance has responded to historical regional pressures and a local context of indigenous and migrant populations by

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essentially setting up constructs that “normalize and naturalize whiteness” (Howard-Wagner, 2015 p. 101). In this case, the governing agreement becomes adherence to whiteness, and best practice becomes yet another manifestation to implement such racist laws, policies, and structures (Gillborn, 2008; Mills, 1997). Communities of color, along with students of color navigating within racist whiteness systems, thus are used as evidence of their own success, while simultaneously being silenced and ignored by the fundamental curricular infrastructure. The impact of this mass-produced alignment is a globally defined, yet locally implemented notion of Western schools. As identified by Loomis et al. (2008), “Learning becomes education, education becomes schooling, acquisition of knowledge and skills become mere accumulations of schooling (attainment), performance assessment becomes a test score, teachers become technicians, school leaders become managers, etc.” (p. 237). Loomis et al. examine how this integration spreads the same type of education globally, and in particular, how teacher preparation is increasingly leading “away from education as intellectual and moral work, and toward education as mere techne” (ibid., p. 234). They situate an economic argument as part of the driving force behind the efficiency effort to globalize schools: Put simply, the division of information is the cost-reducing acts of trading off particular information for universal information. Particular information finds expression in independence, improvisation, value judgments, variable thinking, moral principles rooted within local cultures, customs and mores; all the essential aspects and distinct local preferences that influence human personality and the intricacies of human interaction and development. In the realm of universal information we find an information economy that corresponds to standardisation, consolidation, and integration … (Loomis et al., 2008, p. 234) The division of the parts that constitute Western schooling has thus become a global factory, with Westernized children who maintain their racial contract as the intended outcome. The use of global assessments becomes the mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of each country’s efforts to maintain a settler colonial construct, even as colonial settlers may not hold formal political power. Some educational experts within the West frame the use of such standardized assessments as beneficial in terms of measuring development of within-country education systems. “To a noticeable extent,” Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012) argue, “these [Program in International Student Assessment, or PISA] rankings reflect the extent to which teaching has been organized and supported as a strong profession within these nations, with extensive investments in knowledge and skill” (p. 151). What this argument misses, however, is that these assessments combine with teacher-centric measures (such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE] in the United States, and the Common European Principles

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for Teacher Competences and Qualifications in the EU) to become the guiding, preferred methods for preparing and evaluating teachers, and all countries, regardless of language, culture, colonialism, or poverty, are told to implement the same methods, in part through increased access to development funds (Loomis et al., 2008). The commitment to these Western-based assessment tools further limits local educator development efforts, which become dismissed with the designation of “alternative.” Yet what may be alternative in Western countries may actually be a primary approach in developing countries with less of a higher education infrastructure. Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012), however, dismiss these pathways: “… there are also recurring initiatives, such as alternative pathways into teaching, which effectively reduce standards and preparation into the profession” (p. 152). Darling-Hammond and Lieberman adhere to a universal definition of quality that ultimately rests upon the constructs of whiteness. Yet in countries without an operating P-12 or higher education infrastructure, access, not western notions of quality, is paramount to establishing a foundation in democracy (Lulat, 2005). Essentially, efforts to do education differently, unless corporate-backed, are dismissed as non-effective and non-scalable, as if global scalability towards sameness is the one and only desired goal. Western assessments essentially dismiss the commitment to local knowledge, local schools, and local educators because they are designed to measure adherence to Western schooling systems. This commitment to whiteness privileges a white-frame of effectiveness, and utilizes a standards-based framework to limit access to only a small few elite educated individuals, thereby structurally excluding multiple language and knowledge systems.

Global White Savior Complex The impact of the continued educational exclusion by design is a perpetual reliance upon the West to help countries develop an underfunded approximation of the West. James Baldwin (1985) identified how, when colonized countries revolted and were eventually granted independence, “… independence (like ‘integration’) merely set in motion a complex legal and political machinery designed to camouflage and maintain the status quo” (p. 28). In the case of developing countries, the status quo was and is rooted in socially constructed intellectual inferiority with the West (and the accompanying tangible wealth inequalities and related health and well-being limitations). Continuing the status quo of unequal global wealth distribution systematically justified by Western-based schools creates a condition where whiteness is the goal, and thus, experts at whiteness are needed. Lulat echoes the notion of colonial efforts to help develop people of color impoverished by the West as the “white man’s burden”:

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… the ideology of the “white man’s burden”—which on the surface may appear to be riddled with the naiveté of do-gooder innocence but yet at its core rests on a potent combination of racism and self-aggrandizement—has in fact proven to be particularly enduring in various guises, and has never really been jettisoned completely by the West, to this day. (Lulat, 2005, p. 8) The “white man’s burden” maintains a firm hold on how the West views African education (and indeed, global education) as central to the promotion of the White Savior Complex, for without the need to be saved, the West generally has little educational business in countries of color, other than capitalistic interests (ibid.). Globally, independence from European (or American) colonization continues to be met with a varied system of economic and educational control, in part through the implementation of European or American educational infrastructures to justify—through the very construction of knowledge—white superiority and continued imperialism. This system of whiteness as compliance to Western educational systems (where the most educated in ways approximated by the West are granted temporary economic access) requires Western intervention. Baldwin argues of the difficulty of implementing such racist systems, “It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you” (Baldwin, 1985, p. 44). The investment in colonial schools, however, maintains this false dichotomy between the civilized and the uncivilized, and ensures a perpetual affirmation of, and need for, colonial educators bent on the belief that development means approximating whiteness. The internalization of the racism imparted from colonial systems was not easily undone by revolutions that overthrew colonial powers. As Wright (1956) surmises, “Then, when the natives rise and make a revolution in the name of the values of the West, they find themselves trapped, for they cannot build even a modern house without Western aid” (p. 113). Wright further argues that the lasting impacts of colonization required a psychological dependency, particularly because societal goals become aligned with mirroring the West: The psychological agony that Indonesia suffers was created by a situation compounded of a fear of the return of Western technical capacities which they felt they need, which in their hearts they adore; yet, how can they have the co-operation of the West and at the same time fend off what they feel to be the desire of the West to dominate? (Wright, 1956, p. 113) This agony, however, is insufficient to overthrow the internalized linkage of education to Western schooling.

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Thus, colonial educators are continually welcomed into developing countries. As federal programs (Fulbright, Peace Corps) compete with national efforts (Teach for America, Teachers Without Borders), global efforts place teachers educated in the West, often with little to no experience in the host country, no familiarity with the host schooling system, and no facility with local languages. These teachers join cultural contexts wherein children struggle with precisely the tension Wright demonstrated sixty years ago, and Western-based educators, having excelled in Western schools, lack systemic supports to overthrow privilege, oppression, and the linkages between the West and colonization. While clearly not all Western-based programs reinforce whiteness, systemically, such programs that place Western teachers (administrators, librarians, educators, and other service workers) rely upon an uncritical notion that naively suggests that Western knowledge can be applied to any situation, any setting, and within any linguistic and cultural context, regardless of poverty, positionality, or intent (Mills, 1997). This investment in whiteness gives white people a professional role built upon white guilt and a White Savior mentality (Lipsitz, 1998). Only within a global commitment to schools as whiteness does the Western-educated person become imbued with what is framed as universal knowledge, but which is actually the outcome of an alignment of systems to promote white supremacy (Ladson-Billings, 1999; Mills, 1997; Roediger, 2007). Yet that knowledge does not operate outside of its colonial-based intellectual constraints; one can only save children from Western-imposed poverty if the language of instruction is English (or another convenient Western language), if the curricular content reflects a monocultural, Western-based construct. Within such a globalized context, “Davies points out that, far from reducing violence and conflict, education can exacerbate it ‘through the reproduction of inequality and exclusion, through perpetuation of ethnic or religious divisions, and through its acceptance of the dominant aggressive masculinities’” (Clarke & O’Donoghue, 2013, p. 13, citing L. Davies). The potential for a negative impact only further empowers the White Savior Complex, however, because the greater the need, the greater the colonial desire to save (Lipsitz, 1998; Mills, 1997; Roediger, 2007). This need to be seen as a savior, built into the very notion of whiteness and the Western world (Lipsitz, 1998; Mills, 1997), reflects what Bell referred to as an investment in whiteness as property, and the globalization of schools ensures the transference of that property across school systems and state boundaries, to a selected few who have access to well-funded schools (Bell, 1998; Harris, 1993). Bell refers to the commitment to whiteness as an investment in property rights of whites, and highlighted affirmative action as a policy effort that ultimately continued to justify racial exclusion under the guise that a very few (the best and brightest!) would be allowed into white colleges (Bell, 2000, 2003). Such efforts, particularly reflected by Brown vs. Board of Education, ultimately increased limited access for people of color into white schools and colleges, reinforcing a unidirectional notion of success as

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participation in whiteness (Bell, 2004), thus elucidating Wright’s frog perspective. This buying into the American Dream further validates the White Savior mentality, for those who succeed are deemed the best and the brightest and thus, most capable of solving societal problems. While talking specifically about the United States, it is important to connect Bell’s notion of property rights to a global context, particularly given the almost total embrace of Western schooling as the preferred method of transmitting culture to all (and certainly the most privileged) children. This transference of property rights ultimately undergirds the notion of help; those imbued with whiteness (through schooling) can transfer their social and cultural capital via volunteering for a year or two, or through globalized philanthropic aid networks, large governmental grants, and other forms of development aid. While such aid packages have been dismissed as both misguided and as furthering reliance on Western aid (Moyo, 2009), global education funding is based almost exclusively upon the White Savior Complex. This savior complex is reinforced by globally marketed corporate media, wherein white educators “save” urban children (Giroux, 1997; Knaus, 2005; Leonardo, 2009). While not all colonial messages are limited to a white teacher civilizing a group of students of color, this mentality continues to be reflected by the global education development infrastructure, which is based on philanthropic funds that ultimately dictate the function of schools globally (Barkan, 2011; Lulat, 2005). Ultimately, what is needed is a global systemic decentering of whiteness (Knaus & Brown, 2016). This decentering is particularly important because, as Yancy suggests, “even as whites engage in anti-racist acts, they are nevertheless fundamentally linked to a larger racial integument within which their white ways of being negatively impact those who are not white” (Yancy, 2015, p. 198). Yancy’s challenge extends the argument here by implicating white ways of being as deeply reflective of a white supremacist mentality. Regardless of proclaimed good intentions, or even if led and implemented by countries of color, the global commitment of whiteness as education inherently promotes infrastructures that require and celebrate adherence to white ways of being.

Towards an Indigenous Global Education Despite the colonial context of the implementation of schools, the promise of schooling remains undeniable. As violent terrorism increasingly resists the imposition of Western schools around the world (see Boko Haram, whose name has been interpreted from Hausa to “Western education is forbidden,” or “fake education”—see Blanchard, 2014), the world is reminded that education as an idea suggests a freedom that many consider a threat to maintaining their own brand of oppressive rule. Indeed, Freireian-based education echoes global revolutionary theorists who have long since championed bell hooks’s notion of education as the practice of freedom (hooks, 1994). In their book on educational

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leadership within post-conflict societies, Clarke and O’Donoghue (2013) illustrate how education results in a number of benefits related to democracy building, including (a) protection from physical harm and exploitation, (b) psychological support and healing, (c) promotion of tolerance and safeguards for the most vulnerable, and (d) the role of schooling as an investment in girls’ development. They underscore the importance of curriculum that explicitly addresses recent societal conflicts, including peace education. This reflects the efforts of globally renowned critical educational theorists like Freire and Krishnamurti, who advocated for the type of education hooks asserted, based on the critical notion that “to educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn” (hooks, 1994, p. 13). But what students should be learning requires sustained anti-colonial analysis. Indigenous notions of education typically rest upon a democratic foundation wherein any sort of educational endeavor is a commitment to support the intellectual and social development of all people. The challenges in implementing affirming, democratically rich curriculum for all people, however, are enormous. Buckland (2006) situates such problems as a lack of teachers, organizational infrastructures, uneven flow of aid funds, and other circumstances endemic to poverty, disorganization, and corruption in post-conflict countries. Many developing countries ebb and flow in and out of conflict, and the national capacity to implement a humanistic curriculum is also not supported by the global focus on standards. Indeed, as James Baldwin argued back in 1985, “the present social and political apparatus cannot serve human need,” (Baldwin, 1985, p. 124). Wright (1957) continued this logic by arguing for a strategy based upon third world people’s insight and experiences: “Let’s make our own philosophy, based upon our own needs” (p. 115). Lulat (2005) furthered this point by challenging African higher education’s relevance: “… is the modern African university an institution in Africa rather than of Africa?” (p. 439). Lulat’s question challenges how schools are situated within cultural communities and contexts, rather than geographies of colonization. Baldwin further argued that the solution to whiteness as the outcome of colonial schools must be addressed within the realm of communities of color: “The Black responsibility for the Black condition is more crucial now, and more visible, than it has ever been before” (Baldwin, 1985, p. 71). Indeed, with continued violence against communities of color and the global validation of the election of a U.S. president with admitted ties to white supremacy, the global rise of youth-led decolonizing education movements advocating for localized practices rooted in indigenous knowledges could not be timelier.

Sentipensante Pedagogy Laura Rendón (2009) developed the notion of sentipensante pedagogy, or sensing/ thinking pedagogy, which I apply here as a framework for redefining education from schooling towards individual and collective liberation. Sentipensante pedagogy integrates spirituality, social justice, and healing to develop a pedagogical

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foundation for wholeness and inclusivity (Rendón, 2009) as an application of hooks’s (1994) work. Ultimately based upon critical educational thinkers, current practitioners, and through reflections by Rendón, sentipensante pedagogy has been informed by historical and contemporary conversations about types of liberatory educations. Through calling for holistic education that centers the individual within cultural contexts, Rendón integrates multicultural education with democratic education, and pulls from Grande’s red pedagogy, Freire’s critical pedagogy, Gardner’s multiple intelligences, and others to challenge Western education’s commitment to capitalism and competitive individualism. “… Focusing solely on competition,” Rendón (2009) argues, “does not take into account the notion that relationships and cooperation also play a central role in the survival of life forms and the intellectual and social development of individuals” (p. 36). Sentipensante pedagogy positions learners as “whole human beings—intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual” (ibid., p. 135). This foundation “recognizes the connection between Western and non-Western ways of knowing, the scientific method, and knowledge derived from the humanities and the social sciences, as well as the spiritual experience” (ibid., p. 135). Thus, sentipensante urges educators to recognize multiple knowledge forms, multiple intelligences, and the full range of humanity through an integrative learning that situates multidisciplinary skills and knowledge with emphasis on the mind, body, spirit and “the connection between the outer life of vocation and professional responsibility and the inner life of personal development, meaning, and purpose” (ibid., p. 134). Rendón distills the purpose through three overarching goals, which combine to serve as a framework for a globalized network of indigenous educational systems. The first goal is to “disrupt and transform the entrenched belief system, which is being held in mass consciousness, and its corresponding shared beliefs (agreements) about teaching and learning that act against wholeness and appreciation of truths in all forms” (Rendón, 2009, 135). The entrenched belief system that underlies education reflects larger social, political, and economic contexts of colonization and imperialism, and fundamental disruptions require an intentional decentering of the global context of whiteness. hooks situates this goal by framing the impact of racism as limiting the creative resistance of students and educators of color: “We were always and only responding and reacting to white folks” (hooks, 1994, p. 4). Thus, whiteness as a core educational belief system must be disrupted in order to foster the intellectual space to create systems of support for counternarrative development processes, but also to conceptualize intellectual thought without having to respond to white domination. The continual need to respond to whiteness and white educational infrastructures directly limits the creative implementation of sentipensante pedagogy and other humanistic-framed educational systems. Disrupting and transforming education systems first requires undoing the impacts of “separation, monodisciplinarity, competition, intellectualism, and passivity” and then centering “collaboration, transdisciplinarity, intuition, and active learning, especially that focused on social change” (Rendón, 2009, p. 135). This

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transformation aims to break the racial contract, and shifts from the provision of schools to an engagement with critical consciousness as the foundation of educational endeavors (Freire, 1973). Through asking self-reflexive questions of educators, such as “Why am I going along with this limiting view of knowledge?” Rendón (2009, p. 136) envisions such systemic transformation being coupled with individual change processes. Such self-questioning challenges the nature of knowledge and asserts that positionality, culture, language, and power all shape the ways in which knowledge is validated (Collins, 2000; hooks, 1994). Thus, in order to disrupt and then transform global education systems, sentipensante pedagogy positions a radical departure from Western interpretations and implementations of whiteness as schooling, and positions disruption, and then transformation, as key goals to liberatory education. While the first goal positions systems transformation, the second goal is to cultivate what Rendón (2009) refers to as personas educadas, or globally educated people who are “able to work with facts, as well as with diverse forms of information and theoretical perspectives” (p. 136). This focus on recognizing multiple perspectives and concrete facts is particularly important in an era of alternative facts, wherein publically elected officials are enabled to state opinions or factual errors as the one truth. As individuals who are aware of their own local context and recognize the existence and impact of larger global forces that promote whiteness, imperialism, and poverty, personas educadas are a departure from traditionally educated individuals who excel through current competitive-based, elitereinforced school systems. Nurturing personas educadas requires reclaiming “truth” through the integration of multicultural education, wherein culturally responsive approaches are employed to foster multilingual, social-historical contexts, while addressing debilitating impacts of oppression on learners (Gay, 2000). hooks (1994) explains, “Multiculturalism compels educators to recognize the narrow boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of any kind” (p. 44). Multiculturalism is a central component of sentipensante, reflecting the need for individuals to be prepared for the increasingly interconnected web of local and global relationships and the need to challenge the lies put forth by state actors (Macedo & Bartolomé, 1999). Although Dei frames a learning-centric orientation while writing about Africa specifically, this concept readily applies to a global developing world: For African learners we need to develop theoretical prisms or perspectives that are able to account for our lived experiences and our relationality with other learners. Such prisms will be rooted in our cultures, histories and heritage and be presented as frames of reference for the intellectual and political projects of designing positive (i.e., solution-oriented) educational goals for learners. (Dei, 2012, p. 103)

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Such affirming educational contexts promote deep engagement with multiple forms of knowledge, but have typically been limited in implementation to individual educators, individual schools, or simply as content-additions to colonial, dehumanizing curriculum rather than systems transformative approaches (Banks, 1993). The goal of sentipensante is thus to position culturally responsive approaches to develop and nurture personas educadas, or “well-rounded individuals who possess knowledge and wisdom” (Rendón, 2009, p. 136) to navigate and disrupt current oppressive systems, while also reconstructing new visions and ways of being in the world. Rendón’s personas educadas reflects Patricia Hill Collins’s framing of Black feminist thought, wherein the focus on multiple types of knowing situates a combination of experiential knowledge with the wisdom to move through oppressive realities. Collins (2000) proposes how “Black feminist thought can best be viewed as subjugated knowledge” (p. 251), in part because of the subjugation of all things related to Blackness and, in particular, Black women. Black women—and women of color across the globe—live within a context where their experiences “have been routinely distorted within or excluded from what counts as knowledge” (ibid.). Personas educadas thus learn to make meaning of their own lived experiences as oppressed people, recognizing silenced knowledge, as well as strategies for resistance. This notion of a clear recognition of one’s own humanity within dehumanizing social orders then positions the individual’s own process of self-reflection as key to liberation. Krishnamurti positioned such an education as central to learning about who we are as people, and the success of recognizing a collective “we” as dependent on seeing how individuals fit within a larger social structure. According to Krishnamurti (1953), “The government is what we are, religions and ideologies are but a projection of ourselves, and until we change fundamentally there can be neither right education nor a peaceful world” (p. 83). At the individual and collective levels, personas educadas thus ultimately impact social systems and interrupt the global reliance on violence. In writing about his work with indigenous communities in Brasil, Freire (1973) reiterated the urgent need for “an education which would lead men [sic] to take a new stance toward their problems, that of intimacy with those problems, one oriented toward research instead of repeating irrelevant principles” (p. 36). Personas educadas directly reflects Freire’s lifelong efforts to forge an intimate connection between knowledge, wisdom, and a blend of both local and global consciousness. The third goal of sentipensante pedagogy is a commitment to sustain life and social change to reflect liberated people and societies. In particular, Rendón (2009) counsels that a “sensing/thinking pedagogy is also concerned with eliciting social awareness within the student and teacher and some form of social change in and out of the classroom” (p. 136). This social justice goal focuses on maintaining “the rights of all people, and preserv[ing] nature and the harmony of our world” (ibid., p. 136). In order to engage such a social justice mission, sentipensante

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requires “all of us to open our minds and hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions …” (hooks, 1994, p. 12). Creating new visions for education similarly extends Freire’s critical pedagogy, where he positions the role of education as preparing people for democratic engagement. “Democracy and democratic education,” he argues, “are founded on faith in men, on the belief that they not only can but should discuss the problems of their country, of their continent, their world, their work, the problems of democracy itself” (Freire, 1973, p. 38). While this social awareness goal includes a critical recognition of systems of oppression, the goal is not simply to respond and react to the ongoing impacts of whiteness (and, to reflect his use of sexist language, patriarchy). Whereas nurturing personas educadas requires individual and collective healing work through deep self-reflection and societal awareness, sustaining social change requires collectively creating visions for education, and new pathways towards liberation that decenter whiteness. In her seminal work on building an indigenous research agenda, Linda Tuhiwai Smith ultimately challenged the notion of the Western gaze and instead developed a call to decolonize through disavowing frog perspectives. “Frustrations at working within the nation state,” Smith (1999, p. 112) describes, “led some indigenous communities towards establishing or reestablishing, in some cases, international linkages or relations with other indigenous communities.” Linkages between and relations with other indigenous communities frames a global pathway to a “set of approaches that are situated within the decolonization politics of the indigenous peoples’ movement” (ibid., p. 115). While Smith advocated for a specifically indigenous peoples’ situated research agenda, decolonizing methodologies can be directly applied to the development of an indigenous peoples’ educational agenda: Self-determination in a research agenda becomes something more than a political goal. It becomes a goal of social justice which is expressed through and across a wide range of psychological, social, cultural and economic terrains. It necessarily involves the processes of transformation, of decolonization, of healing and of mobilization as peoples. (Smith, 1999, p. 116) These four content and action areas—transformation, decolonization, healing, and mobilization—provide a map towards an indigenous education agenda that centers the social justice goal of self-determination (ibid.). The integration of social justice at the core of locally-informed, globally situated partnerships between and across indigenous groups crystalizes resistance efforts and shifts from resistance to transformation of entire education systems. As indigenous-led movements for self-determination reaffirm indigenous knowledges, languages, and sustainable ways of living, the call to reconceptualize education systems will

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inevitably expand. School systems are incapable of providing a sufficiently healing curricular foundation, the social and political action needed to mobilize, a decolonial pedagogy, and an intellectual foundation for transformation. The challenge then, is to step away from the framework of schooling to create new, multidisciplinary visions that center indigenous knowledges to develop and implement systems of sentipensante pedagogy.

Conclusion: Indigenous-centric Education as Acts of Resistance Dei (2012) argues for an expansive approach to educating indigenous communities, and suggests that education is “defined as more than going to school” (pp. 114–115). In promoting a more comprehensive notion that includes “family, community, nature and society interconnections through everyday practice and social activity” (ibid., p. 115), Dei ultimately extends sentipensante to an African context. It is important to conclude with the recognition that indigenous scholars and anti-colonial activists have long resisted Western education and whiteness as applied to schools. As long as there has been intentionality around implementing oppressive economic systems, and as long as those systems have been intellectually justified by colonial schooling systems, there have been critical anti-colonial voices. These voices have been long-aligned in calling for the end of schools as we know them, and in advocating for indigenous-centric infrastructures that value “not just the ‘school’ but within and throughout communities, homes and families” (ibid., p. 115). What is needed then is global recognition of indigenous voices, past, present, and future. The system of whiteness as schools must be eradicated if humanity is to survive ourselves. The commitment to whiteness, to silencing children of color around the world through the implementation of fundamentally racist and white supremacist knowledge processes through schools, must be disrupted. Only in that disruption can indigenous voices then have the place and space to create and implement alternative methods of engaging in knowledge construction. Until then, schools, in whatever format, however implemented, will continue to foster racism, sexism, heterosexism, heteronormativity, religious intolerance, and a general context of violence and poverty, all in the name of whiteness posing as excellence.

References Adams, D. W. (1995). Education for extinction: American Indians and the boarding school experience, 1875–1928. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Antwi, M. (1992). Education, society and development in Ghana. Accra: Unimax Publishers. Au, W. (2008). Unequal by design: High-stakes testing and the standardization of inequality. New York: Routledge. Au, W., & Ferrare, J. J. (2015). Introduction: Neoliberalism, social networks, and the new governance of education. In W. Au & J. J. Ferrare (Eds.), Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state (pp. 1–22). New York: Routledge. Baldwin, J. (1985). The evidence of things not seen. New York: Holt and Company.

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Banks, J. A. (1993). The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education. Educational Researcher, 22(5), 4–14. Barkan, J. (2011). Got dough? How billionaires rule our schools. Dissent, Winter, 49–57. Beck, M., & Araujo, S. (2013). Timor-Leste: The now in the not yet of school leadership. In S. R. P. Clarke & T. A. O’Donoghue (Eds.), School level leadership in post-conflict societies: The importance of context (pp. 159–174). New York: Routledge. Bell, D. (1993). The racism is permanent thesis: Courageous revelation or unconscious denial of racial genocide. Capital University Law Review, 22, 571–587. Bell, D. (1998). Afrolantica Legacies. Chicago, IL: Third World Press. Bell, D. (2000). Affirmative action: Another instance of racial workings in the United States. The Journal of Negro Education, 69(1/2), 145–149. Bell, D. (2003). Diversity’s distractions. Columbia Law Review, 103(6), 1622–1633. Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. New York: Oxford University Press. Blanchard, L. P. (2014). Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Frequently asked questions. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43558.pdf Buckland, P. (2006). Post-conflict education: Time for a reality check. Forced Immigration Review, July, 7–8. Clarke, S. R. P., & O’Donoghue, T. A. (2013). Educational leadership at the individual school level in post-conflict societies: The broad context. In S. R. P. Clarke & T. A. O’Donoghue (Eds.), School level leadership in post-conflict societies: The importance of context (pp. 9–29). New York: Routledge. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L., & Lieberman, A. (2012). Teacher education around the world: What can we learn from international practice? In L. Darling-Hammond & A. Lieberman (Eds.), Teacher education around the world: Changing policies and practices (pp. 151–169). New York: Routledge. Dei, G. S. (2012). Indigenous anti-colonial knowledge as “heritage knowledge” for promoting Black/African education in diasporic contexts. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 102–119. Dinham, S. (2015). The worst of both worlds: How U.S. and U.K. models are influencing Australian education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 23(49), 1–20. Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Gillborn, D. (2005). Educational policy as an act of white supremacy: Whiteness, critical race theory, and education reform. Journal of Education Policy, 20(4), 485–505. Gillborn, D. (2008). Racism and education: Coincidence or conspiracy?New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. (1997). Rewriting the discourse of racial identity: Towards a pedagogy and politics of whiteness. Harvard Educational Review, 67(2), 285–321. Goyette, K. A. (2008). College for some to college for all: Social background, occupational expectations, and educational expectations over time. Social Science Research, 37(2), 461–484. Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791.

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Hogan, A., Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2015). Network restructuring of global edu-business: The case of Pearson’s Efficacy Framework. In W. Au & J. J. Ferrare (Eds.), Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state (pp. 43–64). New York: Routledge. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Howard-Wagner, D. (2015). Governing through neoliberal multiculturalism: Reconstituting Australian culture and cultural diversity in the Howard era, 1996–2007. In V. Watson, D. Howard-Wagner, & L. Spanierman (Eds.), Unveiling whiteness in the twenty-first century: Global manifestations, transdisciplinary interventions (pp. 89–114). New York: Lexington Books. Knaus, C. B. (2005). More white supremacy? The Lord of the Rings as pro-American imperialism. Multicultural Perspectives, 7(4), 54–58. Knaus, C. B., & Brown, M. C., II (2016). Whiteness is the new South Africa: Qualitative research on post-apartheid schools. New York: Peter Lang. Knaus, C. B., & Rogers-Ard, R. (2012). Educational genocide: Examining the impact of national education policy on African Americans. ECI Interdisciplinary Journal for Legal and Social Policy, 2(1). Retrieved from http://ecipublications.org/ijlsp/vol2/iss1/1 Krishnamurti, J. (1953). Education and the significance of life. Ojai, CA: Krisnamurti Foundation of America. Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Just what is critical race theory, and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In L. Parker, D. Deyhele, & S. Villenas (Eds.), Race is … race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 7–30). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Leonardo, Z. (2002). The souls of white folk: Critical pedagogy, whiteness studies, and globalization discourse. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 5(1), 20–50. Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. New York: Routledge. Lipsitz, G. (1998). The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Loomis, S., Rodriguez, J., & Tillman, R. (2008). Developing into similarity: Global teacher education in the twenty-first century. European Journal of Teacher Education, 31(3), 233–245. Lulat, Y. G.-M. (2005). A history of African higher education from Antiquity to the present: A critical synthesis. Westport, CT: Praeger. Macedo, D., & Bartolomé, L. I. (1999). Dancing with bigotry: Beyond the politics of tolerance. New York: Palgrave. MacBeath, J., & Swaffield, S. (2013). Ghana: Resolving the tensions between colonial values and contemporary policies. In S. R. P. Clarke & T. A. O’Donoghue (Eds.), School level leadership in post-conflict societies: The importance of context (pp. 49–63). New York: Routledge. MacDonald, V. M. (2004). Latino education in the United States: A narrated history from 1513– 2000. New York: Macmillan. McWilliam, H. O. A., & Kwamena-Poh, M. A. (1975). The development of education in Ghana. London: Longman Publishers. Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mills, C. W. (2015). Piercing the veil. In V. Watson, D. Howard-Wagner, & L. Spanierman (Eds.), Unveiling whiteness in the twenty-first century: Global manifestations, transdisciplinary interventions (pp. 77–88). New York: Lexington Books.

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Moyo, D. (2009). Dead aid: Why aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Rendón, L. (2009). Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) pedagogy: Educating for wholeness, social justice, and liberation. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Roediger, D. R. (2007). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class. New York: Verso. Rosenbaum, J. (2001). Beyond college for all: Career paths of the forgotten half. New York: Sage. Segura, C. C. (2009). Lost in translation: Why the structures of formal schooling are not translating in rural Ghana. Toronto: International Development Studies, University of Toronto. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books. Watson, V., Howard-Wagner, D., & Spanierman, L. (2015). Introduction. In V. Watson, D. Howard-Wagner, & L. Spanierman (Eds.), Unveiling whiteness in the twenty-first century: Global manifestations, transdisciplinary interventions (pp. xi–xxi). New York: Lexington Books. Williams, H. A. (2005). Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Woodson, C. G. (1933/1990). The mis-education of the Negro. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Wright, R. (1956). The color curtain: A report on the Bandung Conference. Jackson, MI: Banner Books. Wright, R. (1957). White man, listen! Lectures in Europe, 1950–1956. New York: HarperCollins. Yancy, G. (2015). When heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. In V. Watson, D. Howard-Wagner, & L. Spanierman (Eds.), Unveiling whiteness in the twenty-first century: Global manifestations, transdisciplinary interventions (pp. 195–210). New York: Lexington Books.

2 WHITE PRIVILEGE AND AMERICAN SOCIETY The State, White Opportunity Hoarding, and Inequality Megan R. Underhill, David L. Brunsma, and W. Carson Byrd UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ASHEVILLE, VIRGINIA TECH, AND UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

White Privilege American Style: Institutionalized Opportunity Hoarding? When people hear the phrase “white privilege” they often think about the definition provided by Peggy McIntosh in her landmark essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” wherein she defines white privilege as a collection of unearned advantages whites accrue as a result of their dominant racial status (McIntosh, 1989). According to McIntosh, these unearned privileges range from white-dominated television shows to whites’ ability to purchase “nude” (i.e., white) colored pantyhose at their local department store. McIntosh’s essay successfully calls attention to the white structuring of life (and the structuring of white life) in the United States, but it does not examine how white racial advantage or “privilege” developed. Indeed, McIntosh writes about white privilege from an ahistorical perspective that ignores the process by which white political, economic and cultural domination was achieved. As noted by Feagin (2009), the framing of racial privilege as unearned advantages ignores the intentionality of earlier generations of whites to establish a structural foundation for successive generations to unintentionally preserve their racial privileges. We must not forget that the arc of history in the United States was launched from a position of white domination through the establishment of three white settler colonies (Glenn, 2014)—British, French, and Spanish—where white personhood, authority, placemaking, and governance shaped the blueprint for white supremacy (Coates, Ferber, & Brunsma 2017). White supremacy is “a political system, a particular power structure of formal or informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties” (Mills, 1997, p. 3) as well

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as a racialized social structure (Bonilla-Silva, 1997) that benefits its central beneficiaries, whites in the “maintenance of, and acquiescence in, racialized hierarchies governing resource distribution” (Gunier & Torres, 2003, p. 98). Underwritten by a white god and narrated by a collective white belief in their own superiority through early ideological tools as the Great Chain of Being (see Graves, 2001; Mills, 1997; Zuberi, 2001), all non-whites with whom the early state encountered were either exploited, enslaved, killed, or dispossessed of their land, culture, and dignity—so as to bolster white social, political, economic, and cultural structures of domination. In addition to violent exclusion, whites secured a privileged place in society by embedding their tastes, norms, and practices into the culture, policies, and operating procedures of American organizations and institutions (Bonilla-Silva, Goar, & Embrick 2006; Dijk, 1993; Feagin, 2009). Indeed, a more focused examination of the role of institutions in shaping the racialized social structure of the United States, reveals how white supremacist institutions develop white supremacist structures and identities to maintain a system whereby its primary constituents (e.g., whites) are privileged and, therefore, collectively and individually complicit in that privilege. This institutionalization of white norms and practices buttresses white power by positioning white norms and practices as normal and objective (Doane, 2003; Feagin, 2009). In this way, the white structuring of institutional life becomes hegemonic and thus mostly invisible to whites and people of color (Jackman, 1994). The consequence is that few people question or challenge the institutional policies and practices that benefit whites and disadvantage people of color (ibid.). In this chapter, we argue that under white supremacy, the state provided the scaffolding supporting white life, white community, white mobility and white stories thereby perpetuating the rhetoric of white superiority. Thus, in a departure from McIntosh (1989), we argue that white privilege has been “earned” by whites via the pursuit of hundreds of years of violent and exclusionary policies designed to uplift whites and subjugate and exploit people deemed “non-white.” This reality reinforces Tilly’s (1998) notion of durable (categorical) inequalities combining exploitation and opportunity hoarding, and the dual process of social closure (Weber, 1978; Parkin, 1979). We focus on white opportunity hoarding as a key process perpetuating racial privilege in society. By opportunity hoarding, we mean the process by which a dominant social group—in this case whites—work to gain, and ultimately acquire near to exclusive access to valuable social goods and resources and then, in an effort to maintain the value of those resources, bar people of color from accessing said resources, thereby limiting their social mobility (Weber, 1978; Tilly, 1998). Importantly, taking a perspective of social closure illuminates the inner-workings of everyday opportunity hoarding as explicit intraracial favoritism of whites for whites instead of assuming a phenomenon of interracial discrimination. Thus, discrimination is not solely based on protecting resources and opportunities, but also about maintaining status distinctions between groups (Stainback & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2012).

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In the following section, we provide a brief overview of opportunity hoarding and social closure literatures. We then examine how institutions like the state pursue both practices, thereby creating and maintaining racial inequity, and more specifically—white privilege.

Institutional Opportunity Hoarding and Inequality Richard Reeves’s recent book Dreamhoarders (Reeves, 2017) provides an accessible and popular take on the issue of social closure and opportunity hoarding among America’s upper middle-class. He shows how the upper middle-class in the United States is pulling away from the rest of society socially and economically due to the pursuit of specific and widespread exclusionary practices in dominant social institutions such as health care, education, housing, and the economy itself. Reeves findings accord with pre-existing scholarship that demonstrates how people at the top of the socioeconomic structure are more practiced at securing and transmitting valuable resources to their children (Bourdieu, 1984; Lareau, 2003). Further, his research highlights the economically and racially segregated nature of upper middle class life. This is an important insight, because, as Massey (2007) notes, “If out-group members are spatially segregated from in-group members, then the latter are put in good position to use their social power to create institutions and practices that channel resources away from the places where out-group members live” (p. 19). Reeves builds on Massey’s observation, arguing that the upper middle-class represent one of the “most dangerous political facts of our time” because “they are disproportionately powerful and … are not only separate but unaware of the degree to which the system works in their favor” (NPR, 2017). This popular work echoes contemporary sociological insights into similar processes that are etched within our dominant institutions. Can institutions operate as systems of white opportunity hoarding? Certainly. Like Weber’s notions of social closure (Weber, 1978), Tilly contends that opportunity hoarding “operates when members of a categorically bounded network acquire access to a resource that is valuable, renewable, subject to monopoly, supportive of network activities, and enhanced by the network’s modus operandi” (Tilly, 1998, p. 10). Indeed, Tilly’s work specifically separated out the concepts of opportunity hoarding and exploitation, the latter being rooted in elite control of resources that are accomplished using the labor of others, while the former is grounded in the networks and practices of non-elites’ use of boundary formation and maintenance to hoard resources that convey distinction and exclude other groups (Rury and Saatcioglu, 2016). Interestingly, he does mention that the case of post-Civil War racial discrimination (read: racism), is a case where exploitation and opportunity hoarding worked hand in glove. In conjunction with opportunity hoarding, social closure works through exclusion and usurpation. In the former process, a subordinate group is excluded from resources and opportunities by a dominant group in order to secure and maintain their

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privileged position in society. During the latter process, the subordinate group(s) attempt to draw resources and opportunities away from the dominant group (Parkin, 1979; see also Sassen, 2014, for such global processes). Thus, the processes that establish the practices of white opportunity hoarding are not limited to the micro (individual) level of society, but work effectively at the meso-level via organizations and institutions. These institutions—the state, housing, banking, education, transportation, etc.—work singly, but most importantly in relation to each other to allow for the emergence of white opportunity hoarding structures (Tomaskovic-Devey, 1993). Whiteness, as a dominant ideology, normalizes white opportunity hoarding making. The power of this “ideological glue” is that it provides whites in different social positions with ready-made rationalizations, explanations, and justifications for racial asymmetries (i.e., distinctions between groups) thereby allowing whites to argue (albeit often hidden in plain sight in policy and race talk) for continued opportunity hoarding and exclusion (Bonilla-Silva, 1997, 2017). Prior to elaborating how institutions, and, in particular, the state, perpetuate white opportunity hoarding, it is important to note that the United States as a state is and has always been a racialized state (Bracey, 2015; Mills, 1997). This means many things, but it fundamentally refers to the fact that the governing apparatus emerged out of white supremacy and has functioned to reproduce such a structure to the benefit of its constituents and to the detriment of those who are not wrapped in the embrace of whiteness. Bracey (2015, pp. 563–564) provides a useful list of six tenets that underwrite the racialized state: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Every aspect of the state shapes and is shaped by racism. The state is white institutional space, and cannot be considered race neutral. The state is used as a tool by whites, and is not an individual actor by itself. Only through interest-convergence does the state make efforts toward racial justice. The boundaries between the state and non-state actors are fluid and contingent. The above five tenets are permanent.

These tenets extend original discussions of the racial state by Omi and Winant (2015), and establish an important clarificatory point for the purposes of the current chapter: the state not only acts to support racism and white opportunity hoarding but it also establishes the conditions that enable white individuals and institutions to engage in such practices. To understand how the United States, as a racialized state has enacted and fostered white opportunity hoarding, a brief review of American history is necessary. In the next section, we examine specific state-driven instances of white opportunity hoarding that helped whites achieve the racially privileged position they hold today.

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White Opportunity Hoarding in American Society: A Brief Overview White opportunity hoarding is both a precursor to and a product of the racialization of the United States and it plays a central role in the country’s history, first as a colony and later as a sovereign nation. White opportunity hoarding began in earnest when European colonists moved to the New World and claimed Native American land as their own (terra nullis!). Contact with white Europeans decimated the lives and landholdings of Native peoples, ninety to ninety-five percent of whom died from European introduced disease and warfare (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2010). White colonists and later citizens benefited from the genocide of Native peoples as it facilitated the seizure of Native lands, and the redistribution of these lands to property-less white settlers (ibid.). White theft of human dignity, community, and life continued with the enslavement of African peoples, millions of whom were stolen from their homelands and forced into a violent system of chattel slavery in the United States that lasted until 1865. The institution of slavery destroyed black lives and families while enriching the lives and fortunes of white slave owners and the county as a whole (Wilson, 1978). In fact, it is unlikely the United States would have become one of the wealthiest countries in the world had it not been for over 250 years of black enslavement (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006). During America’s slave-holding past, white slave owners exercised total control over the lives of enslaved African people (Wilson, 1978). Deemed property by the state, slaves were subject to restrictive laws known as “slave codes,” that marked them as non-citizens and forbade them from carrying a firearm, learning to read, owning property, operating a business, travelling independently of their owner, or marrying (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2010, p. 68). Female slaves were also denied control of their of their bodies, sexuality, and children (Davis, 1981). They were regularly raped by their owners, or another man of the owner’s choosing, and the children of these unions were condemned to slavery, a practice that provided slave-owners with a new generation of free labor (ibid.). The purpose of the American slave codes was to ensure that white rule went uncontested by slaves, who, if stripped of all rights and liberties, would have little power or ability to protest their exploitation (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2010). Black slaves were not the only individuals whom the state denied citizenship. Upon gaining independence from Britain, America’s earliest white politicians enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790 in which American citizenship was limited to males of Anglo-Saxon descent (Roediger, 1994). This act represents one of the United States government’s earliest attempts at white opportunity hoarding because it established the ontological and, by extension, legal precedent by which American citizenship became associated with whiteness. Though the inclusion criteria of the United States government later expanded to include a more diverse constituency of European ethnics, it continued to deny people of color the

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privileges and protections associated with citizenship for another hundred to hundred and fifty years depending upon the racial or ethnoracial group under consideration (Glenn, 2002). These privileges included the right to vote in U.S. elections, serve on a jury, and access legal protections guaranteed by federal or state law. The United States also enacted restrictive immigration policies that severely limited non-European origin people from entering the country. For example, immigrants from countries such as China and Japan were admitted to the United States for a time in the late 1800s to work on sugar plantations in Hawaii or railroads in the American West but were discouraged from establishing long-term residence. Federal laws like the Page Law (1875) forbade the immigration of Chinese woman, relegating male workers to “bachelor communities” where there was little to no opportunity for them to marry or have children—thereby restricting population growth (Espiritu, 2008). Seven years after the Page Law, the federal government enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which cut off immigration from China altogether until the 1940s (ibid.). The message to nonEuropean immigrants was clear. You may come to the United States when American firms are in need of labor, but you and your family may not become citizens; American citizenship only extends to European-origin people who can assimilate into whiteness. These racially exclusionary citizenship policies were further reinforced by the American judiciary in cases such as Takao Ozawa v. United States and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind wherein the court ruled that American-born Japanese and Indian ethnics were “not-white” and therefore ineligible for U.S. citizenship (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2010). Individuals deemed non-white by the state—Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and in some regions of the United States, Hispanics—were vulnerable to the political whims of the state and the dissatisfaction of politicians’ white, workingclass base. For example, when the U.S. economy plummeted following the stock market crash of 1929, the United States government instituted a “Mexican Repatriation” program wherein an estimated 500,000 to 2 million Mexican workers, some of whom were U.S. residents, were repatriated to Mexico by the United States government (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2010; Glenn, 2002).The rationale behind this program was that Mexicans were “stealing jobs” away from (white) American workers The Mexican repatriation program serves as a good example of the state’s pursuit of policies designed to defend white economic interests, real or imagined. In this case, that meant ensuring that American jobs went to “real” (i.e., white) Americans.1 State-sponsored white opportunity hoarding became less violent after the abolition of slavery in 1865 but it did not necessarily become less total or comprehensive. White-state control reigned unchecked in the south until the mid1960s under the guise of Jim Crow laws that legally prohibited people of color in Jim Crow states from fully participating in American society—socially, politically, and economically. For example, though Blacks were awarded the right to vote

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with the passage of the 15th (1870) and 19th amendment (1920), it was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that most southern blacks were able to exercise this right in full; discriminatory state policies such as literacy tests and poll taxes made voting in the south all but impossible for most black residents. As Katznelson (2005, p. 51) writes, without the ability to vote “Blacks could not achieve civic and political inclusion … They had no standing within the polity”. People of color were not only denied political participation for most of the history of the United States, but they were also excluded from accessing two of the largest social spending programs in United States history—the New Deal that provided social security, unemployment insurance, and aid to dependent children (ADC) following the Great Depression—and the GI Bill, a 95 billion dollar program designed to help American veterans achieve social and economic mobility at the conclusion of World War II (Katznelson, 2005). People of color’s exclusion from these government social spending programs was the work of white southern democrats who agreed to vote in favor of these federal programs, if, and only if they were able to prohibit the majority of individuals of color in their state from accessing the benefits associated with either program. White southern democrats pushed for racially exclusionary policies so as to better maintain the racial caste system within their state. The result of their actions was an era of state policy when “affirmative action was white” because it granted “white Americans privileged access to state-sponsored economic mobility” and in so doing, “launched new and important sources of racial inequality” (ibid., pp. 18, 21). The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), a United States government agency created in the wake of the Great Depression, also established racialized lending policies (i.e., redlining) that made it all but impossible for blacks to access mortgages that were readily extended to whites. Whites’ ability to purchase a home, allowed them to grow their wealth, and to pass on what they earned to the next generation (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006). However, because people of color were overwhelmingly denied access to low-interest home loans, few were able to use homeownership as a vehicle to accumulate or transmit wealth to future generations (ibid.)—contributing to the racial wealth gap we see today wherein whites possess thirteen times more wealth than blacks and ten times more wealth than Hispanics. Rothstein (2017) describes how the racialized state operated as both an actor and enabler for white opportunity hoarding that ultimately undercut racial economic progress and its particular impact on wealth generation in relation to housing. For example, the funding of temporary war-time (World War II) segregated housing for workers near factories by the government relied on local and state policies of racial segregation. In line with new industrial developments in the areas, racial discrimination was part of the institutional processes of the labor market as white workers were given preference in these factories. Simultaneously, to buoy the economy the government increased its support for homeownership, which was limited to only white workers, as the residential developments were established for those workers, while black factory

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workers were often left in the temporary, and fast-deteriorating residences near older factories that were either closing all together or moving to other areas. Although the state did not act to specifically to discriminate against black factory workers, they enabled whites to hoard both economic and residential opportunities that later corresponded to the wealth gap noted above. This one example provides insight to how white opportunity hoarding perpetuates durable inequalities in society (Tilly, 1998) without specific acts of individual discrimination occurring to reinforce these patterns. As Jim Crow segregation came to a close in the south in the 1960s, a new form of racial control emerged in the United States: mass incarceration (Alexander, 2010). Beginning with President Nixon’s War on Drugs in the 1970s and continuing with the Reagan and Clinton administrations, the federal government adopted a more punitive approach to criminal justice, particularly concerning drug offenses. Urban communities that were already suffering from severe financial disinvestment due to decades of white flight and deindustrialization, became the focus of heightened police surveillance, particularly during the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. As drug raids and arrests increased in America’s urban communities, America’s prison population experienced a six-fold increase between 1972 and 2000; most prisoners were black and brown men who possessed a high school degree or less (Pettit and Western, 2004). This evidence suggests that mass incarceration is one mechanism, among many, that fuels white opportunity hoarding in the contemporary United States. It does this by helping to sustain a racial caste system whereby poor men of color are effectively blocked from participating in the American political process or labor market due to the “mark” of their criminal record (Alexander, 2010; Pager, 2007). Though policies vary by state, a criminal record may bar an individual from exercising the right to vote in local or national elections or prevent them from accessing need-based programs such as food stamps or housing vouchers. The result is a growing population of poor people of color who are locked out of America’s opportunity structure. The culmination of the acts of white opportunity hoarding described above, allowed whites to establish, and continue to establish, near total economic, political, and social control over the people and land of the United States of America. In each case (and many others including education, health care, political elections, transportation, etc.), the state facilitated the development of white privilege and also masked its existence. In many ways, this is what white privilege in a colorblind era is—the silent execution of power by and for a select racial group via establishing structures of and facilitating processes of opportunity hoarding. Whites need not be aware of their exclusionary practices or their privileged position to reap racial rewards (Jackman, 1994). In fact, white supremacy functions best when society members remain unaware of the system of exploitation and expropriation in which members of the dominant group have and are engaged (Mills, 1997).

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Historical and Contemporary Challenges to White Privilege The hashtag #blacklivesmatter first appeared in a 2013 Facebook post penned by Alicia Garza upon learning of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in of the death of seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin (Cobb, 2016). Garza described her post as a “love letter to black people” in which she sought to highlight the value of black life in the face of a political and social climate where black lives were regularly subject to repression, surveillance, and violence (ibid.). Garza’s hashtag went viral on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter but did not move beyond the realm of social media until August of 2014, when eighteen year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. During that time, #blacklivesmatter supporters from around the country travelled to Ferguson, MO to protest Brown’s death and police violence against communities of color. As Patrisse Cullors-Brignac describes, activists often arrived in Ferguson by themselves but departed Ferguson as a member of a “network” committed to raising racial awareness and agitating for social change (Cullors-Brignac, 2016). Activists’ collective efforts have inspired change, though it may be too soon to tell exactly how much. Their agitation compelled political candidates to address issues of police brutality and racial violence in the United States and to consider how they would attempt to resolve these issued if elected. It could also be argued that their activism influenced the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) December 2016 decision to begin tracking police fatalities. This is significant because it represents the first time in U.S. history that a government agency has attempted to comprehensively evaluate police-related fatalities— despite decades of protest by communities of color and activist groups like the Black Panthers (Petulla, 2016). Although these efforts are notable for pushing societal conversations about state-sanctioned racialized violence, more recently these same activist leaders and organizations have been targeted by the FBI as “black identity extremists.” This designation echoes the efforts to undercut and discredit the antiracist activism of groups such as the Black Panthers and other organizations fighting for racial justice by COINTELPRO in the mid-twentieth century (Boykoff, 2007). These attempts to reframe social justice efforts as a danger to society, and more specifically the racial state, closely following white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in fall 2017 reflects an interrelated process of (1) equating white supremacy and antiracism as posing similar (identity) threats to society, and (2) discrediting the lived experiences of oppression given voice by social justice organizations. The equating of white supremacy and antiracism as similar threats to society is endemic to the functions of organizations aligning with the racial state and its support for white supremacy (Bracey, 2015; Mills, 1997). This framing of antiracism allows for a treacherous view of identity to gain legitimacy that members of each group are equally apply their racial identities in support of their efforts and

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can buoy calls for people to eliminate using racial or ethnic identities in preference for a colorblind, American identity echoing similarities with Latin American nations (see Bonilla-Silva, 2017). Additionally, whites situate social justice efforts more in line with supporting racial equality (in principle) rather than supporting racial justice (in action); echoing what is referred to as the “principle-policy paradox” (see Krysan, 2000, p. 146). The racial state rewards the view of equal opportunity to use one’s individual efforts to strive and achieve a better social position, but efforts to transform opportunities and resources to be more equitable—to combat the durable inequalities of society— are shunned as unfairly forcing the issue. Thus, whites support this abstract liberalism framing of society (Bonilla-Silva, 2017) as it can buttress their use of opportunity hoarding to solidify their social positions, their rationalizations for why they hold such positions, and exclusion of others from these opportunities. Racial justice efforts are framed as supposed radical attempts to transform the status quo endorsed by the racial state by using racial identity against the dominant group and challenging the legitimacy of their positions and access to resources. This fraught struggle around racial identity and resources is seen as affirmative action has recently entered the news cycle once again with the report that the Department of Justice is investigating “anti-white bias” of raceconscious college admissions programs (Savage, 2017). At its base, the assumption is race-conscious policies unfairly reward people of color based on their racial identity, not because of their supposed merit. Therefore, whites charge that if they cannot be rewarded because of their racial identity (a close argument to those made by white nationalists), then no one should be given such opportunities and narrowly construct what ‘merit’ is considered in these conversations. In summary, these efforts are state-endorsed forms of opportunity hoarding by questioning the use of policies that use a sociohistorical lens to understand race, while simultaneously supporting whites’ equating of racial identity use devoid of considering power dynamics in society and limiting their support for racial justice to principles of equality and opportunity that do not tackle the structural aspects of durable inequalities (Tilly, 1998). Second, this reframing of identity, opportunity, and inequality by the racial state discredits the lived experiences and voices of people of color who resist white supremacy throughout their everyday lives, not just during activism. If we return to the FBI investigation into ‘anti-white bias’ in college admissions policies, by limiting the consideration of race in college admissions, whites are effectively silencing people of color whose stories included in college essays can relay how their efforts to achieve come in the face of extreme circumstances that they disproportionately face compared to their white peers. Again, by using a narrow framing of equal opportunity and equating all (racial) identities as the same, by not considering race in college admissions, white opportunity hoarding renders considering an applicant of color’s lived experiences as relevant for considering the qualities that would make them a

32 Megan R. Underhill et al.

diligent student in college. White opportunity hoarding relies on the belief that overcoming racial discrimination is one of a limited number of disconnected life events, not that racism impacts the opportunities and resources someone has throughout their life as noted above. Coupled together, resisting the racial state and its support for white opportunity hoarding on individual and organizational levels is a continuous struggle whereby steps toward racial progress are frequently met with new obstacles that can limit future resistance efforts by communities.

Note 1 Some scholars contend that a similar phenomenon occurred in the wake of the Great Recession (2007–2011). During this period, millions of Latin American immigrants were deported from the United States, partially to appease the employment concerns of (white) American workers who believed Latino immigrants were “stealing” American jobs (Golash-Boza and Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2013).

References Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. (1997). Rethinking racism: Toward a structural interpretation. American Sociological Review 62(3): 465–480. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2017). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bonilla-Silva, E, Goar, C. & Embrick, D. G. (2006). When Whites flock together: The social psychology of White habitus. Critical Sociology 32(2/3): 229–253. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boykoff, J. (2007). Limiting dissent: The mechanisms of state repression in the U.S. Social Movement Studies, 6(3), 281–310. BraceyII, G. E. (2015). Toward a critical race theory of state. Critical Sociology 41(3): 553–572. Coates, R., Ferber, A. & Brunsma, D. L. (2017). The matrix of race: Social construction, intersectionality, and inequality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Cobb, J. (2016). The matter of Black lives: A new kind of movement found its moment, what will its future be? The New Yorker. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from www.new yorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed Cullors-Brignac, P. M. (2016). We didn’t start a movement. We started a network. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from https://medium.com/@patrissemariecullorsbrignac/ we-didn-t-start-a-movement-we-started-a-network-90f9b5717668 Davis, A. (1981). Women, race & class. New York: Vintage Books. Desmond, M. & Emirbayer, M. (2010). Racial domination, racial progress: The sociology of race in America. New York: McGraw Hill. Dijk, T. van. (1993). Elite discourse and racism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Doane, A. W. (2003). Rethinking Whiteness Studies. In A. W. Doane and E. BonillaSilva (Eds.), White out: The continuing significance of racism (pp. 3–18). New York: Routledge.

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Espiritu, Y. Le. (2008). Asian American women and men: Labor, laws and love. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Feagin, J. (2009). The White racial frame: Centuries of White racial framing and counterframing. New York: Routledge. Glenn, E. N. (2002). Unequal freedom: How race and gender shaped American citizenship and labor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Glenn, E. N. (2014). Settler colonialism as structure, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. 1(1). Golash-Boza, T. & Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2013). Latino immigrant men and the deportation crisis: A gendered racial removal program. Latino Studies 11(3): 271–292. Graves, Jr., J. L. (2001). The emperor’s new clothes: Biological theories of race at the new millennium. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Gunier, L. & Torres, G. (2003). The miner’s canary: Enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jackman, M. (1994). The velvet glove: Paternalism, and conflict in gender, class, and race relations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Katznelson, I. (2005). When affirmative action was White: An untold history of racial inequality in twentieth-century America. New York: W. W. Norton. Krysan, M. (2000). Prejudice, politics, and public opinion: Understanding the sources of racial policy attitudes. Annual Review of Sociology 26(1): 135–168. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Massey, D. (2007). Categorically unequal: The American stratification system. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom Magazine, July/August, 10–12. Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. NPR. (2017). Top 20 percent of Americans hoard the American dream. May 31, 2017. Retrieved from www.npr.org/2017/05/31/530843665/top-20-percent-of-america ns-hoard-the-american-dream Oliver, M. & Shapiro, T. (2006). Black wealth / White wealth: A new perspective on racial inequality. New York: Routledge. Omi, M. & Winant, H. (2015). Racial formation in the United States (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. Pager, D. (2007). Marked: Race, crime, and finding work in an era of mass incarceration. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Parkin, F. (1979). Marxism and class theory: A bourgeois critique. New York: Columbia University Press. Pettit, B. & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69, 151–169. Petulla, S. (2016). New government report records twice as many police related deaths as FBI stats. NBC News, December 18. Retrieved from www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ new-government-report-records-twice-many-police-related-deaths-fbi-n696736 Reeves, R. (2017). Dream hoarders: How the American upper middle class is leaving everyone else in the dust, why that is a problem, and what to do about it. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press. Roediger, D. R. (1994). Whiteness and ethnicity in the history of “White ethnics” in the United States. In D. R. Roediger (Ed.), Towards the abolition of Whiteness: Essays on race, politics, and working class history (pp. 181–198). London: Verso.

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Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. New York: Liveright. Rury, J. L. & Saatcioglu, A. (2016). Opportunity hoarding. In J. Stone, R. M. Dennis, P. S. Rizova, A. D. Smith, and X. Hou (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of race, ethnicity, and nationalism. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved December 13, 2017 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118663202.wberen435 Sassen, S. (2014). Expulsions: Brutality and complexity in the global economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Savage, C. (2017). Justice Dept. to take on affirmative action in college admissions. New York Times, August 1. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/ trump-affirmative-action-universities.html Stainback, K., & Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (2012). Documenting desegregation: Racial and gender segregation in private-sector employment since the Civil Rights Act. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (1993). Gender & racial inequality at work: The sources & consequences of job segregation. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Wilson, W. J. 1978. The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Zuberi, T. (2001). Thicker than blood: How racial statistics lie. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

3 THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP A Historical Perspective on Racism in the American Principal’s Office Jeffrey S. Brooks RMIT UNIVERSITY

Nearly 12 years ago, I co-authored an article with my graduate school colleague and friend Mark Miles. The article, “From Scientific Management to Social Justice … and Back Again? Pedagogical Shifts in the Study and Practice of Educational Leadership,” appeared in the now defunct International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning (Brooks & Miles, 2006). This was our attempt to make sense of concepts that informed contemporary views on educational leadership. We consulted histories of thought in the field and also mined lines of inquiry searching for veins of zeitgeist—we identified “big ideas” that defined several eras, and in doing so, wrote what we thought was a fine (if brief) exploration of history of the field of educational leadership. As the title implies, the central argument of that article was that the field had moved from a difference-blind view on leadership to one that embraced more progressive views such as social justice, critical pedagogy and culturally relevant pedagogy. While the work helped me gain a greater appreciation of some ideas that characterized certain movements in the field, it was inadequate for at least two reasons. First, it was predominantly from a White and uncritical perspective and second, it was wholly focused on American scholarship, ignoring many outstanding scholars from around the world whose work has made meaningful contributions to our understanding of educational leadership. 1 While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to be more expansive in terms of geography (I’ll save that for another project), I will revisit the eras we originally identified and problematize them by critiquing them from a critical race theory perspective. In doing so, I primarily identify a lack of voice, and raise issue with the ways that the knowledge base of the field of educational leadership has been shaped by whiteness—and a noticeable absence or marginalization of the voices

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of scholars of color. Thankfully, from the late 20th century onward, a generation of scholars of color emerged as important scholars who have in some way reshaped the unbearable whiteness of thinking about educational leadership. This is a selective than exhaustive list—mainly generated from scholars whose work I am most familiar with—but among notable figures are Flora Ida Ortiz, Barbara Jackson, Linda Tillman, Michael Dantley, Noelle Witherspoon Arnold, Rodney Ogawa, Mark Gooden, Judy Alston, Floyd Beachum, Ty Douglas, AJ Welton, Carlos McCray, Khaula Murtadha, Gerardo López, Rosa Rivera-McCutcheon, Gaetane Jean-Marie, Malu Gonzalez, Sonya Douglass Horsford, Terance Green, Decoteau J. Irby, Terri Watson, Enrique Aleman, Muhammad Khalifa, April Peters-Hawkins, Terah Venzant Chambers, and Camille Wilson (I apologize for omissions here—this list could be much longer). These scholars, and many others, have offered important contributions to thought, research and practice in educational leadership. With that said, I begin this chapter by journeying back to the 20th century, before bringing it back to contemporary scholarship.

A Historical Perspective on Educational Leadership, Framed by Critical Race Theory In the United States, school leadership underwent a profound transformation over the course of the twentieth century. Prior to World War II, the likes of Elwood Cubberly, George Strayer, and others in the Frederick Taylor-influenced First Wave of Scientific Management, shaped a nascent and underconceptualized knowledge base. After 1945, an explosion of scholarly activity in educational leadership and the emergence of university-based preparation programs helped buoy several significant pedagogical movements that had profound implications for educational leaders. In particular, two mid-century movements, one devoted to the creation and testing of administrative theory and another centered on the application and exploration of social science research methods shaped the thirty years preceding 1980 and continues to exert significant influence on the field today. The eighties saw the study of educational leadership take a “postmodern turn,” as a cadre of influential scholars and practitioners reconceived leadership by conducting inquiry through conceptual lenses grounded in various forms of ethical critique, critical and feminist theories, pluralistic multiculturalism, and social justice. Yet, for over a century’s worth of practice, inquiry and interest in educational leadership, practitioners and scholars seldom look backward for guidance as they consider the future. The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, I seek to examine ontological trends in educational leadership toward the goal of identifying patterns that have historically shaped the field. Second, I aim to critique these patterns from a critical race theory perspective (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c), notably asking the following questions:

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1. 2. 3.

Are the perspectives and work of educational leaders and scholars of color centered, marginalized or absent in the era? Does scholarship of the era challenge or make normative claims of neutrality, objectivity, color-blindness, and meritocracy? Does scholarship of the era conceptualize leadership as activity that seeks to dismantle, reinforce or ignore issues of inequity and injustice in education?

Third, given this historical perspective, I consider issues and contingencies that confront a field of practice and scholarship standing collectively at a crossroads. As a Second Wave of Scientific Management focused on an obsession with the use and misuse of “data” and “evidence” gathers strength (Brooks, Rickinson & Wilkinson, 2017), scholars and practitioners alike must consider how their work will inform, transform, or have marginal impact on the preparation and practice of a new generation of educational leaders. I suggest that by looking at the field in a historical perspective and asking a guiding question can help us understand our current and forward-looking research: Are our ways of thinking about and practicing educational leadership racist? In order to ground subsequent discussions in a historical context, I begin this chapter with a review of literature that chronicles certain historical trends in educational leadership. It is important to note at the onset that I consider this review broader than it is deep; I posit and briefly critique zeitgeist rather than expounding subtleties within specific eras. After establishing broad themes that have informed formal educational leadership during various eras, I then turn from the past to the present and consider how these themes inform the practice, preparation, and study of educational leadership.

Educational Leadership in the United States: Pre-World War II The First Wave of Spiritual and Social Leadership At the onset of the twentieth century many community members in the United States viewed school leaders as having a few central concerns, including the promotion of traditional spiritual values and the development of strong social contacts within the school community. To be sure, the traditional spiritual values put forward as normal were those of White religions, and the use of religio-normativity as a mechanism of social control also had the effect of normalizing whiteness in church, society and school (Spring, 2016). The social contact element dealt with enlisting the cooperation of faculty members in finding solutions to institutional problems and “accurately sensing” the social problems of the student body (Johnston, Newlon, & Pickell, 1922), that is, anything outside of a whitenormal was deviant and criminal (Zinn, 2015). Upon sensing problems and “correcting” them, principals were then expected to actively promote appropriate moral and spiritual values among school community members. School leaders of

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this era embraced a pedagogy grounded in the belief that humans could be molded into a particular vision of “perfectibility” (Mason, 1986)—perfection, was of course submissive and White. However, sensing social problems and applying an uncomplicated (and uncompromising) White moral functionalism as a salve was soon not enough for a field moving quickly toward professionalism and systematic preparation.

The First Wave of Scientific Management It is hard to overstate the importance and influence of several key individuals and a single institution on the development programs and processes of educational leaders in the first four decades of the twentieth century. With regard to institutional significance, the Teachers College at Columbia University stands alone. From 1904–1934, over half of all dissertations completed on topics related to educational administration were conducted at the “temple of Educational Administration in the Pre-World War II era” (Campbell, Fleming, Newell, & Bennion, 1987, p. 180). This generation of Columbia-educated pioneers included Dutton and Snedden (1909) who published one of the earliest textbooks on educational administration, The Administration of Public Education in the United States, an exhaustive 600 page text which “left nothing unexamined” (Campbell et al., 1987, p. 176). Nothing, that is, that could be explained in a differenceblind manner—issues specific to women, race, ability and many other issues were absent, and through their omission unimportant (Larson & Murtadha, 2002). English (2002a) notes that early Columbia Generation writers were “infatuated with the rhetoric and publicity surrounding the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor” and accordingly, “the ‘new’ mission for education colleges was to scientifically prepare educational leaders” (p. 110). Campbell et al. (1987) lent further support to this analysis, pointing out that “the assumptions of scientific management are evident throughout” (pp 9–10). Dutton and Snedden’s The Administration of Public Education in the United States, as evidenced in part by the “Problems of Active Interest” that the authors list including: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The centralization of administrative functions; The determination of the most effective areas of local administration, according; to the type of education under consideration; The most effective distribution of functions between lay and ex-officio administrators, on the one hand, and experts on the other; Supervision of instruction in non-urban areas, and; The development of new agencies of control for new types of educational activity (Dutton and Snedden, 1909, p. 176).

These administrative goals and functions are consistent with principles of scientific management, in that they reveal an overarching concern with protocol

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and procedure, and a penchant for efficiency, control, and effectiveness. Other textbooks were generally in keeping with this orientation (e.g. Strayer & Thorndike, 1912; Cubberly, 1922). While Dutton and Snedden (1909) had an influence on early administrative thought, their students Elwood Cubberly and George Strayer continued Columbia’s history of influence by shaping several subsequent generations as textbook writers. None of these authors, however, introduced concepts related to race, and indeed even discussions of culture absent. This was a way of thinking about education that was functionalist, uncritical, and free of critical consciousness in relation to dynamics of difference and oppression (Freire, 2004). The emerging view of the 1920s principal as scientific manager dominated scholarly writing of the 1930s. The spiritual element of the principalship became less important, and the conception of schools as businesses with the principal as an executive became more popular. Business values and rhetoric gained acceptance within school systems, and, as leaders of the schools, principals became business managers responsible for devising standardized methods of pupil accounting and introducing sound business administration practices in budgeting, planning, maintenance, and finance (Strayer, 1930). What did remain constant was the centrality of control as the aim of management processes, and the implicit assumption that managers, teachers and students were white. In some ways, this might be expected, as schooling was heavily segregated along racial lines (Spring, 1994). School organization and supervision of employees were critical components of educational leadership, all practiced through a white gaze (Levine, 1994). Leaders concerned themselves with designing school systems where expertise and efficiency governed the organization. University-based educators contributed to the development of educational leadership as a professional occupation by creating degree programs and special courses of study to prepare educational leaders (Tyack & Hansot, 1982). Murphy’s 1931 study (as cited in Beck & Murphy, 1993) revealed that these preparation programs commonly included courses such as finance, business administration, organization and administration of school curriculum, and management of school records and reports. None included courses on culture, and certainly not on race. Systemic racism was manifest in a lack of content related to difference—leaders were White, and no other color.

Human Relations and Social Policy By the late 1930s, even early proponents of scientific management began to turn their interest from Taylorism. Cubberly (1922) himself integrated human relations concepts into a revised version of Public School Administration in order to acknowledge the dynamic and complex nature of educational administration. Newlon (1934), another Columbia University professor, added to the field’s sudden ontological pluralism by adding an influential book titled Educational

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Administration as Social Policy which suggested the role of administrators was actually as developers and implementers of educational policy rather than site-based authorities. Importantly, Newlon implicitly predicted what was to become the intellectual thrust of one of the most influential post-war movements in educational administration when he noted that school leaders must “look to the emerging social sciences, not to the physical sciences, for its methods of inquiry” (Campbell et al., 1987, p. 178). Newlon had predicted the Theory Movement and in recognizing the potential of the social sciences in some ways he paved the way for an approach to understanding educational leadership that made space for more critical perspectives on the field.

The Search for an Intellectual and Theoretical Base for Educational Administration Democratic and Theoretically Based Leadership Preparation World War II had a profound effect on educational leadership in the United States. Society expected their school administrators to be leaders of the war effort on the home front by promoting and instilling in their students distinctly “American” values, and more specifically White American values (Spring, 2016). That said, with this idea came a different social purpose for schooling, particularly at the building-site level; Principals were expected to provide democratic leadership, ostensibly enabling students and teachers to more actively engage and understand decision making processes as they sought to lead a productive life. Involvement of various stakeholders in decision-making processes became important. Farmer (1948) and Reber (1948) suggested that an effective principal understood the community and provided for positive community relations to ensure the success of the educational organization. Leadership preparation became concerned with curriculum, group coordination, supervision, and personnel development (Barnard, 1938; Campbell et al., 1987) but as schooling remained separate and unequal, there was little advance in thinking about leadership and race. In addition, a host of structural and organizational issues influenced educational leadership during the early post-war years. Universities began offering administrator training courses on a larger scale; society became more centralized; the United States began to play an increasing role in international affairs; technology advanced rapidly; and schools themselves became more crowded and more complex (Pulliam & Van Patten, 1995). As a result of these factors, educational leaders were expected to draw insights from educational, psychological, sociological, and business research.2 When schooling practices were challenged, principals were expected to defend those practices with empirical and theoretical findings from behavioral science disciplines

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(Campbell, 1981). However, concurrent to these shifting societal and topical emphases, another substantive change was taking place. The administrative theory movement began in the late 1940s and continued through the 1950s. Proponents of this movement advocated that educational leaders develop and test theories like researchers in other scientific disciplines. Buoyed by widespread acknowledgement among influential educational administration organizations and from strong philosophic influences outside the field (Culbertson, 1995), educational administrators and the professors who prepared and trained them embarked on a journey of conceptual exploration, popularly called, the Theory Movement (Culbertson, 1981). The goal of the movement was to create a single, unified science of educational administration grounded in the tenets of logical positivism that could guide inquiry, and ultimately practice (Culbertson, 1995; Brooks & Miles, 2006). Again, educational administration scholars looked outside their ranks to find conceptual inspiration, methodological processes, and epistemological perspective, this time turning to “the applied field of public administration” (Culbertson, 1995, p. 38). Examples of important contributions to the Theory movement included Getzels’s (1952) “social process” of administration, Shartle’s (1956) theory of “behavior in organizations,” Hemphill and Coons’s (1957) Theory of Group Leadership, and a broad range of contributions set forth by Daniel Griffiths (Culbertson, 1995). As the field of educational administration sought to develop theory, several strains of inquiry rooted in various social sciences emerged and continue today. In particular, researchers adopted anthropological (Callahan, 1962; Conant, 1964; Wolcott, 1970), sociological (Lortie, 1975), and political science (Scribner & Englert, 1977) methods and theories to investigate educational administration-related phenomena. Curiously, the disciplines listed above were actually studying race as a central are of interest by this point. Scholars in educational administration simply chose to instead to focus on positivist aspects of the social sciences to the exclusion of diversity within what those fields were actually engaged (Rex & Mason, 1986).

Educational Administration and Social Turbulence Leadership for Social Equilibrium As a result of the social and political unrest of the 1960s and educational administration’s continued fascination with order, principals and academicians made efforts to maintain stability and a sense of normalcy in schools. Normalcy again meant whiteness as a normative position, even during this time when integration was both a legal promise and increasingly, a social post-Brown reality (Feagin, 2010; Kluger, 2011) Theorists and administrators upheld conceptions of schools as rational, goal-driven systems and investigated ways educational leaders might promote institutional and social equilibrium. In particular, theorists relied heavily upon Max Weber’s concept of organizations as rational bureaucracies. As a result,

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administrators and those who prepared and trained them came to believe that this type of governance structure was appropriate for schools and began to stress bureaucratic images and structures in their work (Douglass, 1963; Noar, 1961). With the proliferation of this belief in rationality, educational leaders were expected to support the educational bureaucracy by protecting their own authority, respecting the position of superiors, and guarding against appropriation of power by teachers (Beck & Murphy, 1993). In addition, principals became onsite researchers as categorical, quantitative, and empirical terms dominated discussions of the principal’s work. They were asked to use increasingly sophisticated, scientific strategies for planning and measuring (Glass, 1986). The belief that proper managerial techniques and modern technology would produce increased outcomes resulted in principals being held accountable for their decisions and school activities in a way they never had been before. Because of this pressure and related macro-political demands, many principals felt vulnerable and confused about role expectations (Austin, French, & Hull, 1962), but while there was tension in society, principals and scholars of educational administration still seldom discussed race.

Educational Administration as a Humanistic Endeavor External factors exerted a heavy influence on administrators’ preparation and practice in the 1970s. Increased federal involvement in local schools and a growing number of special interest groups altered many tasks of educational leaders. As a result of a renewed emphasis on community, leaders were expected to build alliances to ensure that schools and the community connected in meaningful ways (Burden & Whitt, 1973). More than ever, the professional success of educational leaders hinged on the support of stakeholders outside the school organization. In the 1970s, principals were also expected to see that meaningful educational experiences were offered to students, teachers, staff, and community members (Macdonald & Zaret, 1975). This emphasis on the human side of schools-as-open-systems also led to the expectation that principals would engage in and encourage positive, supportive interpersonal relationships. Theorists called for principals to adopt a human resource model of administration (Sergiovanni & Carver, 1973). Yet through all this change, the field still strongly emphasized the importance and special agency of the principal as a kind of supreme decision maker (Spring, 2016), and as their training was difference-blind, this meant that many decisions were made without consideration of the possibility that institutionalized racism might be a very real threat to many students entrusted to their care (Larson & Murtadha, 2002). As a result of these expectations, educational leaders balanced many roles including interpersonal facilitator, information manager, and decision maker. As interpersonal facilitators, principals acted as figurehead, leader, and liaison. As information managers, they were monitors, disseminators, and spokespersons.

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And finally, as decision makers, principals became entrepreneurs, disturbance handlers, resource allocators, and negotiators (Mintzberg, 1973). The roles educational leaders were to assume and the duties to which they were beholden had expanded to an almost untenable list, but this was still largely viewed through a functionalist, positivist lens.

The Postmodern Turn in Educational Administration During the 1980s and 1990s, educational administration took a “postmodern turn” (English, 2003). That is, a proliferation of ideas, perspectives and pedagogy entered the field to provide fresh insight. In particular, the introduction and application of various forms of critical and feminist theory cast a doubting eye over much of the terrain that had previously been identified as the “knowledge base” that undergirded the field (English, 2003; Foster, 1986; Marshall, 1997). Other important conceptual advances included pluralism (e.g. Capper, 1993), multiculturalism (Banks, 1993), a second wave of ethical and spiritual leadership (Beck & Murphy, 1993; Dantley, 2005; Starratt, 2004), and the emergence of several loosely coupled strains of inquiry called social justice (English, 1994; Young & Laible, 2000). The last of these, social justice, incorporates elements of many of these “postmodern” ideas, and is a movement that prompts scholars and educational leaders to assume an activist stance in practice and urges them to practice liberation and emancipatory pedagogy in all facets of their work.

Leadership for Social Justice: Promise and Tension in the Field of Educational Leadership Social justice is studied by legal scholars, social scientists, and in professional fields such as journalism and education (Cohen, 1986; Ayers, Hunt, & Quinn, 1998). Finding conceptual inspiration and guidance in notions of equity and equality, and in critical, feminist, and ethical theories, social justice scholars have largely rejected the rational-technical and efficiency-focused conceptions of leadership that form the balance of the field’s traditional knowledge base (English, 2002b; Marshall & Oliva, 2006; Marshall & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005). This was accompanied by corollary scholarship that centered the perspectives and voices of scholars on color in the canon of educational leadership literature. In particular, several works were hugely influential: Barbara Jackson’s (Education from a Black Perspective: Implications for Leadership Preparation (Jackson, 1988); Cynthia Dillard’s Leading with Her Life: An African American Feminist (Re)interpretation of Leadership for an Urban High School Principal (Dillard, 1995); Kofi Lomotey’s African-American Principals: School Leadership and Success (Lomotey, 1989); and Gerardo López’s The (Racially Neutral) Politics of Education: A Critical Race Theory Perspective (López, 2003). These works, and several others, helped establish and extend a theoretical and empirical

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foundation from which subsequent studies have benefitted—indeed, the difference-blind of educational administration as a field was lifting. While not altogether eschewing managerial, administrative, organizational and leadership theory, these scholars (and others) have critiqued and expanded them as they developed a pedagogies of leadership based on anti-racism (Brooks & Arnold, 2013), critical race theory (López, 2003), culturally relevant leadership (Horsford, Grosland & Gunn, 2011) and more generally improving “practice and student outcomes for minority, economically disadvantaged, female, gay/lesbian, and other students who have not traditionally served well in schools” (Marshall & Oliva, 2006, p. 6).

Social Justice, or Just Us? To be sure, it is positive that leadership for social justice has become a somewhat mainstream line of inquiry. To be sure, it is positive that leadership for social justice has become a somewhat mainstream line of inquiry. That said, it is unclear to me that the field has advanced its work in terms of racism, antiracism and educational leadership—and I am concerned that social justice has become a feel-good term that allows scholars and practitioners to avoid difficult work dismantling racism, sexism, ableism, classicism, and other forms of overt and covert violence and oppression in schools. That said, the ways that social justice has opened certain conversations and possibilities is helpful. Over the past several decades educational leadership researchers and practitioners have embraced social justice in their work. They have drawn from and contributed to emergent multi- and interdisciplinary lines of inquiry in thought and action (Marshall & Oliva, 2006), some of which has been promising. As a result, several rich veins of research have emerged and phenomena previously ignored (e.g. the influence of leadership activity on institutional racism, gender discrimination, inequality of opportunity, and inequity of educational processes) have gained currency and attention. In particular, scholars have noted a need to raise awareness of social justice issues in pre-service educational leadership preparation programs and to understand how school leaders can promote equity at the building-level (Brooks, 2006). In order to understand, promote, and enact social justice, school leaders must first develop a heightened and critical awareness of oppression, exclusion, and marginalization. According to Freire (2004), critical consciousness, or conscientizacão, “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 17). This orientation is taught overtly in some pre-service educational leadership programs, learned on-the-job or in professional development by other leaders, and likely never learned by others. However, it begs the question: what good is the critical perspective if the will to act is absent or the organization actively resists critique and change?

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Awareness of social injustices is not sufficient—school leaders must act when they identify inequity. School leaders are not only uniquely positioned to influence equitable educational practices, their proactive involvement is imperative. As Larson and Murtadha (2002) note, “throughout history, creating greater social justice in society and in its institutions has required the commitment of dedicated leaders” (p. 135). Without leadership, schools are more likely to perpetuate status quo hegemony rather than advance liberation (Apple, 1979). Thankfully, the proactive leader has a number of options should they choose to pursue external support for meaningful reforms that can substantively and positively change what might be longstanding traditions of inequity in their schools. In addition to increased federal funding through such programs as Title I, school leaders may also apply for additional funding from an unprecedented variety of federal, state, local, and philanthropic programs. Depending on their particular situation, school leaders may also be able to adopt a comprehensive or programmatic school reform designed to ameliorate a particular social and/or educational need (Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakorho, 2004). Other options available to leaders seeking to enact social justice include introducing and supporting democratic and ethical organizational processes, reforming, aligning, and expanding curricula to better meet the needs of a particular population, promoting understanding of multicultualistic pluralism, practicing difference-sensitive instructional leadership and providing professional development opportunities that focus on how educators can better serve traditionally under-represented and poorly served peoples (Capper, 1993; Marshall & Oliva, 2006). Contemporary leaders have a variety of tools and techniques at their disposal that can help them identify social injustice in schools. For example, school leaders can: 1. 2.

3.

4.

conduct equity audits using aggregate or disaggregated student achievement data (Scheurich & Skrla, 2003); examine allocation of instructional and curricular resources among school personnel and programs to determine if traditionally disadvantaged populations are receiving equitable disbursement of goods and services (Dantley & Tillman, 2006); form meaningful and vibrant communications networks that include and validate the perspectives of students, families and community members in addition to educational professionals who serve the school (Merchant & Shoho, 2006); and make issues related to race, race relations and racism at the center of the school’s work by raising issues in meetings, tracking inequitable processes and outcomes and generally changing the language and concepts that frame thinking about schools and education.

Leaders who develop this perspective and adopt a social justice stance have been characterized as:

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1. 2.

3.

Transformational public intellectuals, who “believe that the pedagogy in schools must be focused on morally impacting ends” (Dantley & Tillman, 2006, p. 20). Bridge people, who are “committed to creating a bridge between themselves and others, for the purposes of improving the lives of all those with whom they work” (Merchant & Shoho, 2006, p. 86). Critical activists, who will deconstruct political, social and economic inequity and organize school and community resources toward the central aim of providing opportunity for traditionally underrepresented and oppressed peoples (Larson & Ovando, 2001; Larson & Murtadha, 2002).

Still, numerous resources, innovative options, and outstanding individuals do not guarantee that processes will be implemented faithfully or that educational outcomes will necessarily improve. Even when school leaders recognize inequity and conceive of an intervention, they can be forced into complicity or inaction because they fear sanctions, or even termination of employment, from “higher-ups” in the system that do not share the leader’s goals and instead operate from a rational, technocratic, and “difference-blind” pedagogy (Larson & Murtadha, 2002, p. 138). Many school leaders operate in complex and conflicted bureaucracies that prevent rather than often enable the kind of proactive behavior that a social justice orientation toward leadership demands (Marshall & Oliva, 2006). Further, while internal organizational constraints can thwart attempts to promote social justice in a school, external and boundary-spanning dynamics such as poor communication with traditionally oppressed families, lack of community support and involvement, and deep-seeded mistrust of public institutions such as schools among traditionally disadvantaged peoples may likewise prove to be significant obstacles (Larson & Murtadha, 2002). All that said, a degree of caution is in order: while the rise of social justice in the field is promising, it seems to have come with a decline in the number of studies focused on race, racism and race relations.

Contemporary Implications for American School Leaders I conclude this chapter with a few assertions and a list of suggestions and points for school leaders and school leadership scholars that are meant to prompt exploration, invite reflection and instigate debate. Collectively considered, they comprise a set of statements that hopefully provoke reflection and change, both in the way we think about educational leadership and the way we make sense of our immediate work, as well as the possibilities and problems that lay before us moving forward. 1.

White privilege and White supremacy have an American history, present and future. How much do you know the history of where you live, and the institutions and organizations in which you work? How much have you considered

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

what an anti-racist or abolitionist present might look like? What is the most promising future you can imagine for race, education and society in the United States? What scholars make up the canon of educational leadership research? Does that canon reflect diversity of hegemony? Make sure you note that scholars of color have long written about these issues and dynamics, while White scholars have been late to the party. The likes of these might be shifted from the margins of the field to the center: Shirley Chisolm, Frederick Douglass, Septima Clark, Malcolm X, Tara Yosso, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Angela Davis, Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Patricia Hill Collins. Interrogate and reject difference-blind leadership theories and practices, as they contribute to inequitable and oppressive leadership. Theories that do not seek to account for race and racism are at least useless and at worst violent toward many students, teachers and leaders as they implicitly legitimate and support a white-first or white-only perspective. We must develop new theories and practices in educational leadership that identify and interrogate White supremacy. Can you take existing educational leadership theories and see race, gender, class, etc. in there, or do you need to try and add to it so it better reflects reality? Fear and bystanderism contribute to inequitable leadership. Do you sit by as oppression happens, or do you rise up against it? What are the professional and personal consequences of standing up to racism in your organization? Is the knowledge base of educational leadership adequate, or should we embrace a new base of knowledge and action? We have grounded our field in organizational theory and legitimized/assumed White supremacy through color blindness for too long. Can we practice a race-conscious activist leadership? Not everyone can choose to disengage issues of race in research and practice, but everyone can choose to speak out and stand up against it, if they acknowledge the moral imperative of equity.

Certainly, there are a great many other questions we might ask—about or past, about our contexts and about the leadership needed to take us into a more equitable future. This chapter has been an exercise in critiquing and reflecting on the ways that scholars and practitioners have engaged issues of race—some positive, and others negative. As we rethink leadership, scholarship, and education in relation to the overwhelming whiteness that forged its foundations, and we begin to deconstruct this false knowledge toward the end of improving leadership, it is clear that while there is some promise, there is even more unrealized potential.

Notes 1 While much of this chapter is based on my original article with Mark, I have changed that work substantially and accept all responsibility for my perspective and for any inaccuracies in this writing.

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2 Of course, while the new-found emphasis on social science methods marked an important development, many researchers continued to concentrate on administrators’ effective and efficient use of time and fiscal resources by focusing on details of school operations, including methods for handling daily attendance slips, change of classroom procedures, and effective ways of introducing new staff members to the school environment (Kyte, 1952).

References Apple, M. W. (1979). Ideology and curriculum. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Austin, D. B., French, W., & Hull, J. D. (1962). American high school administration: Policy and practice. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Ayers, W. C., Hunt, J. A. & Quinn, T. (Eds.). (1998). Teaching for social justice. New York: Teachers College Press. Banks, J. A. (1993). The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education. Educational Researcher, 22(5), 4–14. Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Beck, L. G., & Murphy, J. (1993). Understanding the principalship: Metaphorical themes 1920s– 1990s. New York: Teachers College Press. Brooks, J. S. (2006). Educational leadership and justice: An interdisciplinary perspective. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Brooks, J. S. & Arnold, N. W. (Eds.) (2013). Antiracist school leadership: Toward equity in education for America’s students. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Brooks, J. S., & Miles, M. T. (2006). From scientific management to social justice … and back again? Pedagogical shifts in educational leadership. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 4(1): 2–15. Brooks, J. S., Rickinson, M. & Wilkinson, J. (2017). School principals and evidence use: Possibilities and problems for preparation and practice. In B. Schneider & M. Y. Eryaman (Eds.), Educational policy, research and practice for the public good: Evidence-based? Evidence-informed? Or does evidence matter?Dordrecht: Springer Publishing. Brooks, J. S., Scribner, J. P., & Eferakorho, J. (2004). Teacher leadership in the context of whole school reform. Journal of School Leadership, 14(3), 242–265. Burden, L., & Whitt, R. L. (1973). The community school principal: New horizons. Midland, MI: Pendell. Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of social forces that have shaped administration of the public schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Campbell, R. F. (1981). The professorship in educational administration: A personal view. Educational Administration Quarterly, 17(1), 1–24. Campbell, R. F., Fleming, T., Newell, L. J., & Bennion, J. W. (1987). A history of thought and practice in educational administration. New York: Teachers College Press. Capper, C. A. (Ed.). (1993). Educational administration in a pluralistic society. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Cohen, R. L. (1986). Justice: Views from the social sciences. New York: Plenum Press. Conant, J. (1964). Shaping educational policy. New York: McGraw Hill. Cubberly, E. P. (1922). Public school administration. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Culbertson, J. A. (1981). Antecedents of the theory movement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 17(1), 25–47.

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Culbertson, J. (1995). Building bridges: UCEA’s first two decades. University Park, PA: UCEA. Dantley, M. E. (2005). Faith-based leadership: ancient rhythms or new management. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18(1), 3–19. Dantley, M. E., & Tillman, L. C. (2006). Social justice and moral transformative leadership. In C. Marshall and M. Oliva (Eds.), Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education (pp. 16–30). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Dillard, C. B. (1995). Leading with her life: An African American feminist (re) interpretation of leadership for an urban high school principal. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31(4), 539–563. Douglass, H. R. (1963). Modern administration of secondary schools: Organization and administration of junior and senior high schools. New York: Blaisdell. Dutton, S. T., & Snedden, D. (1909). The administration of public education in the United States. New York: McMillan. English, F. W. (1994). Theory in educational administration. New York: HarperCollins. English, F. W. (2002a). The fateful turn: Understanding the discursive practice of educational administration. Huntsville, TX: NCPEA. English, F. W. (2002b). The point of scientificity, the fall of the epistemological dominos, and the end of the field of educational administration. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21(2), 109–136. English, F. W. (2003). The postmodern challenge to the theory and practice of educational administration. Springfield, IL: Chalres C. Thomas Publishers. Farmer, F. M. (1948). The public high school principalship. Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, 32(154), 82–91. Feagin, J. R. (2010). Racist America: Roots, current realities, and future reparations. New York: Routledge. Foster, W. (1986). Paradigms and promises: New approaches to educational administration. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Freire, P. (2004). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Press. Getzels, J. W. (1952). A psycho-sociological framework for the study of educational administration. Harvard Educational Review, 22(3), 235–246. Glass, T. E. (1986). Factualism to theory, art to science: School administration texts 1955– 1985. In T. E. Glass (Ed.), An analysis of texts on school administration 1820–1985: The reciprocal relationship between the literature and the profession (pp. 93–114). Danville, IL: Interstate. Hemphill, J. K., & Coons, A. E. (1957). Development of the leader behavior description questionnaire. In R. M. Stogdill and A. E. Coons (Eds.), Leader behavior: Its description and measurement (pp. 6–38). Columbus, OH: Bureau of Business Research, Ohio State University. Horsford, S. D., Grosland, T., & Gunn, K. M. (2011). Pedagogy of the personal and professional: Toward a framework for culturally relevant leadership. Journal of School Leadership, 21(4), 582–606. Jackson, B. L. (1988). Education from a black perspective: Implications for leadership preparation. In D. E. Griffiths, R. T. Stout, & R. B. Forsyth (Eds.), Leaders for America’s schools: The report and papers of the National Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration (pp. 305–316). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Johnston, C. H., Newlon, D. H., & Pickell, F. G. (1922). Junior-senior high school administration. Atlanta, GA: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

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Kluger, R. (2011). Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle forEquality. New York: Vintage. Kyte, C. G. (1952). The principal at work. Boston, MA: Ginn. Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Liberatory consequences of literacy: A case of culturally relevant instruction for African American students. The Journal of Negro Education, 61(3), 378–391. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995a). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159–165. Ladson-Billings, G. J. (1995b). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97, 47–68. Ladson-Billings, G. J. (1995c). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Education Research Journal, 35, 465–491. Larson, C. L., & Murtadha, K. (2002). Leadership for social justice. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century (pp. 134–161). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Larson, C. L., & Ovando, C. J. (2001). The color of bureaucracy: The politics of equity in multicultural school communities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Levine, J. (1994). The heart of whiteness: Dismantling the master’s house. Voice Literary Supplement, 128, 11–16. Lomotey, K. (1989). African-American principals: School leadership and success. Santa Barbera, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group. López, G. R. (2003). The (racially neutral) politics of education: A critical race theory perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39, 68–94. Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Macdonald, J. B., & Zaret, E. (Eds.). (1975). Schools in search of meaning: 1975 yearbook of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Washington, DC: Author. Marshall, C. (1997). Dismantling and reconstructing policy analysis. In C. Marshall (Ed.), Feminist critical policy analysis (pp. 1–40). London: Falmer Press. Marshall, C. & Gerstl-Pepin, C. (2005). Re-framing educational politics for social justice. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Marshall, C., & Oliva, M. (2006). Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education. Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Mason, R. (1986). From idea to ideology: School administration texts 1820–1914. In T. E. Glass (Ed.), An analysis of texts on school administration 1820–1985: The reciprocal relationship between the literature and the profession (pp. 1–21). Danville, IL: Interstate. Merchant, B. M., & Shoho, A. R. (2006). Bridge people: Civic and educational leaders for social justice. In Catherine Marshall and Maricela Oliva (Eds.), Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education (pp. 85–109). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row. Newlon, J. H. (1934). Educational administration as social policy. San Francisco, CA: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Noar, G. (1961). The junior high school: Today and tomorrow. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Pulliam, J. D., & Van Patten, J. (1995). History of education in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill. Reber, D. D. (1948). The principal interprets his school. Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, 32(152), 73–80.

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Rex, J., & Mason, D. (Eds.). (1986). Theories of race and ethnic relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheurich, J. J., & Skrla, L. (2003). Leadership for equity and excellence: Creating high-achievement classrooms, schools, and districts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Scribner, J. D., & Englert, R. M. (1977). The politics of education: An introduction. In J. D. Scribner (Ed.), The politics of education (pp. 1–29). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sergiovanni, T. J., & Carver, F. D. (1973). The new school executive: A theory of administration. New York: Dodd, Mead. Shartle, C. L. (1956). Executive performance and leadership. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Spring, J. (1994). The American school 1642–1993. New York: McGraw-Hill. Spring, J. (2016). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education of dominated cultures in the United States. New York: Routledge. Starratt, R. J. (2004). Ethical leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Strayer, G. D. (1930). Progress in city school administration during the past twenty-five years. School and Society, 32(375), 78. Strayer, G. D., & Thorndike, E. L. (1912). Educational administration. New York: Macmillan. Tyack, D. B., & Hansot, E. (1982). Managers of virtue: Public school leadership in America, 1920–1980. New York: Basic Books. Wolcott, H. F. (1970). An ethnographic approach to the study of school administrators. Human Organization, 29(2): 115–122. Young, M. D., & Laible, J. (2000). White racism, anti-racism, and school leadership preparation. Journal of School Leadership, 10(5), 374–415. Zinn, H. (2015). A people’s history of the United States: 1492-present. New York: Routledge.

4 WHITE PRIVILEGE AND EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP George Theoharis SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

If we could put all of the PK-12 school leaders in the United States in one giant arena we would see a sea of white faces. 80 percent of school principals are white. This has changed slightly since 1987 when it was 87 percent, but still the vast majority of school principals are white (Hill, Ottem & Deroche, 2016). According to the American Association of School Administrators 92 percent of superintendents are white (Finnan & McCord, 2017). Thus, just based on who holds the positions of school and district leadership—whiteness is the ever-present landscape in the reality and expectations of the K-12 school leadership. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the ways in which whiteness and privilege intersect in PK-12 school leadership in order to engage in strategies to confront privilege and racism.

Framework Emerging first as a counterlegal scholarship to the dominant discourse of civil rights legislation in the 1970s (see Bell, 1992; Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado, 1995), the use of critical race theory and other race-based theories and methodologies has gained significant presence in the field of education over the last two to three decades (see Dixson & Rousseau, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 1998). CRT begins with the notion that racism is intricately sewn into the fabric of American society and that it appears both normal and natural to people in this culture. The features of critical race theory in legal scholarship that have been applied to understandings of educational inequity in analytic ways include the notion of Whiteness as property, the critique of claims of neutrality, objectivity, and colorblindness, and the use of counterstorytelling to counteract or challenge dominant narratives (e.g., Duncan, 2002; Fernandez, 2002; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Teranishi, 2002).

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Given that K-12 school leaders are vastly white, Ladson-Billings (1998) stresses the importance of Whites understanding the meaning of their Whiteness. She states that “it is because of the meaning and value imputed to Whiteness that CRT becomes an important intellectual and social tool for deconstruction, reconstruction, and construction: deconstruction of oppressive structures and discourses, reconstruction of human agency, and construction of equitable and socially just relations of power” This chapter relies on CRT to examine whiteness and K-12 educational leadership.

Organization of the Chapter This chapter uses on a secondary analysis of two decades of empirical qualitative research of school leaders, their positionality, demographics and issues of difference, and issues of equity and social justice to highlight commons realities of white privilege in school leadership that are present in the literature. The original studies had various purposes. These included learning about the accomplishments and resistance to leaders committed to equity and justice, investigating leaders engaged in school reform initiatives, conducting case studies with leaders around inclusive services for ELL and/or students with disabilities, and working in school-university partnerships engaging school leaders. Using this collection of data, I interrogate issues of race and privilege across the studies of educational leaders. Using two decades of qualitative data meant that I had hundreds of interviews, observations and documents to use for this work. I approached this secondary analysis with an initial set of ideas or codes to look for: 1. 2. 3.

where did the leaders/participants specifically bring up or raise issues of race; where did CRT tenets of whiteness as unquestioned neutrality, objectivity and colorblindness appear; and where did I see leader challenging racial bias or racially inequitable systems/ action.

For this chapter I highlight the three most compelling themes in regards to whiteness and racial privilege that overlay with the literature on PK-12 school leadership and whiteness.

Key Themes from PK-12 School Leadership and White Racial Privilege Using CRT it is clear that PK-12 schools in the U.S. are grounded in whiteness and a white racial privilege—this extends into educational leadership. This privilege is evident across the work of school leaders. I discuss three key themes that resonated across leaders experiences and the literature:

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1. 2. 3.

perceptions of white competence/minority incompetence; white racial dis-consciousness (Singleton, 2014); and engaging in equity work that challenges white racial privilege and racial oppression.

For each of these key themes I provide examples to bring the themes to life. Following the themes, in the next section I relay key ideas/strategies that racially conscious leader use in the face of these situation.

Perceptions of White Competence/Minority Incompetence The theme of the perception of white competence/minority incompetence is foundational to understanding whiteness and privilege in K-12 leadership. There are a number of ways this theme plays out in the work of K-12 school leaders. First, white leaders are constructed as competent and leaders of color have their competence questioned repeatedly (Carter, 2013; Parker & Villalpando, 2007; Smith, 2008). Second, in a sincere enthusiasm to hire leaders of color, leaders of color are given vast responsibilities very early in their leadership development, without support, and it compromises their ability to be successful; they are therefore unsuccessful and seen as incompetent. I use the succession of superintendents in a mid-sized urban district, Snow Town, to provide texture to illustrate the first aspect. Over 10 years this district has had two new superintendents following the retirement of a long-time white male superintendent. The replacement was a white man: Superintendent Lowell. After his tenure a Black woman—Superintendent Madison—was hired. Superintendent Lowell, the white man, had most recently been superintendent in another small urban district in the same state. He originally was from Snow Town, had been a teacher and principal there, and had attended the local university. The narrative around this superintendent was enthusiasm and hope— while there were real challenges, educators and community members talked about “a positive way forward” with Superintendent Lowell. In other words, he was the “right guy”—he was a good fit for the challenges. Superintendent Madison, the Black woman, embraced the neo-liberal framework to schools and leadership. The narrative around her was skepticism and pressimism—that the district’s problems were vast. Over the tenure of Lowell the Snow Town district saw only incredibly low test scores and a steadily dropping graduation rate. This low achievement was combined with a steady increase of out of school suspension that was significantly disproportionate for Black, Latino and students with disabilities. This resulted in the district was on every state level school improvement plan. Madison took over, and she the rocked the boat for many in the schools and community. From the beginning, people in the questioned “is she qualified?” “Does she even have a superintendent certification?” These questions lasted for her initial 2–3 years in

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the position. Over her tenure the number of students suspended and rates of suspension were dramatically cut and graduation rates steadily rose. Yet, there was a vote of “no-confidence” by the teachers’ union. This was a direct message to the school board that Superintendent Madison was not competent at her job. She ruffled many people’s feathers; was not warm and fuzzy with many teachers and school leaders. When she left to run a larger district, there was great enthusiasm and relief—despite improved data on three key fronts—achievement, graduation and discipline. I use this abridged look at superintendent succession, to highlight the theme of competence/incompetence. Recognizing that all leaders hold intersectional identities and are not only raced beings, it is important to see the racially constructed ideas of competence and fit. White Lowell was “the right guy” and well liked—despite, by most measures, the district moving in less positive directions in terms of student outcomes and school climate. Black Madison was treated skeptically. In parallel to the birther movement around President Obama and the many years of questioning his birth certificate, there were years of questioning of her competence and certification. Despite the positive change in student outcomes, Superintendent Madison’s departure was generally celebrated. I need to point out the privilege afforded to Lowell. He did not have the burdens of skepticism and a deficit view of his experience. He faced the large challenges and pressures of running an urban district, but did so without constant questioning of his competence—even with a decline in student outcomes. Both of these leaders possessed talents and weaknesses, but it was clear that there were burdens Madison faced that Lowell did not. Madison faced questions of competence that Lowell did not. They both worked incredibly hard, but the landscape of white racial privilege “colored” that hard work to presume the white leader was universally competent and carried an undercurrent of incompetence for the leader of color. I use the hiring and promotion of four black principals to highlight the second aspect of these theme—hiring and promoting leaders of color into vastly challenging circumstances without support—leading to them to be unsuccessful and therefore seen as incompetent. In an urban district, three years out of four a black male principal was hired as principal to run schools begin reorganized because they had been labeled as failing schools. These were all brand new principals: one was new to the district and two had worked in the district as teachers. They all had certification and had earned respect of both colleagues and district administrators. All three principals were out of their positions in less than 2 years. The narratives in the run up to their dismissals and after their departures was that they “could not hack it,” that they “did not have what is takes.” A senior white administrator summarized the experience regarding these three principals: “Essentially they were thrown in the deep end of the pool without support … They were handed the keys to the school and told to fix it, and then we washed our hands of their needs as new leaders.”

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In contrast, I want to highlight a fourth new black principal. She was hired into an equally challenging (“failing”) school. But, she had served as an Assistant Principal and teacher at the same school, and was provided district mentors. Not surprisingly, she understood the tenuous terrain to navigate and relied on support from mentors and has become a well-respected leader.

White Racial Dis-consciousness The second theme about white privilege in PK-12 leadership is white racial disconsciousness. This theme comes from many experiences of white leaders—not all the white leaders—but certainly many. Singleton (2014) explains white racial disconsciousness to be a state of unawareness that white is a race and whiteness is a lived experience. White racial dis-consciousness was immediately apparent when I began this analysis. White school leader after white school leader—whether principals, vice-principals, district office administrators, or formal teacher leaders—did not see their whiteness and certainly did not attribute their experiences as leaders as informed by their whiteness. They saw their leadership and their work as their own, and attached their leadership to the notion of objectivity. In the words of a white vice-principal in a racially diverse school, “I am committed to my school and my students. I’m all about the student s … I work hard … one of the things I have learned as an administrator is to have a big picture or bird eye view of our school and the issues that arise. I have to be objective …” When asked about what this meant in terms of the diversity present in the school and community and the ongoing struggles the school and district faced with overrepresentation of Black and Latino students in discipline and the disparate achievement for these students, he followed up with, “the beauty of being an administrator is that when conflict arise between students, between staff, and between families and school, I can be a neutral party.” This statement and belief in neutrality is rife with the positionality of being a white leader. This leader (like many others) did not acknowledge or realize how whiteness impacts his work and how he is seen—conflating neutrality and objectivity with being white. In conflicts between an almost entirely white staff and families of color, his dis-consciousness is evident by the fact he does not see how his whiteness is not neutral. Another example that typifies this dis-consciousness, is expressed by a different school leader who, when asked about her racial identity, shared, “I work closely with all my families. I build relationships with the very diverse families at my school. People know I am here to help.” She did not acknowledge her own racial identity and did not see how that mattered. When directly asked about her racial identity, and whiteness specifically, she stated, “Well, I guess I am white, but I am not sure how that matters. I am fair to everyone.” This is a principal with a strong reputation. Yet, she did not consider her racial positionality and was not conscious of her whiteness mattering. This dis-consciousness matches with various conceptions of white racial privilege (Singleton, 2014).

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Equity Work that Challenges the Status Quo The third theme echoes what the literature reports as a growing subset of leaders that are committing to equity work that challenges the status quo of whiteness and marginalization of people of color (Theoharis & Haddix, 2011). While not inclusive of all leaders, these leaders are present in districts big and small, from across the U.S. This work is work for leaders of color and of white leaders. I see this in the work of an African-American female superintendent that led a multi-year drive to raise consciousness of racially disproportionate discipline and reducing the reliance on suspensions for all students but specifically for students of color. I see this in the white assistant superintendent who leads an equity audit of the high school student participation across the district’s advanced classes, athletics and performing arts. I see this in the Asian principal who leads ongoing dialogue around race, whiteness and racism with her teachers and staff. I see this in the white principal who calls out her teachers, administrator colleagues, and supervisors repeatedly on their unspoken racial bias. I see this in the Latino superintendent and the white special education director who articulate a vision and a supportive process to reduce separating students learning English and students with disabilities around their realization that separate ELL and special ed programs were creating racially segregating programs. I see this in the work of the black superintendent or the white chief academic officer of different districts who engage their districts in a multi-year engagement with national equity work around race, privilege and marginalization. This is the work of the literacy coach who helps teachers select LGBT and racially inclusive literature. This is the work of the black assistant principal who pushes back when teachers and administrators talk about students of color in degrading or diminishing ways. This is the work of the white principal who knows his schools disaggregated data inside and out—knowing the literacy levels of almost every students, knowing which teachers refer the most students of color for behavior issues, and questioning specific staff as well as the entire community about racial patterns and disparities. The work of challenging the racial status quo in schools is not the daily work of enough school leaders. Yet, these numerous examples provide evidence that disrupting white racial privilege and racial marginalization is an ongoing part of the work of a subset of school leaders.

What Racially Conscious Leaders Do (Can Do) Racially conscious leaders and those seeking to become more racially conscious can do a number of things in the face of presumed white competence/minority incompetence and white racial dis-consciousness in order to challenge the status quo of white racial privilege. These leaders act (can act) on three different

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levels—personal, interpersonal and institutional. I argue that without at least a serious amount of the personal work, the interpersonal and institutional works cannot happen.

Personal Work to Confront White Racial Privilege Personal work means that leaders keep learning about their own position, race, the history or racism, and the experiences of people of color. This needs to take the form of learning to see whiteness, recognize it, and understand white racial-privilege. Some leaders do this through course work as universities, some in intergroup dialogues, some in professional development offered by their district or community organizations. For some white leaders this is disconcerting as they have never understood whiteness and this change in their racial identity causes dissonance for them. For some leaders this produces both defensiveness and/or feelings of guilt. The defensiveness often involves feelings of resentment that they are being told they did not earn their success or that they did not have to work hard. The guilt comes from feeling that while they did not cause racism, adopting an identity as a white person contributes to feeling held responsible for racism and privilege. Leaders engage in ongoing critical reflection interrogating her/his own ideas, words and actions and how they communicate competence/incompetence. This requires looking for racial bias in themselves and then working to adjust their actions, words and thoughts. This takes multiple forms, but this on-going learning is a key part of personal work to a begin addressing the ideas of presumed white competence/minority incompetence and white dis-consciousness. Moving to racially conscious action to confront white privilege requires developing an understanding of race, the history of racial oppression, and one’s own identity. Key to taking action and leading others in their own learning about race and white privilege is the development of a comfort level and language to talk about whiteness, race, and racial oppression. Leaders will not be able to support their schools and district in confronting racial privilege and oppression without developing their own foundation and comfort with language in discussing race.

Interpersonal Work to Confront White Racial Privilege Racially conscious leaders confront privilege at the interpersonal level. This takes three forms—calling out racism, leading others in emotional/intellectual learning about race, and building supportive networks. A key role leaders play is to use their positions to call out racism and disrupt racist talk. This takes the form of interpersonal courage to see bias in other administrators or teachers actions or words, and confront it. Confronting takes practice and developing the right language and touch in order for the recipient to hear it. It varies from calling it out publicly to pulling people aside to address the racially biased, microaggression, or racist ideas.

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Second, racially conscious leaders working at the interpersonal level assist others in their own racial learning. Engaging in a variety of adult learning strategies, leaders get (can get) their colleagues and staff members to learn about, wrestle with and engage in their own identity development about race, an understanding of race and the history of racial oppression, and a development of language to discuss race and racial issues. Additionally, leaders build supportive networks. These networks can provide sounding boards and mirrors to assist with reflective anti-racist practice. The networks take various forms from small networks of like-minded leaders, to outside experts who do work around racial equity, to community networks allies in their community. In the face of presumed incompetence and white dis-consciousness principals and superintendents of color built specific networks with their communities of color and these communities provided significant support and ally-ship for their racial equity work and advocates for maintaining their administrative positions.

Institutional Work to Confront White Racial Privilege Finally, racially conscious leaders address white privilege at the institutional level. That work takes three avenues: official support for leaders/educators of color, using data to find and root out disparate racial patterns, and expanding access and opportunities. First, official support and procedures play an important role in disrupting presumed white competence/minority incompetence. For example, district administrators demonstrate symbolic and material support for their leaders of color who work under them. Symbolic support can take the form of knowing, discussing and highlight success and accomplishment to the community and superiors. This provides key narratives about leader of color competence for the public and reassurance for the leader. Providing material support to enhance leaders of color success and growth can take the form of developing individually responsive mentoring as well as resources (time and funding) to build leader and school capacity. Mentors can provide perspective, advice, and insider knowledge to promote leaders of color success, as well as act as buffers for them from pitfalls and isolation. Confronting racism and white privilege only moves beyond interpersonal racism and bias when leaders work to eliminate structural and institutional racism. Thus, racially conscious leaders challenge larger institutional practices and norms that have racially disparate patterns and outcomes. This takes various points of action like identifying patterns in their data, looking for places where there is racially disparate access and opportunity (e.g. participation in advanced classes or fine art), looking for racial patterns in aspects of school like special education placement or discipline. The racially conscious leader acts proactively on investigating this data and leverages outside reports, audits and sanctions as a way to drive an agenda to dismantle white racial privilege.

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Expanding access and opportunity is another key aspect of racially conscious leaders work. It is not enough to find disparate patterns but look to address where privilege has afforded white students with opportunities that are restricted to students of color. For example, recognizing that fewer students of color are taking advanced level classes can produce a lot of hang-ringing but racially conscious leaders take action to get increasing numbers and percentages of students of color into those opportunities. Likewise, for schools that learn that their students of color follow the national pattern of having more restrictive special education placements or receive separate ELL services, racially conscious leaders do not accept that. Knowing that reality leaders work to expand inclusive services across special education and ELL.

A Final Thought Given a history of grossly disparate racial opportunity gaps in PK-12 schools, understanding how leadership is grounded in whiteness and privilege provides an important lens for leadership development and practice. Our field of educational leadership has made great strides in recent decades to embrace issues of social justice and school equity as central to school administration. If we are serious about this work, key to this is recognizing problematic patterns and engaging in strategies to confront white racial privilege. The time for lamenting racially disparate patterns and opportunities has past. It is time to both commit to and continue the work on three levels. Personal, interpersonal and institutional transformation is both necessary and urgent. This chapter was written during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Thus, it is only fitting that his call to action conclude this chapter on PK-12 leadership and white privilege. Our field has recognized the racism and privilege that permeates schools across the nation. We are incumbent that the road to correcting that is long and challenging. We cannot wait to engage in this work; we cannot put it off for another school year. Confront racism and privilege is the work of today. In the words of Dr. King: We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. (King, 1967)

References Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well. New York: Basic Books Carter, S. A. (2013). The influences of race and gender on the leadership of African American female principals of predominantly white elementary schools. Retrieved from http://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations/1902/

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Crenshaw, K. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387. Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Dixson, A. D. & Rousseau, C. K. (Eds.). (2006). Critical race theory in education: All God’s children got a song. New York: Routledge. Duncan, G. A. (2002). Critical race theory and method: Rendering race in urban ethnographic research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 85–104. Fernandez, L. (2002). Telling stories about school: Using critical race and Latino critical theories to document Latina/Latino education and resistance. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 45–65. Finnan, L. A. & McCord, R. S. (2017). 2016 AASA superintendent salary and benefits study. Arlington, VA: AASA, The School Superintendents Association. Retrieved October 15, 2017 from www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Banners/2016%20Superintendent%20Salary% 20and%20Benefits%20Study%20Non-Member%20Edition.pdf Hill, J., Ottem, R. & DeRoche, J. (2016). Trends in public and private school demographics and qualifications, 1987–88 to 2011–12. Retrieved October 15, 2017 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016189.pdf King, M. L., Jr. (1967). Beyond Vietnam: Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. Public speech, Riverside Church, New York City, 4 April. Retrieved on September 5, 2018, from https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.html Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24. Parker, L. & Villalpando, O. (2007). A race(cialized) perspective on education leadership: Critical race theory in educational administration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43 (5), 519–524. doi:10.1177/0013161X07307795 Singleton, G. E. (2014). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Smith, A. M. (2008). Race and gender in the leadership experiences of three female African American high school principals: A multiple case study. Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 310. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/310 Solórzano, D. G. & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Teranishi, R. T. (2002). Asian Pacific Americans and critical race theory: An examination of school racial climate. Equity and Excellence in Education, 35(2), 144–154. Theoharis, G. & Haddix, M. (2011). Undermining Racism and a Whiteness Ideology: White Principals Living a Commitment to Equitable and Excellent Schools. Urban Education, 46(6), 1332–1351.

5 BLACK AND WHITE WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP Disadvantage and Privilege Victoria Showunmi MAYNOOTH UNIVERISTY

Introduction In workplaces around the world, organizations are characterized by inequality regimes (Acker, 2006), with “loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender and racial inequalities within particular organisations” (ibid., p. 443). In an effort to tackle these inequalities, scholars world-wide commonly start with the North American literature, the primary source of organizational research on ethnicity and diversity (Jonsen, Maznevski & Schneider, 2010). In the U.S., there are differential social and economic experiences between Hispanic, African-American, Asian and White ethnicities. Typically, African Americans are worse off on measures of employment, health, housing and education. However, the ethnic group distribution differs between the U.S.A. and the U.K. In the U.S.A., the largest racial minority group is Black or African American (12.6%). In contrast, the largest minority ethnic group in the U.K. is the Asian population (5.9%). Context-sensitivity is necessary for all locations in which diversity management and research is conducted (Jonsen, Maznevski & Schneider, 2010). Barriers in the form of organizational practices have become more critical as they are difficult to identify and eradicate since they have been outlawed in most contexts, yet they still exist. Recruitment and selection has been identified as an area where women experience more blatant discrimination even though equal opportunities legislation and gender equity policies are most active. At a leadership level, differential outcomes between groups occur in a range of sectors in the U.K. workplace. For example, in higher education (Breakwell & Tytherleigh, 2008) between 1997 and 2006, almost all Vice-Chancellors (VCs) appointed were white, 23 percent had studied at Oxford or Cambridge universities,

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and 85 percent were male. There has only ever been one VC from a black and minority ethnic background—a male, non-U.K. national (Bahra, 2011). The pattern of hierarchical segregation across gender and racial/ethnic lines encountered in higher education careers is repeated in the U.K. political sphere. Here, BME members of parliament currently number only 27 out of 649 (4.2%). Of these, only eight are BME women—under a third of all BME MPs. In contrast to education and politics, there is cause for guarded optimism in the business sector as regards women in the most senior positions in the largest companies. In 2012, 15 percent of directorships of FTSE 100 companies are held by women (Sealy & Vinnicombe, 2012), representing a 2.5 percent increase from a threeyear plateau. However, when taking into account gender, nationality and ethnicity of FTSE 100 company directors, only 9.9 percent of female directors are from minority ethnic groups, and only one is a U.K. national. The pattern evident in business thus replicates the gender and ethnic profiles of leadership in higher education and politics, whereby career progression reflects ethnic and gender penalties. Organizations are microcosms of societies within which they are embedded. Organizational dynamics often mirror societies’ structures, beliefs and tensions, including less favorable outcomes for minority ethnic individuals and women in many Western societies. Scholars from BME backgrounds are continuously urged to acknowledge the socially-constructed and contextual nature of ethnicity in organizations (e.g. Acker 2006) with hierarchies that are gendered, racialized and classed, especially when it comes to leadership in Europe and the U.S. However, leadership theory has traditionally suppressed and neutralized ‘difference’, including gender and race/ethnic dimensions (Parker, 2005). A large proportion of the data collated for early leadership research were gathered in business, military and government settings, from white, Anglo-Saxon men in leadership positions (Middlehurst, 2008). This argument has been made in educational leadership over recent years by Larson and Murtadha (2002), Larson and Ovando (2001), and López (2003). Leadership publications have reflected this bias. Osler (2006) points out that textbooks aimed at aspiring school leaders published in the 1980s and 1990s in Britain rarely referred to equity, even though by then minority ethnic communities were well-established in this country. This was mirrored in academic journals and educational management courses where race equality was rarely a topic of interest even though ethnicity was known to be a factor in student attainment. More recent research suggests that the social identity group to which a leader belongs is considered a significant factor in leader effectiveness and the extent to which a leader may feel able to enact that identity (van Knippenberg, 2011; Brooks & Jean-Marie, 2007). From a psychological perspective, this is explained by the extent to which the leader and the group see themselves as part of a collective, or share the same social identity.

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While women academics have written extensively on women’s position in the labor market, this has primarily examined disadvantage in relation to patriarchal power, and race has rarely been taken into account (Cockburn, 1991; Rees, 1992; Walby, 1990). Ethnic minority women are rarely included within these analyses (Davidson, 1997). Given the lack of understanding, academics writing on the area of educational leadership rarely take into account race relations of differences within and between ethnicity, which is problematic. White women (researchers or organizational leaders) have seldom reflected on their own ethnic privilege, including how this has impacted on their work (McIntosh 1992 being a notable exception). I am unaware of research where white women are reflecting on their privilege. There remains much work to be done to achieve true gender equality at the very top of organizations (Sealy & Vinnicombe, 2012). The complexity surrounding ‘true gender’ equality is a major issue as much of the discussion focuses on the need for white women to achieve their ambition. Ensuring that the conversation includes women of color as part of the focus is an uphill struggle. Women, who find the strength to challenge what is perceived as the norm find themselves isolated and eased out of positions of power. A further contribution of this chapter is the examination of white women leaders’ experience compared with those of Black women leaders, including white women’s reflection on their own ethnic privileges. In this chapter I explore the interrelated concepts of leadership, identity, ethnicity, and gender in research on diversity in organizations. I draw on middle and senior majority and minority ethnic women’s accounts of leadership in the U.K. and illustrate how these women differ in their constructions of leadership and the extent to which intersecting ethnicity, class and gender identities influence their enactment of leader identities. I embrace an intersectional approach. The term intersectionality is often attributed to Kimberle Crenshaw, who drew attention to the invisibility of black women’s experiences in gender and race studies in the 1990s. In the twenty years since, organizational researchers have adopted intersectionality as a useful lens for considering how multiple identity dimensions such as sexual orientation, social class, and nationality influence women’s experiences across the globe (e.g. Essers & Benschop, 2009; Pompper, 2007). Intersectional perspectives integrate feminist and multiculturalist perspectives, in order to understand women’s experiences from a more nuanced perspective. In this chapter, intersectionality provides a framework to enable the voices of both white and BME women to be heard. The concept enables us to explore the intersection of multiple forms of privilege arising from being in a leadership position and being of white ethnicity, and disadvantage arising from being female, of minority, or of lower social class. I include whiteness because, in contrast to much organizational behavioral and psychological research, I highlight its invisibility in leadership construction. In general, the social category that is whiteness is under-examined in understanding individuals’ racialized and gendered leadership experiences.

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In this research the aim was to explore how the women constructed their privileged positions as leaders and how their intersecting race, gender and class identities influence their constructions of leadership. The research question guiding our enquiry was “How do ethnicity, class and gender affect majority and minority ethnic women’s construction and enactment of leadership?”

Methodology The methodology employed a qualitative interview study of white and BME women in leadership positions. As part of an intersectional framework, our approach represents “the intersection of gender (and other identity facets) with ethnicity … proactively deployed by scholars to make sense of the processes in which respondents (and researchers) engage with (women’s) work experiences” (Atewologun & Sealy, 2011, p. 2). The research design applied Grounded Theory to develop the methodological and conceptual framework for the study. The research design emerged through a series of conversations, discussions and thoughts which took place with range of different people and organizations. The author’s autobiographical account of her leadership experiences became the basis and reasoning for the research. The research materialized through the lens of the author who wanted to find answers to her recent leadership experience. The research design interchanges with the blurring of definition for autobiography and autoethnography. Similar to ethnography, autoethnography pursues the ultimate goal of cultural understanding underlying autobiographical experiences. The following steps were taken in designing the methodology for the research. Step one—The autobiographical account. Step two—Discussion on lived leadership experience with other BME leaders. Step three—Recognition that the real lived experience connects with both personal and professional and the implications this may have with others perception in what leadership and a leader is. Step four—Reflect on own autobiographical account. Step five—Review literature on identity and leadership and develop the key question: To what extent does the self-ascription and ascription by others to cultural identity and gender identity have an impact on how the women managers perceive themselves as leaders and their leadership style? To which extent is the construction of race and ethnicity as well as the construction of gender interrelated with the women managers’ perception of leadership? Step six—Present initial idea to an organization that develops leadership in Higher Education. Step seven—Present a more fully developed idea to the director of ‘Race for Opportunity’ and initiate further and deepening research.

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Participants 130 women who held leadership positions in private, public and voluntary sector organizations. The women were either interviewed or took part in focus groups across England to examine notions of identity and approach to leadership. Twenty were white, 70 South Asian, and 40 of African/African-Caribbean backgrounds. Respondents came from both private and public sector organizations. Respondents were aged 25 to 60, with 5–25 years’ professional experience. They included CEOs, partners of professional firms, business owners, senior civil servants, local politicians, and senior public sector workers.

Data Sources The semi-structured interview guide comprised 12 open questions which examined constructions of leadership, barriers to leadership, exploration of personal identity, perceived impact of identity on leadership style, and perceived differences between minority and majority ethnic women as leaders.

Procedures The women were approached through the Race for Opportunity (RfO) Champion Network. The eight focus groups lasted 1½–2 hours, each comprising 8–10 women. Semi-structured one-to-one interviews were conducted faceto-face in private offices or via telephone. Interviews lasted about 30 minutes. Focus groups and interviews were transcribed. Participants were reassured that their comments would be anonymized, and that complete confidentiality would be maintained.

Analysis The data were analyzed thematically. I was able to familiarize myself with the data and then generate initial codes which assisted with the search for themes. The themes were reviewed and then refined. The links with the respondents is particularly salient as a black woman researching gender and ethnicity. To counteract this, I strove not to influence the participants in any way in the questioning, and to present their views equally.

Findings and Discussion Defining Leadership There was clear difference between white and black women’s definitions of leadership. The white women gave general definitions with no reference to their

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own personal or cultural identities. In addition to traditional leadership terms such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘decision making,’ all the white women’s definitions placed emphasis on general attributes such as interpersonal skills, ability to inspire others, and ability to stand up for ones values, in line with the leadership model of Avolio, Walumbwa and Weber (2007). In contrast, most of the BME leaders (85%) tended to incorporate race or culture into their definitions of leadership. The BME women leaders acknowledged that culture and ‘difference’ were important dimensions in constructing leadership: You have to make people respect you and it is a lot involved, you have to have time to make people respect you, and your own black people as well. (Senior African Caribbean woman leader)

Someone who knows who they are (culturally) and are comfortable in who they are and does not want to change that. (Senior Asian woman leader) Your culturally-lived experiences shape your style, manner, and responses to people and their situations. (Senior BME woman leader, focus group participant) As a Pakistani woman, I would say that my leadership skill is based more towards my ethnicity of my parents, which is the hard work ethic. (Senior Asian woman leader) The BME women leaders also tended to define leadership as having a caring, supportive role, appearing more aware than the white women of the diversity within teams.: … remembering you have got different groups around you that need a simple clear definition of where you are taking them. (Senior Asian woman leader)

There is a need to adapt leadership style. As much as it is your own identity, you would need to change the way you respond and react depending on where you are placed (in a different culture/environment). (Senior Asian woman leader) In contrast among the white women, there was no mention of the need to engage with people of different cultures or backgrounds in defining leadership.

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Further analysis of BME women’s definitions of leadership suggested additional themes to do with community and ‘giving back’ to the team and the organization, akin to notions of ‘servant leadership’ (Stone, Russell & Patterson, 2004; Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2007). The following definition of leadership illustrates this: Somebody who is able to meet fundamental human needs so that the team, individual or organization are able to achieve work goals and maximize on effectiveness and productivity. Being able to harness people’s individual abilities, energies, harness it and channel it into something creative. (Middle Asian woman leader) The servant leader is follower-centric; they seek to meet others’ needs and develop them, being intrinsically tied to follower satisfaction (Stone, Russell & Patterson, 2004): I define leadership as giving yourself to others, Using it as an opportunity to serve, using your gifts and talents for others … I see leadership as giving back and serving people through those various given talents or your area of expertise. (BME woman business owner) This emphasis is on nurturing and creating change through pastoral work and caring relationships. Parallels can be drawn between these women’s discourse and the ‘Ubuntu’ model of leadership. Ubuntu (derived from the Bantu Nguni languages of Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele of southern Africa) embraces a spirit of caring, community, harmony, hospitality, respect and responsiveness.

Leadership and Identity The women were asked about the impact of their personal identities on their leadership style. Interestingly, the BME women were better able to understand the question, whereas the white women were not as conscious of their identity and found the question more difficult to answer. Compared to the BME women, who freely discussed the interplay between personal, social and professional identities, this appeared to be the first time that many of the white women explored the notion of ‘identity’ in this way. In contrast, personal and cultural identities appeared to play significant roles in minority ethnic women’s construction of leadership, who tended to incorporate their ethnicity into their identity.

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Do you mean identity as in your ethnicity? As a Pakistani woman—then yes. I would say that my leadership skill is based more towards my parents’ ethnicity, which is the hard work ethic. (Senior Asian woman leader) I came here when I was two, so cultural identity is probably a mixed identity. But the reason it impacts on how you are as an individual (leader) is because you are more sensitive to those issues … in terms of how it impacts your leadership you are particularly sensitive to issues around race, around sex, around minority groups. (Senior Asian woman leader) The link between identity and leadership is supported in other studies. Denise Armstrong (2008), a South African principal, states that “for [South African] women principals, leadership (became) a part of their identity as opposed to a role you assume” (Jean-Daniel & Johnson, 2010, p. 450). Another study by Parker (2005), carried out on a group of African-American women executives, found that their experiences on negotiating their identities within the context of race and gendered interaction revealed interesting findings on race tensions and cultural frictions in the workplace. Other quotes from BME women in this current study suggest that ethnicity and gender shape identity at work: Part of my identity is also my experience of life, it makes me who I am, not just my color, not just my gender, so I would put that on an equal par as being women, being black and my experiences. (Public sector African Caribbean woman leader) … you are Use to switching in lots of different environments so it’s never a problem. Sometimes I go to places and people will say, “Do you realize you are the only Black person here?” And I think well I did not really notice because over time, I have built up a strong sense of identity and who I am and how other people perceive me. I say always retain who you are. (Private sector Asian woman leader) Much of this aligns itself with the notion of authentic leadership, a relatively new concept in leadership literature, which has raised considerable interest among researchers, partly because it relates to the ideals of self-knowledge and excellence of character. Campbell-Stephens argues that the notion of complete assimilation by simply reducing Black leaders to ‘role models,’ doing exactly the same as their white counterparts, dilutes their essence and

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robs … their junior colleagues of the permission to be all that they can be as colleagues with multiple identities, while scouring for Black role models (Campbell-Stephens, 2009, p. 79)

Enacting Leadership In addition to their conceptualizations of leadership and identity, the women’s ethnicity influenced the way in which they considered how leadership may be enacted. “We see race … as lived and carried out in leadership rather than a demographic variable” (Ospina & Foldy, 2009). The women were asked whether they had experienced any barriers or challenges in their journey to becoming a leader. The BME women were clearly facing more difficulties: 95 percent related the barriers they had encountered barriers at work compared with 40 percent of the white women leaders. The BME women were eloquent at describing the various challenges they faced, whereas most of the white women who reported barriers perceived that there was something stopping them, but were unable to name what it was. Those white women who named the difficulties tended to refer to social class or gender: I think there were some initially around gender certainly because of where I was working, because I worked in the financial sector and I think it was particularly difficult to perceived as a leader when you are surrounded by most leaders who are men. (Senior white woman leader) I think that there are issues of class and gender that probably made me choose an easier path, relatively speaking. So I think I have chosen a pathway where I don’t feel I have to face a lot of barriers because of being female … (Senior white woman leader) The majority of BME women, when asked about barriers at work, roared with laughter and asked: “so where would you like me to start?” All the BME women said they had faced challenges as minority leaders. They had endless stories that could be included in the discussion. Some of them felt their ability to be a leader was questioned by others with prejudiced views of women leaders from BME backgrounds. First of all I think there is … sometimes there is an assumption about their capacity to lead and whether people would actually follow them. (Senior African Caribbean woman leader)

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I think that there is an issue around, and sometimes people who don’t think that ethnic minority women can lead because they may appear to have less confidence or assertiveness because of coming across quieter, they may not speak up, perhaps not expressing their views as forcefully as maybe their white counterparts. (Senior Asian woman leader) The following two comments were from educational leaders I think I would have to say the challenges come daily, minutely in so many contexts. (Senior Caribbean public sector leader) I think yeah, multi-faceted in every environment, whether it is the parents, whether it is the staff, whether it’s the local community. (Senior Caribbean public sector leader) Another educational leader talked about resentment mixed with admiration from her deputy about her strong leadership skills. I had a deputy who clearly valued the skills I had, but with so much resentment, absolute resentment, because she was white; she felt she needed to needed to leave because she had challenges that shook her core, but that anger, it was like—“But I’m not ready yet, because I haven’t got everything I need from you” and when somebody looks at you and it is like they are raping you. She needed to rape me of my values because she needs it, but it was like, “Whoah, okay I get the sense that you know I am good at what I do but you absolutely resent it, absolutely resent it.” (Senior Caribbean public sector leader) All these challenges, the instances of doubting the ability of BME women leaders, and resenting having to work with/learn from them could constitute a continuous wearing down of their authority. Many such instances consist of oppressive situations or “microagressions” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Freire, 1989). Microaggressions are the “insidious gender, racial, and heterosexist inequities or assaults that occur in the lives of most people of color on a daily basis” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 32). The microagressions that occurred for the women in this current study were the perceptions team members held of them as leaders. Another challenge mentioned by BME leaders was breaking down the preconceived stereotype that their team members held.

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When you are in leadership roles they still want to stereotype you … you must be like this because you are Muslim, or you must be like this if you are African/Caribbean woman, … it is internalized racism which people project onto you. People try to box you in and if you are a white leader I would imagine, I don’t know I’m not one, or if you are a male leader you don’t have to be defined by this very strict box, you can be whoever you want to be. (Senior Asian woman leader) I think being an Asian woman, plus I wear a headscarf, I think some people find it difficult to relate to that. It’s their problem not mine, but they make you feel uncomfortable and I think … you have to try hard to gain that respect, but once you have got it, then people will come to you and say, “well she knows what she’s doing.” But it’s breaking through that barrier and the challenges. (Public sector, senior Asian woman leader) Although the white women leaders were obviously not facing barriers due to ethnicity, some mentioned barriers caused by social class. The following quotes from two senior white women (about 25 years difference in age) outline the difficulties they experienced grappling with leadership because of their working class background. I have never found an absolute barrier but my class and my lack of contacts and the fact that my parents didn’t have contacts meant that when I did eventually get a job it was at the lowest level in the organization. Nobody has plotted my career. My parents thought it would be really good if I became a PA to a businessman. (Public sector white woman senior manager) I think barriers probably came more from within myself than when I think about coming up against individuals or processes and procedures that perhaps are blockers to me. And I think that comes with coming from a very working class background, being the first in my family ever to go to university, you know you are breaking so many sorts of barriers by being the first; so I think there comes a point where you realize that your own insecurities and your own identity issues are just the things that hold you back more, you know sometimes feeling like an imposter. (Private sector senior white woman leader) The women were also asked about promotion progress at work. Concern was expressed by BME women that their ethnicity was hindering their promotion. Forty percent of the BME women mangers felt they were being held back in the organization. They believed they were recruited for their skills and experience.

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However, the opportunities to work on high level projects never extended to them. Instead they were overlooked and opportunities went to their white counterparts who were in many cases less experienced than the BME women. I would recommend the job for the benefits, but if they want career progression then no. (Public sector, senior Asian woman leader) I am frustrated because I feel I have got the vision and I can see where I need to be but because I have been suppressed in my organization I am unable to progress at the moment. (African woman manager) I think that when I first set out I thought I was going to be equal and be treated as everyone else but I have kind of got used to it. I think I have realized over time, you know, you have to understand and work through disadvantage we experience as BME women, and our managers have to acknowledge this too. (Senior Asian woman leader) In order to assess the white women leaders’ awareness of the difficulties that BME leaders might face, they were asked whether they thought that people responded differently to them, as white woman leaders, than to BME women leaders. Interestingly, most of the white women found it a difficult question. Surprisingly, it was something they had not thought about before. Faced with the question, a few of them acknowledged privilege. Well I’m sure there will be barriers and I’m sure it can take longer, I’m absolutely sure about that, because that is the way society is and I can’t equate obviously, being a white woman, I can’t equate with those barriers myself. But where I have found barriers I think if you just stick at it and you prove yourself, I do think people tend to accept you once you have proven yourself. (White woman senior manager) The following quote from another white woman leader suggests that difference in response has been a notable factor throughout her school and working life. I am sure that they do. In my experience, even from school and hanging out with Indian friends, the way people react to them and to me was different and they would have different assumptions … in terms of who I was and who they were, just by looking at them. It can be quite pervasive can’t it … the assumptions that we make every day and how they play out. I think

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particularly in the workplace, the kind of micro-inequities of the sort of drip, drip, drip. I think it can, I imagine, have a very detrimental effect. So yes I am sure there is a difference in terms of the way that I am treated. (Voluntary sector, senior white woman leader) It was interesting that most of the white women had not previously considered the privilege that their whiteness bestowed in the positions they held. Privilege is often described as having invisible, unconscious properties (Choules, 2006) and the absence of tension may signal its presence. McIntosh (1992) writes “Whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege … about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious … my schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor …” (pp. 3–5). Another area of concern among BME women leaders was a perceived lack of support from line managers. All the women agreed that progression only took place when there was an opportunity to develop and build excellent internal and external relationships. Much of the leadership progression was through the agreement of line managers. However, there was a clear difference in the amount of support that BME and white women leaders felt they received from line managers. Eighty percent of the BME women who were still embarking on the journey to becoming Senior Leaders said they had received little or no help from their line managers. In contrast to this, 40 percent of the white women were able to state that their continued growth was because of having a supervisor/champion or a mentor/coach. Much of this support came from the organization believing that the person had real potential. Having a mentor and receiving good mentoring from other BME women already ‘on the top of the game’ was seen as crucial to the success of BME women in organizations. Furthermore, in parallel to white males within the organizations, the White women had the opportunity to belong to networks that would enhance their careers. The BME women’s lack of access to the ‘closed networks’ led to frustration, and to a lack of hope in the organization’s promotion system. Both white and BME women felt they had underestimated the importance of marketing themselves and networking in the appropriate social circles. In general, BME women felt they needed guidance and support to counterbalance their lack of networking opportunities. I think that there needs to be something on equipping Black women to navigate around organizations. Because we do not have the same networks or father wasn’t a banker necessarily; we don’t necessarily have the same network circles. That means we have to learn how to play the game, nobody

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is telling us what the rules are and so I do think there is something around equipping us to navigate around organizations. (Private sector, senior African Caribbean woman leader) I think there is something about having more people stepping up and being sponsors of black women, helping to move people up. I have been lucky in my career as I have had really good sponsors so spotted my talent. (Private sector, senior African Caribbean woman leader) The discriminatory general organizational culture was another issue raised by the BME women. There was an agreement among the women that leadership was defined by the culture of the organization—which in most cases was the western model of leadership: white and male. Many of the women said they were the only person of color at their grade within their building. One BME woman said: In some instances you are only given an opportunity because you fit into the culture of the organization and the team likes you … and see you are the ‘same’ as them. (Senior Asian woman leader) Another BME woman saw her organization as: … promoting white male colleagues and softening their fall or managing their mistakes, which is completely different scenario for BME … colleagues gathering round … providing mentoring/coaching to promote white males forms part of the organizational culture. (Private sector, senior Asian woman leader) The large majority (90%) of BME women saw the need to leave their own culture behind in order to fit into the organization’s culture and move forward in the organization. Some believed the only option available was to ‘bleach’ your identity. Some Asian women reported that the clothes they wore for religious reasons sometimes blocked the way in which they were seen and assumptions are made. They felt that the higher up you get, the more culture you lose to the organizational identity. Therefore the only way to progress is adopt the dominant culture. They felt that some people struggle with mixing with BME people if they have not had exposure to them outside work. … there seems to be a need to assimilate … leave parts of you at home. In certain sectors assimilation/mirroring becomes such a struggle that it led me to leaving the organization and setting up business on my own. (Private sector, senior African Caribbean woman leader)

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Conclusion The field of social justice and educational leadership has been identified as a mature one (Brooks & Jean-Marie, 2007), we still need solutions to the reoccurring discussions on leadership and social justice. The point made throughout the chapter is not to advocate for more evidence of what the key issues are—but instead to acknowledge and recognize it is the notion of difference which is holding people back in leadership positions. Whilet we may need to tap into other contexts from which we could learn from, we have enough evidence to strategically plan a way forward. Perhaps there is a need for more radical ways of theorizing; not for the purpose of increasing the representation of women in the leadership of schools and universities, nor for the purposes of collecting more evidence on the phenomenon, but perhaps for the purposes of directing us into different ways of thinking about gender in educational leadership. To sum up, the main finding of this study has been the revealing of considerable difficulties and disappointment among BME women in their role as leaders across a range of sectors of employment in the U.K. Although white women leaders also experienced challenges, due largely to their gender or class, the challenges were considerably more numerous and severe among BME women leaders—many of whom felt they had encountered racial prejudice and discrimination at work which hampered their progress as leaders. They felt that the general organizational culture of their employers was not friendly to BME women in leadership positions, such that the large majority of them saw the need to abandon their own culture and assume the dominant culture of their organization. Some of the BME women felt that their leadership style was being questioned in the eyes of others who hold stereotypical and prejudiced views on women from BME backgrounds. This resulted in lack of confidence in some BME women shown by their hesitancy to acknowledge themselves as leaders. BME women leaders also experienced lack of support from line managers, who were not seen as being culturally sensitive to the needs of a diverse team, and they also felt there was a lack of mentoring from within their organizations to help them progress. There were also clear differences between the white and BME women’s construction of leadership and their leadership styles. Both ethnicity and personal identity appeared to play an integral part in the BME women’s definition of leadership, in stark contrast to the white women. Concerning leadership style, the BME women tended to enact leadership according to the feminine collaborative model, adopting a more caring, supportive role, whereas the white women were more likely to refer to the traditional male model when describing leadership qualities. An interesting aspect was many of the white women leaders’ apparent lack of awareness of the privilege that their whiteness bestowed on them—something

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most of them appeared not to have considered before. Where the white women reported difficulties, these tended to be attributed to their gender or their social class. The BME women also mentioned gender discrimination—but were far more vociferous about racial barriers. These findings provide an interesting overview of the intersectionality between race, gender, class and identity among white and BME women leaders in the U.K. The study has examined the mixed fortunes of BME and white women leaders of different social classes through the voices of the women themselves. We conclude that identities forged of class, race and gender have significant influences on the women’s career trajectories, their constructions of leadership, and how they view themselves as leaders. The study indicates the need for further research to explore the leadership positions of BAME leaders. In addition, it is recommended that further work should be carried out in organizations to unlock the barriers that potentially stop BME women leaders moving ahead as fast as their female and male counterparts. Individuals and line managers need to consider engaging in culturally sensitive training to enable them to maximize the potential that BME women leaders can bring to their organizations. Employers should use workplace data to identify demographic information on BME women at different levels within their organizations and identify where development/interventions are needed, and to map progression rates and create inclusive action plans. Furthermore, individuals and employers should consider introducing mentoring opportunities and network circles to encourage BAME women to network and give them a forum to discuss particular issues and challenges they face in the workplace.

References Acker, J. (2006). Inequality regimes. Gender & Society, 20(4): 441–464. Atewologun, D. & Sealy, R. (2011). Advancing racio-ethnic and diversity theorising through “intersectional identity work.” Academy of Management Proceedings, 2011(1): 1–6. Avolio, B., Walumbwa, F. and Weber, T. J. (2009). Leadership: Current theories, research, and future directions. Management Department Faculty Publications, Paper 37. Retrieved in April 2012 from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/37 Bahra, H. (2011). Why is there still only one minority vice-chancellor? The Guardian, 17 October. Retrieved on April 10, 2012 from www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/ 17/higher-education-barriers-black-academics?INTCMP=SRCH Breakwell, G. & Tytherleigh, M. Y. (2008). The characteristics, roles and selection of vicechancellors: Summary report. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Brooks, J. S., & Jean-Marie, G. (2007). Black leadership, white leadership: Race and race relations in an urban high school. Journal of Educational Administration, 45(6): 756–768. Campbell-Stephens, R. (2009). Investing in diversity: changing the face (and the heart) of educational leadership. School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation, 29 (3), 321–331. Choules, K. (2006). Globally privileged citizenship. Race Ethnicity and Education, 9: 275–293.

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Cockburn, C. (1991). In the way of women: Men’s resistance to sex equality in organizations. London: Macmillan. Davidson, M. (1997). The Black and Ethnic Minority Woman Manager: Cracking the Concrete Ceiling. London: Sage Publications. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press. Essers, C. and Benschop, Y. (2009). Muslim businesswomen doing boundary work: The negotiation of Islam, gender and ethnicity within entrepreneurial contexts. Human Relations, 62(3): 403–423. Freire, P. (1989). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Jean-Daniel, B., & Johnson, L. (2010). Conversations on the African Diaspora(s) and Leadership: Introduction to the Special Issue. Urban Education, 45: 767–776. Jonsen, K., Maznevski, M. L., & Schneider, S. C. (2010). Gender differences in leadership– believing is seeing: implications for managing diversity. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 29(6), 549–572. Larson, C. L. and Murtadha, K. (2002). Leadership for social justice. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century (pp. 134–161). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Larson, C. L. and Ovando, C. J. (2001). The color of bureaucracy: The politics of equity in multicultural school communities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. López, G. R. (2003). The (racially neutral) politics of education: A critical race theory perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39(3), pp. 68–94. McIntosh, P. (1992). White Privilege and Malr Priviledge: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In M. Andersen & P.H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: An anthology (pp. 76–87). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Middlehurst, R. (2008). Not enough science or not enough learning? Exploring the gaps between leadership theory and practice. Higher Education Quarterly, 62: 322–339. Osler, A. (2006). Changing leadership in contexts of diversity: Visibility, invisibility and democratic ideals. Policy Futures in Education, 4: 128–144. Parker, P. (2005). Race, gender, and leadership: Re-envisioning organizational leadership from the perspectives of African American women executives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pompper, D. (2007). The gender-ethnicity construct in public relations organizations: Using feminist standpoint theory to discover Latinas’ realities. The Howard Journal of Communications, 18(4): 291–311. Rees, T. (1992). Women and the labour market. London: Routledge. Sealy, R. and Vinnicombe, S. (2012). The female FTSE 100 board report: Milestone or millstone?Cranfield: Cranfield University School of Management. Stone, A. G., RussellR. F., & K. Patterson (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: a difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(4): 349–361. van Knippenberg, D. (2011). Embodying who we are: Leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(6):1078–1091. Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing patriarchy. Oxford: Blackwell.

6 TRANSCENDING BARRIERS IN THE SUPERINTENDENCY The Resiliency Leadership Discourse of African American Women Francemise Kingsberry and Gaëtane Jean-Marie UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL AND UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA

When looking at the impact of Whiteness on African American women superintendents in K-12 public schools, the chilly climates they encounter in their journeys to and within the superintendency are often a lonely and a progressively more challenging one (Alston, 2005; Gewertz, 2006). Whiteness deals with the specific elements of racism that privileges Whites over people of color (DiAngelo, 2011). For example, African American women leaders often experience feelings of isolation and tokenism as a result of being positioned in White environments that are not supportive of them (Brown, 2014). In their pursuit, African American women superintendents encounter barriers premised on the intersection of race and gender, negative stereotypes, and limited opportunities and they have to transcend these barriers (Santamaría, Jean-Marie, & Grant, 2014) to achieve success. While some progress has been made in increasing the number of African American women superintendents, this progress is slow and continues to be bleak for women of color (Feistritzer et al., 2011; Shakeshaft, Brown, Irby, Grogan, & Ballenger, 2014). The lack of presence does not reflect the diversity of an increasingly diverse society and total student population in U.S. public schools (Campbell, 2015; Kowalski, McCord, Petersen, Young, & Ellerson, 2010). There remains an underrepresentation of these qualified individuals who have much to offer their districts and most importantly, their students of all backgrounds (Kowalski et al., 2010). Compared to African American women public school teachers, a disproportionate number of African American women superintendents exists (Campbell, 2015). African American women are expected to conform to cultural norms such as social prejudices, both racial and gender stereotypes, and androcentric notions of leadership that help to restrict the movement of minorities and women in educational leadership (Osler & Webb, 2014), thus reifying the very barriers associated with oppressing women of color. In examining the literature further, what

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is evident is the disparity by race and gender in the attainment of the superintendency and the amount of time it takes for African American women to become superintendents compared to their White counterparts. The superintendency also remains a White male-dominated field (Kowalski et al., 2010; Shakeshaft et al., 2014). Administrators of color are more than twice as likely as their White colleagues to report discrimination in pursuing the superintendency (Angel et al., 2013; Kowalski et al., 2010). This is further exacerbated when examining the experiences of African American women in the superintendency and executive level positions (Angel et al., 2013; Kowalski et al., 2010; Liang et al., 2016). Bloom and Erlandson (2003) assert that because of the intersection of race and gender, the experiences of African American women differ from White women. For example, African American women are perceived to be a double minority in the superintendency based on their gender and race/ethnicity (Alston, 1999; Jackson, 1999; Jean-Marie, 2013). They face adverse race and gender-based stereotypes that cause problems in job promotion and advancement in the workplace (Brown, 2014; Jean-Marie, 2013). Consequently, they encounter barriers relating to the intersection of race and gender, negative stereotypes, and limited opportunities and have had to transcend these barriers to achieve success (JeanMarie, 2013; Santamaría, Jean-Marie, & Grant, 2014). African American women superintendents have also had to prove their leadership abilities despite their qualifications (Alston, 2005; Brown, 2014) and are often hired in struggling districts with high populations of students of color (Kowalski et al., 2010). This chapter explores the barriers faced by African American women superintendents as they navigate the terrain that favors White men and women to attain and retain their positions in the superintendency. It provides a review of the literature on these barriers by providing insight into ways to remedy these issues in K-12 public schools in the U.S. and increase diversity in the educational leadership field as well as inform the hiring practices of boards of education, the role that professors in educational leadership departments can play in supporting women of color, and the importance of building mentoring relationships with prospective superintendents as well as current superintendents.

Literature Review White Privilege and a Chilly Climate System change takes decades to change and the work to unpack White privilege (McIntosh, 1988) in every sector of society persists. In the field of educational leadership, White privilege continues to dominate in particular the ascension of women of color and for our purpose in this chapter, African American women superintendents in K-12 education. Bonds and Inwood (2016) note that White privilege encompasses benefits that are taken for granted and protections enjoyed

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by White people because of the color of their skin. According to Peggy McIntosh: White privilege is an invisible package of unearned assets which [Whites] can count on cashing in each day, but about which [Whites] were “meant” to remain oblivious. It is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. (McIntosh, 1988, p. 45) Further, its unseen nature is the marker for which other races are measured (Bonds & Inwood, 2016). These privileges are unequally distributed and benefit Whites while it disadvantages people of color (DeAngelis & O’Connor, 2012; DiAngelo, 2011). Another aspect of this privilege is not having to acknowledge racism and it its effect on people of color (Bonds & Inwood, 2016; DiAngelo, 2011; Osler & Webb, 2014). For example, in a study by Kowalski et al. (2010), while White superintendents did not perceive any factors restricting the access of people of color to the superintendency, superintendents of color reported that they encountered discrimination in their pursuit. The findings also reported the White superintendents’ unawareness of the plight of their counterparts of color because of their Whiteness. This “standpoint” is the lens by which White people often view themselves, others, and society. Whiteness blinds White people from seeing racism and working towards finding ways to mitigate its effects on society: Because Whites live primarily segregated lives in a white-dominated society, they receive little or no authentic information about racism and are thus unprepared to think about it critically or with complexity. Growing up in segregated environments (schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, media images and historical perspectives), white interests and perspectives are almost always central. (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 58) This presents a challenge for African American women superintendents in that they feel pressured to assimilate to majority standards at the risk of changing the way they act and look to fit into the dominant culture, receive acceptance, and access power (Osler & Webb, 2014). This “double-edged sword in power attainment” is the result of being African American and female—two groups which have historically been oppressed in society as they both have sought to climb the existing power structure (ibid., p. 18). Traditionally, White men continue to hold power in the superintendency (ibid.). African American women, in general, are always working against the negative images and stereotypes presented in the media (Collins, 2000; Gewertz, 2006; Osler & Webb, 2014). They are subjected to micro-aggressions which “are the subtle verbal and nonverbal slights, insults, and disparaging messages directed towards an individual due to their gender, age, disability, and racial group

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membership, often automatically and subconsciously” (Prieto, Norman, Phipps, & Chenault, 2016, p. 36). Micro-aggression is one expression of racism and its hidden messages are posed as an unseen hazard toward people of color. In both the public and private sector, “people of color continue to describe their work climates as hostile, invalidating, and insulting because of the many micro-aggressions that assail their race, restrict their work options, lower their work productivity, generate suppressed rage and anger, stereotype them as less worthy workers and detrimentally impact their recruitment/hiring, retention, and promotion in organizations” (Prieto et al., 2016, p. 38). In addition, women and African Americans are more heavily impacted by workplace bullying (Attell, Brown, Treiber, 2017). For African American women superintendents, Gewertz (2006) found that they were more likely to be bullied by their school boards and communities. Despite the impact of White privilege and the chilly climates in which they often work, African American women transcend the barriers faced and continue to strive to the superintendency.

African American Women and the Superintendency While women have occupied a significant portion of educational leadership programs and administrative positions (Angel, Killacky, & Johnson, 2013; Bloom and Erlandson, 2003), they continue to be underrepresented in the superintendency (Angel et al., 2013; Wiley, Bustamante, Ballenger, & Polnick, 2017). In 1928, women comprised 1.6 percent of all superintendents; 65 years later, only 5.6 percent of superintendents were women. There’s been a gradual increase of women in the superintendency in which they comprised approximately 12 percent of the roughly 14,000 U.S. school districts. Over 10 years later, there’s been more progress in the representation of women superintendents. Specifically, in their study, Kowalski, et al. (2010) reported that 24.1 percent of superintendents were women. Specifically, women comprise 76 percent of teachers, 52 percent of principals, and 78 percent of central office personnel. While these statistics show progression for women, they are sparse for women of color (Angel et al., 2013; Feistritzer et al., 2011; DeAngelis & O’Connor, 2012; Shakeshaft et al., 2014). Notwithstanding their small numbers, African American women have been successful in their journey from the classroom teacher to the superintendency (Alston, 2005; Brown, 2014; Horsford, 2009; Horsford & McKenzie, 2008; Kingsberry, 2015). However, prior to 1995, African American women superintendents in the United States never surpassed 50 in any given year (Jackson, 1999). Gewertz (2006), Jackson (1999), Kingsberry (2015), and Wiley et al. (2017) assert the need for more research on the intersection of gender and race/ ethnicity that should lead to sustained inquiry into the experiences and perspectives of African American women superintendents and women superintendents from other underrepresented groups. Further, Kingsberry (2015) recommends that a comprehensive list of past and present African American superintendents be

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compiled; this recommendation stemmed from the absence of a database of women in administration. The dearth in statistical reporting by gender and ethnicity (Shakeshaft et al., 2014) seems intentional and has historical precedence. This “conspiracy of silence” is no mistake since literature on educational administration/leadership has historically favored men (Shakeshaft et al., 2014). This makes determining the proportion of women by ethnicity in the superintendency even more challenging. The most recent and available database only identifies superintendents by race or gender and not by both categories, a shortfall for accounting the impact of the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity. Given the lack of statistical reporting, scholars have relied on limited quantitative research on African American women superintendents to gain knowledge about their experiences in educational leadership (Gardiner, Howard, Tenuto, & Muzaliwa, 2014). In addition, there is limited research on the career goals, constraints, and impact of mentors and sponsors on the career advancement of African American women superintendents. This is perplexing given that these women have much to offer in the areas of scholarship, research and practice in educational leadership (Santamaría, 2014). As schools become increasingly diverse (Angel et al., 2013; Campbell, 2015), the presence of African American school leaders in the classroom and leadership roles is essential to serving marginalized groups of students because they need role models who share their race/ethnicities and inspire them to achieve (Campbell, 2015; Jean-Marie & Normore, 2010). In order to transcend the rocky terrain towards the superintendency, African American women aspirants must become knowledgeable of potential barriers in order to strategically attain their goals. Further, there is growing literature examining the experiences of African American women superintendents and their resiliency in overcoming adversity and leading effectively in challenging work conditions.

African American Women Superintendents and Resiliency African American women superintendents struggle against racism, sexism, and apathy; however, many of them are inspired and driven by their mission to nurture, guide, and teach children (Angel et al., 2013; Brown, 2014; Osler & Webb, 2014). According to Terhune (2008), “Living in the midst of racist sentiment and deleterious feedback can take its toll on the psychological well-being of Black women (p. 556).” The examination of the experiences of African American women administrators is needed at both the principalship and the superintendency. Despite the scarcity of African American women superintendents and the overwhelming obstacles they face, many are thriving in their leadership roles (Alston, 2005; Santamaría, Jean-Marie, & Grant, 2014; Shakeshaft et al., 2014). Similar to intergenerational cross-cultural scholars, these women are transcendent in that they have “moved beyond traditional institutional, psychological, and professional barriers to practice activism, break unwritten rules, and shatter status quo ‘business as usual’ practices” in their field (Santamaría, Jean-Marie, & Grant,

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2014, p. 1). For this reason, aspirants to the superintendency benefit and are uplifted by stories of resiliency and transcendence as well as mentors of color to help them prepare for and develop professionally. Kingsberry (2015) defines resiliency as the capacity to prevail over adversity and recuperate from negative situations and hostile environments. In the context of African American women superintendents, resiliency is evidenced by their ability to create opportunities and gain access into historically closed arenas such as the superintendency. Instead of allowing setbacks to restrict their upward advancement, these women forge ahead into unchartered territory in order to transcend various barriers such as racism, sexism, a lack of opportunity, and rejection. After nursing their wounds and resolving to pursue their aspirations, many African American women have successfully attained the superintendency and lead their school districts with confidence and finesse. They refuse to allow other people the power to define who they are, what they can do, as well as what they can achieve. In essence, they serve as self-advocates and agents brokering their career trajectory in the midst of resistance (Kingsberry, 2015).

Resiliency Theory: A Vehicle of Overcoming As a way to understand how African American women superintendents overcome and transcend barriers in their leadership roles, resiliency theory, lends itself to studying this phenomenon. According to Henderson and Milstein (2003), historically, resiliency theory focused on children and adolescents. More recently, an understanding of how adults who deal with both personal and work-related stress and how they rebound, emerged to build on the foundation of resiliency theory. In addition, the development of resiliency is comparable for adults and children (Henderson & Milstein, 2003) because resilient adults, like resilient children, enjoy positive relationships, are skilled at problem solving, and seek self-improvement. These adults are also motivated to achieve educationally given their motivational drive. Adults are not only decisively involved in social change and activism, but also tend to consider themselves to be religious or spiritual. Further, resilient adults derive understanding and utility from their past experiences involving stress, trauma, and tragedy. Resiliency is the way people rebound from challenging life experiences and develop strength as they overcome them (Henderson & Milstein, 2003). The resiliency experience of one individual may not reflect that of another. Similarities may exist in the experiences and strategies utilized by individuals to prevail over their challenges. Further, resilient individuals often employ internal and environmental factors to overcome obstacles. Based on the literature, resiliency is the process of recovering from negative situations and experiences. Resilient strategies must be utilized if individuals are to successfully achieve their goals.

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Protective Factors of Resiliency Theory Protective factors are traits exemplified by individuals or in their environment that serve to assuage the harmful effect of traumatic circumstances or conditions; they are safeguards against adversity (Henderson & Milstein, 2003). Individuals use internal and environmental protective factors to conquer conflict and stress. Internal protective factors are characteristics that individuals embody that help them to build resiliency. According to Henderson and Milstein (2003), schools, families, and communities can offer both environmental protective factors and conditions that foster individual protective factors. In the process of overcoming adversity, individuals increase in resiliency as they grow stronger, emotionally and develop healthy coping strategies (Henderson & Milstein, 2003). Some of the individual internal protective factors that facilitate resiliency are: (a) “Use of life skills, including good decision making, and assertiveness, impulse control, and problem solving”; (b) “having capacity for and connection to learning [c] possessing self-motivation”; (d) “Is ‘good at something’; personal competence”; and (e) “Feelings of self-worth and self-confidence” (Henderson & Milstein, 2003, p. 9). Individuals are able to use both their professional and personal experiences in order to succeed. In addition, they use their love and ability to learn as well as their beliefs of self-confidence about their skills, experience, and knowledge base to be successful in their lives. Environmental protective factors (i.e., families, schools, communities, and peer groups) also help to foster resiliency in various ways. Some features are: (a) “Provides leadership, decision making, and other opportunities for meaningful participation”; (b) “Expresses high and realistic expectations for success”; (c) “Encourages goal setting and mastery”; and (d) “Promotes close bonds” (Henderson & Milstein, 2003, p. 9). Due to the influence in an individual’s environment, they are able to foster strong relationships with others, receive guidance, pursue their goals, and achieve success. By employing protective factors, African American women leaders overcome and transcend barriers. Resiliency is a means to an end in that overcoming results in a byproduct connected to transcendence. Resiliency theory is germane to understanding how African American women school leaders navigate unfamiliar and unwelcome environments; however, it is limited in explicating how these women overcome the barriers that are often associated with their gender and race/ethnicity. In an effort to deepen the analysis, barrier transcendence theory is drawn upon to also underline the importance of opportunity and mentorship in the successes of African American women. Thus, protective factors in resiliency theory (Henderson & Milstein, 2003) and certain elements of barrier transcendence (i.e., opportunity recognition, and mentoring) may be used as a framework in this study to understand how African American women superintendents face challenges in the superintendency and their strategies of resiliency.

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Fostering Resiliency through Mentorship To foster resiliency, mentorship is essential for African American women superintendents (DeAngelis & O’Connor, 2012; Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011; Goffney & Edmondson, 2012; Wiley et al., 2017). In order to develop in their careers, superintendents benefit from taking part in “career mentoring functions, in particularly coaching, and psychosocial mentoring functions, and acceptance and confirmation” (Jean-Marie & Brooks, 2011). Without mentorship, they are less likely to advance in their careers and more prone to leave the profession. Thus, having a limited number of African American women superintendents to serve as available role models and mentors greatly impact aspirant superintendents (Goffney & Edmondson, 2012). To this end, Santamaría (2014) advises women of color to provide literary mentorship by sharing their stories with others. She deepens the work on women and people of color’s resiliency through the lens of barrier transcendence theory. She posits that barrier transcendence is a forceful thwarting and overcoming of deeply rooted “isms” to create new possibilities and opportunities that counter institutional, psychological, emotional systems created to keep African American women subordinate to the dominant power structure. When African American women are able to transcend barriers of systems of oppression, they become empowered to unapologetically create new opportunities for themselves. They frame their own realities. Barrier transcendence theory provides the basis for African American women to better comprehend their experiences while exposing the otherwise, hidden testimonies and pathways for other women of color to follow (Santamaría, 2014).

Barrier Transcendence Theory According to Santamaría (2014), barrier transcendence is a framework for thinking about the ways women scholars of color are able to “transcend psychological, emotional, institutional, and other barriers in order to realize educational and professional leadership aspirations in educational contexts” (ibid., p. 96). Further, it looks at how “(a) personal attributes (experience, knowledge), (b) individual behavior, and (c) environmental features function in pushing or pulling women of color in leadership towards their ultimate goals” (ibid., p. 96). One major component of transcending through barriers is the ability to recognize opportunity; this enables an individual to be opened for new experiences and have a positive orientation despite the challenges faced. Similarly, in resiliency, mentoring is another important element of barrier transcendence (Jean-Marie & Brooks, 2011). Mentoring is a mechanism to draw support from other women of color who have faced similar circumstances and overcome them. African American women seek mentoring by the same gender and race/ethnicity (Jean-Marie & Brooks, 2011). While African American women benefit from having White mentors, they may not completely understand and counsel Black women when

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matters of racism arise. Further, despite the fact women of African-descent may feel supported by White mentors, they may also be distrusting of them. To transcend barriers, women of color employ strategies such as networking groups with other women of color, engaging in mentoring relationships, and developing their cross-cultural competence (Santamaría, Jean-Marie, & Grant, 2014). The experiences of African American women superintendents as they overcome and transcend barriers are valuable in the field of educational leadership given the limited literature and shortage of African American women superintendents to mentor future aspirants to the position. African American women and women of color have much to proffer in educational leadership (Santamaría, 2014). The potential of African American women superintendents is premised on solutions that will remedy the paucity of representation in the field. The superintendency can be diversified in ways that reflect the changing demographics of America’s students. While the progress has been slow, increasing qualified, African American women superintendents’ presence is critical. In the ensuing section, best practices are examined that depict how districts and educational leadership preparation programs can employ social justice in order to move the leadership of American schools to one of inclusiveness. The challenge is to ensure that these plans become a reality across school districts and educational leadership programs nationally.

Best Practices in Increasing Superintendent Diversity in Public Schools Because the pool of school district administrators is stratified by race, ethnicity, and gender (Karanxha, Agosto, & Bellara, 2014), diversification is necessary to provide access and increased opportunities for future African American women superintendents. Karanxha et al. assert: Social justice leaders who climb up the administrative ranks and continue to value equity and justice can participate in selecting administrators into positions in schools and districts who also demonstrate an ethic of social justice. Educational leadership programs can provide the field with a more racially and ethnically diverse pool of aspiring principals who reflect an ethic and propensity to advocate for social justice across an array of different ethnic and racial groups. (Karanxha et al., 2014, p. 53) There is “a growing concern among educators [about] whether emerging school leaders are prepared to face political, economic, cultural, and social pressures and create schools that advocate for education that advances all children” (Jean-Marie et al., 2009). Educational leadership programs are vital in preparing and equipping leaders to effectively navigate these pressures in order to better serve students. If

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issues of race and diversity are not discussed and understood and courses are not taught with a social justice orientation, the field of educational leadership runs the risk of perpetuating the inequities in a system that traditionally favors one group over others and does a disservice to the increasingly diverse student population in the nation’s public schools. The following three-fold solution will have a positive impact on educational leadership programs as well as school districts: (1) restructuring educational leadership preparation programs to reflect social justice in its curriculum and graduate student selection processes; (2) making equity a central focus of school districts in its hiring practices; and (3) creating a national mentoring program for aspirants to the superintendency and current African American women superintendents.

Restructuring Educational Leadership Preparation Programs to Reflect Social Justice in its Curriculum and Graduate Student Selection Processes Centralizing Race in the Curriculum In order to counter the underlying foundation of racism in educational leadership programs, Gooden and Dantley (2012) stress the importance of making race a central focus in order to promote a “transgressive agenda aimed at transforming the ways, attitudes, and structures that have for so long propagated a racist, classist, and sexist ideology” (p. 243). Typically, the only time many White aspiring leaders are faced directly with a significant challenge to their racial understanding is only after taking one sole multicultural education class or cultural/diversity training at their jobs (DiAngelo, 2011). DiAngelo states further: But even in this arena, not all multicultural courses or training programs talk directly about racism, much less address white privilege. It is far more the norm for these courses and programs to use racially coded language such as “urban,” “inner city,” and “disadvantaged” but to rarely use “white” or “overadvantaged” or “privileged.” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 55) As discussed by DiAngelo (ibid.), the coded language often reinforces racist images and viewpoints while concurrently replicating the comfy veneer that race and its issues are what people of color deal with and not Whites. Some of the reasons why facilitators of these courses and trainings fail to directly identify elements of racism and its beneficiaries are an improper assessment of racism by White facilitators, survival tactics of facilitators of color that are personal and financial, and the general burden placed on facilitators by leadership to keep the curriculum copacetic for Whites. Yet, when educational

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programs actually focus on racism and White privilege, it is normal for Whites to be angry, shut down, experience guilt, argue, and rationalize racism (ibid.). For these reasons, it is critical that educational leadership programs build the capacity of all of its students to critically think about race and to deepen their racial awareness and understanding. Gooden and Dantley (2012) maintain that “if the [educational leadership] preparation has not passed on knowledge of how to address race and its impact on schools, leaders can find themselves feeling isolated and unprepared” (p. 240). The diversification of American students (Campbell, 2015; Gooden & Dantley, 2012; Jean-Marie, Normore, & Brooks, 2009; Kowalski et al., 2010) necessitates competent administrators. Jean-Marie, Normore, and Brooks (2009) assert that “leadership preparation programs should promote opportunities for critical reflection, leadership praxis, critical discourse, and develop critical pedagogy related to issues of ethics, inclusion, democratic schooling, and social justice” (p. 20). More specifically, educational leadership preparation programs should undergo the process of reviewing and internally assessing their admission policies and selection processes to promote a diverse cohort of candidates.

Reviewing and Changing Selection Practices to Promote Diversity The benefit of greater representation of students from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds is far reaching but essential. Diversity enriches the educational setting, curriculum, and instruction in class and in the field as a result of the opportunities for “positive intra- and interracial and ethnic engagement among all candidates” (Karanxha et al., 2014, p. 37). Further, the selection process for students in educational leadership programs should be assessed to interrogate what messages about diversity are being conveyed in their learning environments. JeanMarie and Dancy state: Educational leaders must be able to discern patterns of exclusion and segregation as perpetuated through administrative policies and practices. They must analyze policies and practices with the intent of identifying those that continue to grant privilege and a sense of entitlement to one group while only offering disadvantage and limited access and opportunity to others. This work is critical in effectively recognizing and resisting the cultural reproduction of educational inequality and inequity in school organizations and throughout the education pipeline. (Jean-Marie and Dancy, 2014, p. 55) In addition, inconsistencies in selection processes and procedures should be rectified through the use of rubrics and aligned to the social justice mission and goals of educational leadership programs to increase access for all students of color (Karanxha et al., 2014).

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Centralizing Equity in School District’s Hiring Practices Equity must become the central focus of entire school districts and reflected within the policies and hiring practices of the school boards and school districts across the United States (Jean-Marie and Dancy, 2014; Jean-Marie et al., 2009). School districts should align their mission and vision statements to improve racial equity within their schools and in their personnel. Racial incidents have propelled school districts to create goals of training their staff and students in diversity (Hlavacek, 2017; Johnson, 2017). Many school districts have diversity plans in place and have also hired diversity/equity specialists to help fulfill district goals. However, like the students at Lawrence High School, there is concern with the frequency of racialized incidents. There is also concern that the recruitment and retention of personnel of color remains few (Hlavacek, 2017). To this end, school districts should diversify their staff and communicate their expectation and focus on social justice and equity. To increase diversity, the intentioned focus on the recruitment and retention of African American women superintendents is required because it has benefits in the educational field for all students (DiAngelo, 2011; Brown, 2014; Osler & Webb, 2014). Part of this focus should also be on ways to create welcoming work environments for all people. Prieto et al. (2016) mention an exemplar in their work on reducing micro-aggressions in the workplace. They laud The University of California for their work: “The University of California is striving to create a university environment that values all employees regardless of their differences, and that is why there is a focus on micro-aggression training. All organizations should consider doing the same” (ibid., p. 44). Although this is a university, school districts can model their efforts after The University of California by aligning their recruitment efforts with their diversity policies and monitoring their progress through the evaluation of their diversity goals and district climate (ibid.).

Creating a National Mentoring Program for Aspirants to the Superintendency and Current African American Women Superintendents Research shows the importance of mentoring on African American women superintendents and aspirants to the superintendency (DeAngelis & O’Connor, 2012; Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011; Goffney & Edmondson, 2012; Jean-Marie & Tickles, 2017; Kingsberry, 2015; Wiley et al., 2017). These mentoring relationships are critical to their success and transcendence over barriers (Santamaría, 2014). Consequently, Brown (2014) posits that budding African American women superintendents must be intentional about forming networking relationships with people who are nurturing and supportive. In particular, mentors are necessary in the recruitment and retention of African American women aspirants

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to the superintendency because this provides more opportunities for growth and learning fostered by the mutual ability to share leadership experiences and receive encouragement (ibid.). The creation of a national mentoring program for women of color who aspire to become superintendents as well as for novice superintendents is imperative. Brown maintains, “There is a continued lack of access into powerful social and political organizations for many African American women” (ibid., p. 20). This program would assist in creating a formalized system of mentors for aspiring leaders and superintendents due to its diverse network of mentors consisting of college professors, school district superintendents, and retired superintendents and experiences represented. Through this collaboration between universities, school districts, and retired superintendents, more African American women candidates would be identified. College professors would not only help in identifying potential candidates but would also serve as mentors to women of color while they are in graduate school and beyond (Kowalski et al., 2010). This requires that relationships are formed and maintained even after students have completed their educational leadership programs. Similarly, district personnel and board members should aid in identifying potential superintendents to participate in this program in order to create a sort of pipeline for leaders of color in the superintendency. This program would provide these women with opportunities to network with other superintendents, seek advice about issues they face in their pursuit of and within the superintendency, provide professional development for job-related skills, as well as prepare them for superintendent interviews. Eventually, those who have matriculated through the program may serve as mentors for future participants.

Implications for Research Due to limited research surrounding African American women, their leadership and resiliency, and the climates in which they work, further study is needed to investigate the following: a b c

The barriers faced by African American superintendents, and strategies employed to overcome these barriers en route to the superintendency. How these findings correlate with other superintendents of color around the country. How they navigate the intersection of race and gender in a traditionally male-dominated and hostile environment.

This work is vital considering the increasingly, ever-changing racial and ethnic makeup of American schools. There is also a need for the development of a comprehensive database for superintendents by race and gender across the United States. This would be useful in setting up networks and mentorship relationships among other things.

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Implications for Policy School Districts Educational leadership faculty members should form partnerships with school districts to create a pipeline to superintendency programs for African American women aspirants. The hiring practices of school districts and school Boards should also be reviewed to ensure that discriminatory practices aren’t restricting the access of African American women to the superintendency. Policies should be revised to promote diversity and accessibility to underrepresented groups. It is imperative that school districts seek to hire diverse administrators and provide professional development to their faculties and staffs on diversity and cultural sensitivity.

State and Federal Departments of Education Funding should be allocated for the creation of a national mentorship program to support and increase the pool of African American women superintendents. Paid personnel (i.e., coordinators, secretaries, etc.) is needed. Financial assistance will also be needed to cover travel costs for professional development and networking opportunities for both the mentors, aspirants, and novice superintendents. In addition, funding is needed for diversity and cultural sensitivity training for faculty members in educational leadership departments, school administrators, faculty and staff members, and students.

Implications for Practice Diverse school boards are of utmost importance as they are more likely to hire women and people of color (Shakeshaft et al., 2014). School boards also need to provide potential candidates with equitable access to the superintendency. This calls for professional development on diversity, gender equity, and cultural sensitivity training (Angel et al., 2013; Santamaría, 2014; Shakeshaft et al., 2014) so that school board members are aware of their biases and prejudices, the negative impact of gatekeeping practices, and value the need for diversity. It is essential that school board members form and maintain positive relationships with African American women administrators because this will facilitate an increase in the number of African American women superintendents in the position and reduce the likelihood for high turnover.

Conclusion The underrepresentation of African American women in the superintendency places the onus on school districts and educational leadership programs to evaluate

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their selection policies and practices and curriculum to promote diversity. It also calls for the interrogation of work climates in order to mitigate the ill effects of hostile work environments and other “isms.” Social justice should be the foundation for educating students and preparing them to be global leaders in this world. In addition, African American women have much to offer in their leadership, expertise, and skills, and should be encouraged to do so.

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Hlavacek, J. (2017). A progress report on the school district’s beyond diversity training. Daily Journal World, February 6. Retrieved from http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https:// search-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/docview/1865390018?accountid=14244 Horsford, S. D. (2009). From Negro student to Black superintendent: Counternarratives on segregation and desegregation. The Journal of Negro Education, 78(2), 172–187. Horsford, S. D., & McKenzie, K. B. (2008). “Sometimes I feel like the problems started with desegregation”: Exploring Black superintendent perspectives on desegregation policy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21, 443–455. Jackson, B. L. (1999). Getting inside history—against all odds: African-American school superintendents. In C. C. Brunner (Ed.), Sacred dreams: Women and the superintendency (pp. 141–159). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Jean-Marie, G. (2013). The subtlety of age, gender and race barriers: A case study of African American novice female principals. Journal of School Leadership, 23(4), 609–633. Jean-Marie, G., & Brooks, J. S. (2011). Mentoring and supportive networks for women of color in academe. In Women of color in higher education: Changing directions and new perspectives (pp. 91–108). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Jean-Marie, G., & Dancy, T. E. (2014). Pedagogy of the discipline: How Black studies can influence educational leadership. In A. H. Normore and J. S. Brooks (Eds.), Educational leadership for ethics and social justice: Views from the social sciences (pp. 43–61). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Jean-Marie, G., & Normore, A. H. (2010). The impact of relational leadership, social justice, and spirituality among female secondary school leaders. International Journal of Urban Educational Leadership, 4(1), 22–43. Jean-Marie, G., Normore, A. H. & Brooks, J. (2009). Leadership for social justice: Preparing 21st century school leaders for a new social order. Journal of Research on Leadership and Education, 4(1), 1–31. Jean-Marie, G., & Tickles, V. C. (2017). Black Women at the Helm in HBCUs: Paradox of Gender and Leadership. In Black Colleges Across the Diaspora: Global Perspectives on Race and Stratification in Postsecondary Education (pp. 101–124). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Johnson, J. (2017). After racist incidents reported, NH school district focuses on diversity training. Boston Globe, September 20. Retrieved from http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=http s://search-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/docview/1940665676?accountid=14244 Karanxha, Z., Agosto, V., & Bellara, A. P. (2014). The hidden curriculum: Candidate diversity in educational leadership preparation. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 9(1), 34–58. Kingsberry, F. S. (2015). Protective factors and resiliency: A case study of how African American women overcome barriers en route to the superintendency. Retrieved from http://libproxy.lib. unc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/docview/ 1798874989?accountid=14244 Kowalski, T. J., McCord, R. S., Petersen, G.J., Young, I. P., & Ellerson, N. M. (2010). The American school superintendent 2010 decennial study. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. Working paper no. 189. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.

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Osler, J. E., & Webb, R. L. (2014). An in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis to determine the factors that affect the existence of African American women superintendents in the North Carolina K-12 public school system. i-manager’s Journal on School Educational Technology, 10(2), 17–22. Prieto, L. C., Norman, M. V., Phipps, S. T. A., & Chenault, E. B. S. (2016). Tackling microaggressions in organizations: A broken windows approach. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 13(3), 36–49. Retrieved from http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=http s://search-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/docview/1888686959?accountid=14244 Santamaría, L. J. (2014). Shifting, lifting, and climbing: A Black feminist leadership perspective on navigating academe in Australasia. In L. J. Santamaría, G. Jean-Marie, and C. M. Grant (Eds.), Cross-cultural women scholars in academe (pp. 93–115). New York: Routledge. Santamaría, L. J., Jean-Marie, G., & Grant, C. M. (Eds.). (2014). Cross-Cultural women scholars in academe: Intergenerational voices. New York: Routledge. Shakeshaft, C., Brown, G., Irby, B. J., Grogan, M., & Ballenger, J. (2014). Increasing gender equity in educational leadership. In S. S. Klein, B. Richardson, D. A. Grayson, L. H. Fox, C. Kramarae, D. S. Pollard and C. A. Dwyer (Eds.), Handbook for achieving gender equity in education (pp. 103–129). New York: Routledge. Terhune, C. P. (2008). Coping in isolation: The experiences of black women in white communities. Journal of Black Studies, 38(4), 547–564. Wiley, K., Bustamante, R., Ballenger, J., Polnick, B. (2017). African American Women superintendents in Texas: An exploration of challenges and supports. The Journal of School Administration Research and Development, 2(1), 18–24.

7 WHITENESS AS POLICY Reconstructing Racial Privilege through School Choice Sarah Diem and Andrea M. Hawkman UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AND UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY

Introduction After meeting with leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in February of 2017, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos remarked, “HBCUs are the real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater equality” (Douglas-Gabriel & Jan, 2017, n.p.). Not only were her remarks historically inaccurate—HBCUs were born out of strict necessity due to the legal segregation of public colleges and universities—but DeVos’s comments also demonstrated the ways in which neoliberal/neoconservative educational reformers downplay the influence of whiteness in defining school choice policy for their own political or financial gain. Although DeVos has consistently defined her vision of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) as one that seeks to provide parents and students with more access to market-driven educational alternatives, rhetoric that is similar to those of administrations before her, these choices, as evidenced in the State of Michigan, result in increased federal and state funds being funneled to private, parochial, and charter schools thus bankrupting the traditional publicly funded schools across the state, particularly in the City of Detroit. Further, DeVos has failed to attend to the ways in which her drive to privatize public education ignores the historic legacies of school desegregation policies in the United States. DeVos’s approach to education reform utilizes the popular narrative of local control, choice, and privatization without recognizing the ways in which these approaches were the only means necessary for communities of color prior to the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision or that these same approaches were used to push students of color out of schools after Brown (Hale, 2017). In leaving out the

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racialized history of privatization and choice, DeVos promotes an application of school choice policies that is driven by a capitalistic-market and seeks to privilege white students and families while ignoring the influence of such policies on students and families of color.1 Although we are seeing increased efforts to prioritize school choice in the twentyfirst century, it has a long and varied history in the United States. Prior to court rulings that barred segregation in schools in the 1950s, districts in the South implemented school choice policies to maintain racial privilege and segregation (Roda & Wells, 2013). In the late 1960s and 1970s, magnet schools were created as a type of school choice policy that sought to promote diversity and racial integration. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, when A Nation at Risk claimed our public schools were failing, the expansion of school choice gained momentum in a highly deregulated conservative policy environment, and the retreat from Brown was materializing, intradistrict and interdistrict open enrollment policies became a popular method of school choice that sought to boost school improvement through competition (Holme, Frankenberg, Diem, & Welton, 2013; Howe, 2008). Today, school choice policies are designed to encourage greater competition among schools utilizing market-based principles, which are believed to result in higher quality and more innovative learning environments (Roda & Wells, 2013). Yet, these latest forms of school choice (e.g., charter schools, school vouchers) are not created with the intention to address racial segregation (Wells, 1993) and, as we argue, work to maintain whiteness and racial privilege through their colorblind approach. Whiteness has long informed the ways in which society has defined concepts such as success/failure, right/wrong, safe/dangerous, American/un-American. Despite this reality, whiteness remains an under-discussed, under-theorized, and under-critiqued construct, particularly in the field of education (Leonardo, 2009). Because whiteness has remained relatively invisible as both an identity and ideology, when considering race, white individuals often think first of blackness. As a result, white individuals often see racism as an issue that people of color need to reconcile or overcome. Therefore, in order to disrupt the impact of racism within education we must investigate the role of whiteness in the design and implementation of school choice policies. In this chapter, we examine the relationship between whiteness and education policy, paying particular attention to how racial privilege is reconstructed through contemporary school choice policies. We contend that in an era of colorblind policymaking by not recognizing the salience of race as a form of power and privilege (Freeman, 2005) whiteness is reinforced and maintained in education policy. We conclude the chapter by offering ways to challenge the perpetuation of whiteness in contemporary school choice policies.

The Supremacy of Whiteness in Education Policy The rise of neoliberalism in educational reform efforts over the last twenty years introduced individualistic and free-market approaches to education policy.

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Neoliberalism is traditionally associated with a corporate model of reform that calls upon the free market to assist in the process of schooling, and has spread beyond partisan lines to broadly inform the practices of education policymakers, particularly those constructing policies associated with school choice initiatives. Regardless of political affiliation, Gillborn observed, policy-makers (and many educationists) tend to imagine education policy as evolving over time, sometimes with dramatic changes in focus, but always (so policy-makers assure us) with the best intentions for all. This sanitized (white-washed) version of history envisions policy as a rational process of change, with each step building incrementally on its predecessor in a moreor-less linear and evolutionary fashion. (Gillborn, 2005, p. 486) Much like the popular discourse associated with racial justice, education policymakers advocate the understanding that education reforms perpetually improve the status and quality of education. However, this belief ignores the evolving influence that whiteness maintains over education. Here, we trace three common vehicles through which whiteness influences education policy. First, white individuals often refuse to acknowledge the continued influence of racism in U.S. society. Rather than adopting a racial realist (Bell, 1992) approach to acknowledging the continuing existence of racial oppression, many contemporary white people insist that other cultural factors are more appropriately to blame for social inequality. Despite historic and contemporary connections to the construction of race and racism, white people often invoke claims that race is no longer a factor in society (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Leonardo, 2007; Lewis, 2004; Thompson, 1999). This race-neutral, colorblind ideology strongly influences education policy (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Gillborn, 2014). Bonilla-Silva (2010) identified four frames of colorblindness: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism asserts that the legal gains associated with the Civil Rights Movement “righted” any lingering racial discrimination, and as a result contemporary contexts feature the existence of a true meritocracy. Naturalization involves the assumption that racial phenomena are the result of natural circumstances and not the results of systematic oppressive forces. Cultural racism places racial discrimination in employment, housing, and education as the result of cultural laziness and not structural inequities. Minimization seeks to downplay the racial realities of current society as being better than things have been in the past. Bonilla-Silva’s (2010) framing assists us in understanding the multifaceted ways colorblindness manifests and is deployed in the context of education policy. Colorblind ideology also allows whiteness to be deployed through the adoption of dysconscious racism (King, 1991). Dysconsciousness is personified when an individual or institution unknowingly adopts white knowledges and experiences

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as the expected norm. According to King (ibid., p. 135), dysconsciousness is “not the absence of consciousness (that is, not unconsciousness) but an impaired consciousness or distorted way of thinking about race as compared to, for example, critical consciousness.” Someone who is dysconscious struggles to accept challenges to established narratives about race relations and inequity and often demonstrates resistance (guilt and/or hostility) to direct requests to internalize a different understanding. Therefore, dysconscious individuals are likely to accept, without question, the assumptions, myths, and beliefs used to maintain white supremacy without recognition that doing so contributes to the problem. Thus, what gets written, maintained, taught, and passed down by white policymakers embodying dysconsciousness becomes normalized. When dysconscious knowledge is challenged, individuals often demonstrate feelings of frustration, fear, guilt, or hostility. In order to break this cycle, King (ibid.) observed, individuals must encounter a substantial shift in how they perceive themselves, their identities, their privileges, and their perceptions of people of color. Drawing heavily on market-based appeals to school reform, colorblind ideology has shaped education policy for decades. As the conservatives of the 1980s pushed for the privatization of public schools, increased standardization, the implementation of high-stakes testing, and the advance of charter schools, raceneutral rhetoric was asserted to demonstrate that through greater choice, all students would have increased opportunities for success. Simultaneously, this colorblind rhetoric provided education reformers the privilege of avoiding the institutional legacies of white supremacy that remained present in the American education system (Margonis & Parker, 1995; Urrieta, 2006). In fact, the colorblind push for school choice, Margonis and Parker (1995) contended, was merely a poorly veiled, yet successful, attempt to conceal middle class white efforts to resegregate schools. Second, white individuals often avoid connection with a particular racial identity or experience (Leonardo, 2002). As a result of the racial silencing perpetuated through the enactment of colorblind ideologies, whites often fail to have a strong sense of racial identity or awareness. Leonardo noted, “Whiteness is the attempt to homogenize diverse white ethnics into a single category (much like it attempts with people of color) for purposes of racial domination” (ibid., p. 32). However, unlike with people of color, whiteness encourages white people to develop white cultures, knowledge, and experiences into common sense understandings of reality. But the process of developing white common sense often goes unacknowledged. Flagg (1997, p. 86) observed, “white people frequently interpret norms adopted by a dominantly white culture as racially neutral, and so fail to recognize the ways in which those norms may be in fact covertly race-specific.” White common sense draws upon the Gramscian notion of common sense that represents hegemonic understandings of how things are to be. A white common sense centers truth within the dysconscious knowledge advocated by a system of whiteness (Leonardo, 2009). Contemporarily, neoliberal and individualistic approaches to challenging racism have

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shifted white common sense to accepting that structural and institutional racism no longer exist and that society is littered with some racist individuals not systems and policies. Thus, white common sense transmits racism and white supremacy as covert operations difficult to witness and even more challenging to refute. The prevalence of white common sense is wide-ranging in education policy. From charter school initiatives (Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, & Wang, 2010), standards reform (Cuenca & Hawkman, 2018), the high-stakes testing movement (Freeman, 2005; Leonardo, 2007), resource allocation (Blanchett, 2006), to school choice policy (Holme, 2002; Holme et al., 2013), education stakeholders rely heavily upon the white common sense notion that whiteness is property (Harris, 1993), and therefore of value, when it comes to policy decision making. Education policy is designed in such a way to recognize that “good schools” are those that are filled with white students, supported by white parents, and governed by middle class white norms and knowledge (Holme, 2002; Margonis & Parker, 1995; Urrieta, 2006). Third, Leonardo (2002) noted that white people tend to evoke a “minimization of racist legacy” when engaging in racial dialogue or realizations (p. 32). Racist events of the past are lauded as no longer influencing race relations today. Thus, the trajectory toward justice cannot be impeded. Attempts to label the current state of race relations in the United States as “post-racial” (Bonilla-Silva, 2010) serve as evidence as this continued desire by white people to refute the continued concerns shared by people of color about white supremacy. Additionally, racism is seen as the thoughts or actions of sole actors, and not the intended result of a system constructed to elevate whiteness. Consequently, the only appropriate response to contemporary iterations of racism is to encourage white people to become “good white people” or white people searching for their “good white person medal” (Hayes & Juarez, 2009; Thompson, 2003). Due to the persistent residential segregation across communities and the hyperresegregation occurring in many public schools, oftentimes white people/students spend the majority of their time isolated and insulated from race-based dialogue. Indeed, white students are the most isolated students of any racial group in our public schools (Orfield & Frankenberg, 2014). As a result, when faced with racial decision making, or with a situation in which their colorblindness or white common sense is challenged, white individuals can embody a state of white fragility. According to DiAngelo (2011), white fragility is a “state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves” (p. 54). Defensive moves are designed to “restore racial equilibrium” and often include a performance of anger, fear, or guilt through argumentation, silence, or avoidance to racial dialogue (ibid.). When surrounded by other white people, these behaviors become imbedded within white common sense and continue to reify white supremacist beliefs, practices, and policies (Orozco & Diaz, 2016). In school choice policies, we see how this white fragility plays out, and subsequently works to reify whiteness, when families make

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decisions on where to send their children to school. In the following section, we provide a brief history of school choice in the U.S. in order to contextualize how whiteness and racial privilege are reconstructed through these policies in the current neoliberal, colorblind policymaking era.

Reifying Whiteness through School Choice Policies School choice programs have been a part of the U.S. education system for decades. Yet, these programs have been designed and implemented to achieve varying outcomes; they can either provide racially and economically diverse quality educational environments or increase inequality (Frankenberg et al., 2010). The history of school choice policy shows how we have moved from a system that once sought to dismantle segregation and provide families with choices that could simultaneously work to achieve racial integration to one driven by colorblind, market-driven ideologies that put at the forefront competition and deregulation (Wells, 2014). Following the Brown (1954) decision outlawing separate and unequal schools, freedom of choice plans and voucher programs were implemented in the South to provide the illusion that Black and white students could attend the school of their choice. However, in practice these school choice policies provided a way for white people to maintain segregation and avoid desegregation all together; white people never chose to attend all-Black schools (Mickelson, Bottia, & Southworth, 2012; Orfield, 2013; Roda & Wells, 2013; Siegel-Hawley, 2016). Freedom of choice plans were eventually deemed an insufficient means to achieve desegregation and districts were required to eliminate segregation “root and branch” through other means (Green v. New Kent County, 1968). Green (1968), and later Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), which allowed the use of busing as a means to achieve desegregation, both had more of an impact on school segregation in the South than the North. Indeed, schools in the South became the least segregated in the nation as a result of these decisions and mandatory desegregation, as well as the active enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Orfield & Lee, 2007). In 1960, 0.1 percent of Black students in the South attended majority white schools while just 10 years later this percentage increased to 33.1 percent and peaked in 1988 at 43.5 percent (ibid.). However, in the North it took until the mid-1970s to address school segregation (Orfield & Eaton, 1996). As mandatory desegregation began to take shape in the 1970s, new school choice policies were implemented to promote racial diversity. Magnet schools were initially created to accomplish racial integration by offering unique, specialized academic programs to attract a diverse group of students to schools outside of their neighborhoods (Holme et al., 2013). They expanded in part because of federal magnet schools aid (Frankenberg & Le, 2009). Yet, over time desegregation became less of a goal in magnet schools and racial isolation actually increased

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(Christenson et al., 2003). However, it is important to note that the Obama Administration tried to urge districts receiving federal assistance for their magnet programs to reduce racial isolation by incorporating more comprehensive admissions processes, making these type of choice options still worth pursuing in order to achieve diverse schools (Siegel-Hawley, 2016). Contemporary school choice policies have less of a focus on combating racial isolation as they do fostering competition among schools. As noted earlier, the rise of neoliberalism has created an educational system that operates as a marketplace of schooling options in which the increase of choice is assumed to lead to higher quality and more efficient schools. Charter schools, open-enrollment programs, and vouchers, are three types of market-based, colorblind school choice policies that have been adopted across the U.S., in conjunction with the current accountability movement, that stress testing and outcomes over equitable access to quality schools (Wells, 2014). Despite research that shows how these policies almost always lead to increased racial inequality (Siegel-Hawley, 2016; Wells, 2014), they are growing at a rapid rate. While charter schools still make up a small piece of the school choice landscape, they have grown exponentially since their inception, particularly in big cities. Charter schools have been widely supported across the philanthropic community as well as by Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. The No Child Left Behind Act included pro-charter priorities and under the Obama Administration, in its Race to the Top Initiative, strong incentives were provided to states that increased their number of charter schools (Orfield, 2013). In the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that was signed into law by President Obama, charter schools are still very much a focus of federal policy with financial assistance set aside to support the planning, designing, and implementation of charter schools and increasing the number of high-quality charter schools across the country. Charter schools are attractive because they are free from many of the regulations placed on public schools, which supporters believe provides for more flexibility and thus more innovative schooling environments. Yet, charter schools largely overlook the issue of segregation. In their study of 40 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and a number of metropolitan areas with high numbers of charter school enrollments, Frankenberg and colleagues (2010) found that in almost every area examined, charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools. Leaders and organizations have gone so far as to call for a charter moratorium to address the racial segregation existent in charter schools. In October 2016 and again in June 2017, the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, called for the cessation of charter school expansion until, among other things, “Charter schools cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.” Yet, the DOE continues to put funding behind

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charter schools and help states and charter management organizations finance the building of new charter schools. Along with the research on racial isolation in charter schools, the research on open enrollment shows that these policies also lead to greater levels of racial school segregation. Open enrollment plans allow students to transfer to schools within their district (intradistrict) or between districts (interdistrict). Studies examining intradistrict open enrollment policies show that white families are more like to choose whiter schools and non-white families choose schools were there are more non-white students enrolled (Glazerman, 1998; Henig, 1996; Lankford & Wyckoff, 1997; Saporito & Lareau, 1999). In interdistrict enrollment plans, research shows affluent and white families disproportionately take advantage of these policies, many of whom use them to transfer out of diverse districts, while low income and students color are least likely to participate (Holme & Richards, 2009; Holme & Wells, 2008; M. Orfield, 2012). Vouchers are another form of school choice that have been in existence since the initial days of desegregation. They were used by white families to avoid integrated schools and send their children to private white schools, which still occurs today (Orfield, 2013; Wells, 2014). Vouchers are funded by the government and allow students to attend a private school of their choice. Most voucher programs are targeted toward specific students, e.g., low-income students (Miron & Welner, 2012). However, research on voucher programs consistently shows their limited impact on achievement, segregation, and educational opportunity, particularly for underrepresented students (Bifulco, Ladd, & Ross, 2009; Dynarski, Rui, Webber, & Gutmann, 2017; Ladd, 2002).

White Ignorance, White Sensemaking, and School Choice Within a world constructed by, through, and for whiteness it seems obvious to state that race and racism play a major role in school choice policy. However, due to the covert ways in which whiteness, colorblindness, white common sense, and white fragility have operated to protect white supremacy, this fact cannot be overstated. To understand the relationship between whiteness and school choice we must turn toward the frames in which school choice policy is constructed: white ignorance and white sensemaking. According to Mills (2017), white ignorance is a two-sided epistemological position wherein individuals and groups possess “not merely ignorance of facts with moral implications but also moral non-knowings, incorrect judgements about the rights and wrongs of moral situations themselves” (p. 58). Thus, white ignorance combines the process of being historically and contemporarily misinformed with being unaware, or unwilling to acknowledge, that what is believed to be true is in fact inaccurate and actually causes harm to communities of color. Essentially, white ignorance is the manifestation of unchallenged white fragility. Therefore, white ignorance leads individuals and

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groups toward a sense of logic and morality that is ultimately corrupt and self-serving; although it is believed to be justice-oriented and altruistic. Mills (2017) observed that this epistemological space is guided by an intertwined series of perceptions, conceptions, memories, testimonies, and interests that both intentionally and unintentionally reify whiteness and protect white supremacy. It should be noted that white ignorance is not always the result of bad intentions. In fact, well-intentioned people can deploy white ignorance in hopes of enacting positive outcomes, but their actions serve to imbed racism even further (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Mills, 2017; Trepagnier, 2006). For example, in the wake of the Shaw v. Reno (1993) decision that required strict scrutiny regarding the racial makeup of political districts, gerrymandering has been utilized within both political and educational spaces as a proxy-tool for racial (re)segregation (Richards, 2014, 2017; Siegel-Hawley, 2013). White ignorance is embodied through community efforts to maintain local control of their school district borders. On the surface, some community members believe they are supporting a change that will provide greater autonomy. However, without critique educational gerrymandering serves to segregate school attendance zones along racial lines. To examine white ignorance, Mills (2017) contends, we must be concerned with the “spread of misinformation” and “the distribution of error,” within the “larger social cluster” and “social practices” of white people. Or more specifically, the methods through which white fragility allows white common sense to be normalized. These processes are collectively referred to as white sensemaking. Evans (2007) noted that sensemaking is broadly understood as, “the cognitive act of taking in information, framing it, and using it to determine actions and behaviors in a way that manages meaning for individuals” (p. 161). Therefore, white sensemaking is the process of meaning making through white common sense. When enacted, Mills (2017) suggested that white sensemaking operates as the combination of collective amnesia and collective memory to process information and orient one to the world around them. Through white sensemaking, white individuals and school leaders are able to presume that within a competitive marketplace, “parents and students will be able to become active consumers of an educational product, and as such they will be able to make school choices that best fit their educational and social needs” (Stein, 2015, p. 599). Yet, it is important to distinguish the actual choices made by families when it comes to selecting racially diverse school settings. Research shows contradictions between values and behavior when it comes to families choosing schools. Specifically, although white families may say they value racial and socioeconomic diversity, they are still enrolling their children in segregated school settings (Roda & Wells, 2013). Indeed, white families are more likely to choose schools with lower proportions of Black students and all together avoid schools where Black students make-up the majority of the population (Billingham & Hunt, 2016). Moreover, advantaged families go to extreme lengths to

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make sure their children are getting into the “right” or “good” school, decisions based not on the quality of the curriculum or instruction but rather who the school is serving, which only further exacerbates stratification and makes families less likely to choose diverse schools (Holme, 2002; Roda & Wells, 2013). Opponents of school choice argue that the expansion of such programs will likely lead to greater stratification among students, as parents and students do not have access—financially or socially—to the same choices (Rich & Jennings, 2015). To date, school choice policies have reinforced racial and economic segregation (Mickelson et al., 2012) and options are not equitably available to all families. Indeed, school choice is not only shaped by the options available within the local context but the networks families have access to when making decisions about schools. Parents are more likely to form opinions about the quality of schools from people in their social networks, which are tied to their beliefs around status. Specifically, parents deem “good” schools as those that are more affluent and white while schools with low-income students and students of color are considered “bad” (Holme, 2002). The social construction of school quality based on race and socioeconomic status only serves to reify and preserve the value of whiteness as school choice expands and the markets feel more pressured to appeal to a “higher-status” clientele (ibid.). Although the current administration’s school choice agenda is more ambitious than previous administrations, presidents before Trump, Democrats and Republicans, also pushed for school choice as a policy reform to address inequality without tackling issues of discrimination (Orfield, 2013). Said another way, it is upon the shoulders of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama that the Trump administration’s school choice policies are positioned. Therefore, as the Trump administration continues to push for the boldest expansion of school choice in our country’s history without any consideration to how such programs and policies work to reify inequity and inopportunity, we must work to ensure that educators and administrators are cognizant of the ramifications of this heightened neoliberal, colorblind agenda and what practices they can engage in to push up/back against it. In the following section, we outline questions to consider when examining the relationship between whiteness and education policy as well as specific school choice policies that seek to provide racial diversity.

Evaluating School Choice Policies: Pushing through White Ignorance and beyond White Sensemaking As stated previously, good intentions are often imbedded within white ignorance and white sensemaking. These epistemological positions are riddled with white common sense, thus making them increasingly difficult to challenge in public discourse. Further, unlike other policy areas that maintain clear political divides (e.g., taxation or healthcare) the problematic approaches to school choice policy

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discussed in this chapter have bipartisan appeal. Nonetheless, if our intention is to make more visible the influence of whiteness on school choice policy and to advocate educational reform that attends to the needs of students, schools, and communities of color—rather than further protecting whiteness and white supremacy—we must seek ways in which to challenge the normative nature of white sensemaking. Gillborn (2005) articulated three questions essential to examining education policy that provide insight into addressing the complicated intertwinement of whiteness within school choice policy: 1. 2. 3.

Who or what is driving education policy? Who wins and loses as a result of education policy priorities? What are the effects of education policy?

In the subsequent sections, we take up these three questions and add a fourth: What are the choices within school choice policy?

Who or What is Driving Education Policy? The rise in neoconservative/neoliberal educational policy reform efforts has complicated the process of understanding who or what is driving policy change. With widespread calls for decreasing state and federal funding for public schools, a rise in educational philanthropy has been welcomed by a variety of educational stakeholders (Brown, 2015). Yet, this places school leaders in an awkward and sometimes tenuous position of searching for and accepting funds with strings attached. While it is not inherently problematic to accept funding or policy recommendations from philanthropic organizations or corporate interests, such decisions should not be made without great pause and consideration. White sensemaking encourages us to understand this transition from public to privately funded education as a necessity for an ever-crunched state and federal economy. Despite little actual experience or background in education, within neoconservative/neoliberal contexts, money equates to expertise. Therefore, educational philanthropists willing to invest millions have an unequal share of the educational decision making power. Simply put, when those with money speak, those without are forced to listen. However, instead of providing choice to students and families, as DeVos and her predecessors would argue school choice policies are intended to do, these practices provide a specific set of choices for a specific set of students and families regarding the schools they are able to attend. When evaluating whether to move forward with school choice policies, stakeholders should consider the background, experiences, expertise, and motivations of those advocating for their adoption. Further, we should be intentional about those included in the decisionmaking process.

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Who Wins and Loses as a Result of Education Policy Priorities? Assessing the motivations of those advocating for the adoption of school choice policies can be difficult as white sensemaking has found a way to coopt the language of equity and access to promote results that already benefit most, families living in affluent, white communities. As previously discussed, neoliberal advocates of school choice policies often argue that implementing such policies will increase competition between schools and as a result improve the educational experiences for all students. However, as has been discussed in this chapter, these claims are often riddled with inaccuracies. When school choice polices are not constructed collaboratively and with race-conscious decision making they instead benefit those who already have access to high-quality education. Simply stated, colorblind approaches to school choice polices, as informed by white sensemaking, do not benefit anyone other than white students and communities.

What are the Effects of Education Policy? As stated previously, the history of school choice policy has demonstrated that the stated goals and expected outcome of these policies has shifted over time (Wells, 2014). Today, the discourse around school choice policy as generated by white sensemaking propagates the belief that through competitive school choice all students will have greater opportunity to learn. Despite this colorblind approach, it is evident from the research how school choice policies are designed, implemented, and regulated can have a major impact on whether they can cultivate school-level racial diversity and build support for public education (Roda & Wells, 2013). This is critically important to consider as DeVos and the current administration seek to allocate an unprecedented level of public money to expand school choice, among other mechanisms. If we wish to address the segregation and inequality that comes with many school choice policies, we need to be more critical of and push back against the current colorblind, market-driven era that has consumed educational policy over the last three decades. Wells (2014) argues that colorblind policies are “at odds with a multi-racial and ethnic society in which a growing number of parents and educators see the potential educational benefits of paying attention to diversity and differences as a pedagogical tool” (p. 2). As such, we need to be intentional in advocating for those policies that serve to promote diversity and the educational benefits that come along with it.

What are the Choices within School Choice Policy? Magnet schools are one type of school choice option that have long served as a tool for both achieving racial integration and positive academic outcomes. They are public schools that have a specialized curriculum or “theme” and are designed to attract a diverse population of students from across neighborhoods within a school district; they are not constrained by school attendance areas (Frankenberg & Siegel-Hawley,

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2008). Magnet schools are typically located in large urban school districts and provide families with a wide range of program options while trying to maintain a racially diverse student population (Smrekar & Goldring, 1999). They have been fairly successful at improving student outcomes but with increased accountability and academic standards have had more difficulty maintaining racially diverse settings. Yet, with more intentional efforts aimed at admissions policies that ensure racially diverse school enrollments (e.g., weighted lotteries) and constant efforts to recruit students with diverse backgrounds, magnet schools can serve as a great school choice option to help mitigate school segregation (Frankenberg & SiegelHawley, 2008). Controlled-choice plans are another type of school choice policy that provide families with choices that are managed and at the same time assist school districts in achieving school-level diversity. In these plans, families are provided options outside of their neighborhood school and school districts use different mechanisms such as weighted lotteries to balance choice with their diversity goals. For example, in the Jefferson County Public Schools district, which is located in the Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky metropolitan area, they use a geographically zone-based choice plan in which the district is divided up into clusters and students and families have options within their designated cluster that also seek to provide racial and socioeconomic school-level diversity (Diem, Frankenberg, Cleary, & Ali, 2014). Inter-district, regional approaches to achieving diversity are another type of choice policy that have been designed and implemented across a number of U.S. metropolitan areas over the last six decades. The programs vary in terms of how they were created (e.g., state legislation, court orders), size, and structure but they all seek to provide opportunities for families across school district lines and reduce racial and socioeconomic isolation (Finnigan et al., 2015). While these programs are highly sought after by families, in many cases the number of students accepted to enroll has dropped due to funding and lack of available space by participating districts. Finnigan and Holme (2015) argue that in order for these policies to continue to exist and grow, they “must evolve to focus more comprehensively on regional equity” and “should be expanded and incorporated within a broader strategy to promote greater equity and reduced inequality across metropolitan areas through a combination of choice and place-based investment in high poverty schools” (p. 4). While charter schools are still relatively new and only represent a small piece of the school choice arena, they are growing in numbers and regardless of how we feel about them are here to stay. Charter schools are typically public schools that operate under a charter, which is essentially a contract that is entered into between an authorizing agency and a school developer. Charter schools have more flexibility in terms of decision-making when it comes to operations and curriculum but they have to meet the expectations set forth in the charter or face having it revoked. Charter schools have been heavily criticized for being more

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racially isolated than traditional public schools and not enrolling English learner and low-income students (Frankenberg et al., 2010). Yet, charter school authorizers can take steps to combat this segregation and lack of student diversity and actually work to prioritize diversity by implementing measures that require charter schools to adhere to specific diversity guidelines. For example, charter schools could use a weighted lottery system that seeks to provide under-represented students with a better chance of gaining admission. Additionally, authorizers can also require charter schools to submit diversity plans for their schools that outline how they plan to create and maintain diversity (U.S. DOE, 2017). Across all of the “choices” we highlighted, it is critical to point out that the ways in which school choice policies are designed has direct implications for their outcomes both in terms of racial diversity and political support (Diem, 2012; Roda & Wells, 2013). Mathis and Welner (2016) argue that “choice policies should be the result of deliberate policy choices grounded in our larger societal goals of our schools, including the valuing of diverse communities and integration of socioeconomic levels, race, and language” (p. 3). As such, we need to consider the ramifications of expanding school choice and how we can ensure that any school choice policy is designed and implemented with the intent of providing equal educational opportunity and disrupting the continued influence of white supremacy.

Advancing the Conversation around Whiteness and School Choice In the previous section, we argued that when examining any education policy, and in our case school choice policy, it is crucial that we consider how whiteness is interwoven in our analysis of who and/or what is driving the policy, who wins and/ or loses when it comes to education policy, and what are the effects of education policy (Gillborn, 2005). We then outlined a few examples of existing school choice policies and discussed how we can work to ensure that these policies establish and maintain diverse school settings. However, in order for educators to be able to fully engage in these policy conversations and make certain school choice plans are not perpetuating inequity and segregated learning environments, we need to first take a step back and consider how we are working to prepare future teachers and leaders to navigate the complex, racialized school choice landscape. Specifically, we need to be more intentional in our efforts to develop aspiring teacher and leaders’ political and anti-racist identities that will in turn help prepare them to participate in such critical discussions and confront unjust consequences associated with school choice policies (Diem, Carpenter, & Lewis-Durham, 2018). Teacher and leadership preparation programs are not immune to the influence of white ignorance and white sensemaking detailed above. In fact, these programs often serve as primary tools used to reinscribe white supremacy in K-12 classrooms (Picower & Kohli, 2017). The students (primarily white women) that fill these programs are among the generation raised on standardized testing, calls for accountability and efficiency, and often come from hyper-segregated communities. Therefore, these students

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often view the world and the educational system through a lens informed by white ignorance, and are drawn to curricular, pedagogical, and policy decisions based on white sensemaking. A necessary and systemic approach to challenging the pervasiveness of white ignorance and sensemaking in education is the adoption of anti-racist teacher education and leadership preparation programs. To date, white sensemaking has primarily advocated for the implementation of multiculturalism within teacher education programs (Bery, 2014; Castagno, 2013). Although racism and white supremacy are included in the umbrella of multiculturalism—alongside class, sexuality, gender, ability, ethnicity—and may be intended to be featured in instruction, educator interpretation of this multiculturalism may (un)intentionally shift the focus away from racism and white supremacy, in service to “more polite” topics of conversation. Multicultural education, in all its forms, appears to advocate at least non-racist understandings in that students will acknowledge that racism has existed but will view it as a relic of the past, having little influence on the experiences they will have in the classroom. However, it does not insist upon an activist oriented approach to racism that encourages students to see themselves as agentic individuals capable of enacting challenges to white supremacy in their classroom. Anti-racism in education “moves beyond the liberal commitment to ‘equal’ access to education and individual freedoms and rights, to redressing collective rights and social injustice” (Sefa Dei, 1996, p. 123). Anti-racist teacher and leader education is more than just the single course devoted to macro-level conversation about social inequality that many preparation programs feature. This approach calls for attention to white supremacy and anti-racist pedagogy and leadership throughout the entire preparation program. Each component of an anti-racist preparation program calls on students to see themselves, their students, their classrooms, and their schools as racialized. Teacher and leadership preparation programs should consider how classroom discussion can hinder or facilitate the critical reflection that is vital to developing aspiring teacher and leaders’ racially aware identities needed to confront racialized education policies like school choice (Diem et al., 2018). Such experiences build students’ sense of racial literacy (Guinier, 2004) and ability to evaluate the presence of white sensemaking in their classroom, school, and society. White students need to understand how race shapes their lives and by developing a racial literacy, they can better understand how whiteness is woven into the fabric of public education and how they can act to address it. Further, preparation programs can work closely with school districts in their communities to assist aspiring teachers and leaders in becoming aware of the complexities associated with school policies, particularly when it comes to race, and how school choice policies do not provide equity of opportunity to everyone. As such, teachers and leaders also need to work to ensure that families have equal access to choose schools and are knowledgeable about the school choice process (Diem et al., 2018). Once teachers and leaders graduate from preparation programs and assume their positions in schools, we also want to make sure that the anti-racist education they received is cultivated within their schools and districts. We can do this by

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making sure the professional development offered in districts does not come from pre-packaged, off-the-shelf vendors, which are likely not tailored to specific school community and policy contexts and as a result, not equipped to handle the issues schools are facing. Rather, by establishing partnerships with local universities, school districts can work with scholars who are experts and well-versed in anti-racist teacher and leader education research and can therefore make sure the professional development offered is timely. These partnerships can also extend beyond the university and school settings and include members of the community working in different non-profit, for profit, or governmental organizations that are engaging in issues of racial equity and education. Beyond teacher and leader preparation, professional development, and other school-driven initiatives, we should also consider ways to push back against whiteness and school choice policy alongside community-based educational stakeholders. Parents, students, and community leaders wield a great deal of influence within school spaces and education policy. As evidenced in the 2015 universitybased protests calling for attention to racial disparities on college campuses, the 2018 West Virginia and Oklahoma teacher strikes, and student-led gun reform efforts based in Parkland, Florida, individuals beyond the traditional power brokers (e.g., school administrators, legislators, and educational philanthropists) have the potential to enact education policy change. Instead of waiting for anti-racism to trickle down to the community, university scholars concerned with the impact of whiteness and school choice policy would be well served by engaging with individuals beyond the PK-20 power structure. It is clear from the current administration’s education agenda that school choice is likely to grow and further cement itself as a part of our education system, creating increased competition for access to particular schools without focusing on the inequitable outcomes these policies can create. As such, it is crucial for us to continue calling out and pushing back against how whiteness positions and reifies itself in school choice policy. We also need to advocate for existing school choice policies to have a focus on diversifying schools and subsequently hold school districts accountable for maintaining that diversity. What we cannot do is idly stand by and watch our education system become more unequal and not recognize and discuss how whiteness and white supremacy sensemaking brought us to this point. We must be willing to challenge the persistence of educational decision making informed by white sensemaking and seek out policies that are responsive to the needs of all community members while articulating the goal of racial equity through education reform.

Note 1 Although APA (American Psychological Association, 2010) guidelines recommend the capitalization of racial identities (White/Black), here we borrow from Matias and colleagues (2014) and choose not to capitalize white as an attempt to challenge the supremacy of whiteness in chapter. Only when using a direct quote in which the words white or whiteness are capitalized will it appear as such here.

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Howe, K. R. (2008). Evidence, the conservation paradigm, and school choice. In W. Feinberg & C. Lubienski (Eds.), School choice policies and outcomes: Empirical and philosophical perspectives (pp. 61–78). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. King, J. E. (1991). Dysconscious racism: Ideology, identity, and the miseducation of teachers. The Journal of Negro Education, 60(2), 131–146. Ladd, H. F. (2002). School vouchers: A critical view. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 6(4), 3–24. Lankford, H., & Wyckoff, J. (1997). The effect of school choice and residential location on the racial segregation of K–12 students. Unpublished manuscript, State University of New York, Albany, NY, June. Leonardo, Z. (2002). The souls of white folk: Critical pedagogy, whiteness studies, and globalization discourse. Race Ethnicity and Education, 5(1), 29–50. Leonardo, Z. (2007). The war on schools: NCLB, nation creation and the educational construction of whiteness. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10(3), 261–278. Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. New York, NY: Routledge. Lewis, A. E. (2004). “What group?” Studying whites and whiteness in the era of “colorblindness.” Sociological Theory, 22(45), 623–646. Margonis, F., & Parker, L. (1995). Choice, privatization, and unspoken strategies of containment. Educational Policy, 9(4), 375–403. Mathis, W. J., & Welner, K. G. (2016). Do choice policies segregate schools? Research-based options for education policymaking. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Matias, C. E., Viesca, K. M., Garrison-Wade, D. F., Tandon, M., & Galindo, R. (2014). “What is critical whiteness studies doing in OUR nice field like critical race theory?” Applying CRT and CWS to understand the white imaginations of white teacher candidates. Equity & Excellence in Education, 47(3), 289–304. Mickelson, R. A., Bottia, M. C., & Southworth, S. (2012). School choice and segregation by race, ethnicity, class, and achievement. In G. Miron, K. G. Welner, P. H. Hinchey, & W. J. Mathis (Eds.), Exploring the school choice universe: Evidence and recommendations (pp. 167–192). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Mills, C. W. (2017). Black rights/white wrongs: The critique of racial liberalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Miron, G., & Welner, K. G. (2012). Introduction. In G. Miron, K. G. Welner, P. H. Hinchey, & W. J. Mathis (Eds.), Exploring the school choice universe: Evidence and recommendations (pp. 1–16). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Orfield, G. (2013). Choice and civil rights: Forgetting history, facing consequences. In G. Orfield & E. Frankenberg (Eds.), Educational delusions? Why choice can deepen inequality and how to make schools fair (pp. 3–35). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Orfield, G., & Eaton, E. (1996). Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York, NY: The New Press. Orfield, G., & Frankenberg, E. (2014). Increasing segregated and unequal schools as courts reverse policy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 50(5), 718–734. Orfield, G., & Lee, C. (2007). Historic reversals, accelerating resegregation, and the need for integration strategies. Los Angeles, CA: Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA. Orfield, M. (2012). Diversity and choice in the Twin Cities. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC, April. Orozco, R., & Diaz, J. J. (2016). “Suited to their needs”: White innocence as a vestige of segregation. Multicultural Perspectives, 18(3), 127–133.

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Picower, B., & Kohli, R. (2017). Confronting racism in teacher education: Counternarratives of critical practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Rich, P. M., & Jennings, J. L. (2015). Choice, information, and constrained options: School transfers in a stratified educational system. American Sociological Review, 1–30. doi:10.1177/0003122415598764 Richards, M. P. (2014). The gerrymandering of school attendance zones and the segregation of public schools: A geospatial analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 51(6), 1119–1157. Richards, M. P. (2017). Gerrymandering educational opportunity. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(3), 65–70. Roda, A., & Wells, A. S. (2013). School choice policies and racial segregation: Where white parents’ good intentions, anxiety, and privilege collide. American Journal of Education, 119(2), 261–293. Saporito, S., & Lareau, A. (1999). School selection as a process: The multiple dimensions of race in framing educational choice. Social Problems, 46(3), 418–435. Sefa Dei, G. J. (1996). Anti-racism education: Theory & practice. Halifax, CN: Fernwood. Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 113 S. Ct. 2816, 125 L. Ed. 2d 511 (1993). Siegel-Hawley, G. (2013). Educational gerrymandering? Race and attendance boundaries in a demographically changing suburb. Harvard Educational Review, 83(4), 580–612. Siegel-Hawley, G. (2016). When the fences come down: Twenty-first century lessons from metropolitan school desegregation. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Smrekar, C., & Goldring, E. (1999). School choice in urban America: Magnet schools and the pursuit of equity. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Stein, M. L. (2015). Public school choice and racial sorting: An examination of charter schools in Indianapolis. American Journal of Education, 121(4), 597–627. Thompson, A. (1999). Colortalk: Whiteness and off white. Educational Studies, 30(2), 141– 160. Thompson, A. (2003). Tiffany, friend of people of color: White investments in anti-racism. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(1), 7–29. Trepagnier, B. (2006). Silent racism: How well-meaning white people perpetuate the racial divide. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. U.S. DOE (2017). Improving outcomes for all students: Strategies and considerations to increase student diversity. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Urrieta, L. (2006). Community identity discourse and the heritage academy: Colorblind educational policy and white supremacy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(4), 455–476. Wells, A. S. (1993). Time to choose: America at the crossroads of school choice policy. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Wells, A. S. (2014). Seeing past the “colorblind” myth: Why education policymakers should address racial and ethnic inequality and support culturally diverse schools. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center.

8 BLACK GIRLS, WHITE PRIVILEGE, AND SCHOOLING Terri N. Watson CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK

Racism remains pervasive in the United States. It is palpable in every aspect of society and has impeded the educational outcomes and life chances of children of color for far too long. Black boys, in particular, encounter racist deficit-laden mental models in schools every day. As a consequence of racism: they are overrepresented in out of school suspensions, underrepresented in advanced placement courses, and are one of the lowest demographic groups in terms of academic outcomes (Schott Foundation, 2010). In an effort to improve the schooling experiences of Black boys research is conducted, initiatives are funded, and institutes have been formed. Like Black boys, Black girls are subject to race-based schooling. In addition, due to their race and gender, Black girls are adultified, marginalized, and traumatized in schools. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of research and advocacy efforts centered on improving Black girls’ schooling experiences. Historically, Black girls were absent in education research. They were either a subset of the data aimed at Black boys or indistinguishable in studies focused on the school-based narratives of girls (Lightfoot, 1976). In the latter instances, the term ‘girls’ was monolithic and the salience of race, the role of femininity, and the potency of privilege remain unexamined. Recently, scholars have begun to study how the intersection of race and gender affect Black women and girls in K-20 settings (see Crenshaw, Owen, & Nanda, 2015; Morris, 2016; National Women’s Law Center, 2014). In the summer of 2016, The Journal of Negro Education, one of the oldest periodicals by and about Black people, released a special issue focused on the schooling experiences of Black women and girls. In their commentary for the aforementioned publication, the editors (Lori D. Patton, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Chayla Haynes, and Terri N. Watson) explained how extant research has failed to present an accurate account of the realities Black girls contend with in schools. They wrote:

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Over the last 20 years most of the scholarship about the experiences of Black girls and schooling presents a mythologized discourse, which suggests that they are ‘okay’ because they fare better than Black boys. (Patton, Crenshaw, Haynes, & Watson, 2016, p. 194) This finding is troubling and when coupled with the lack of focused research and advocacy efforts on behalf of Black girls serves to further delimit Black girls’ schooling experiences. This chapter will examine research centered on Black girls’ schooling experiences. The overarching question guiding this discussion asks: In what ways does White privilege influence the schooling experiences of Black girls? First, White privilege is explained and its effect on Black girls’ schooling experiences is examined across the following themes: (a) the salience of race, (b) the role of femininity, and (c) the potency of privilege. Next, the efforts of several Black girls who helped to shape the course of public education are highlighted and Whiteness is problematized. Federal, district, and city-level initiatives established to address inequities people of color experience in schools are also discussed. Last, this chapter closes with best practices aimed to improve the schooling experiences of Black girls.

White Privilege ‘Whiteness,’ while codified in the nation’s founding charter, is not biological. Whiteness is a social construct that serves a societal purpose (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). ‘White’ people, beginning with the Framers, believe they are White and identify as such to privilege their standing in society. David Gillborn, a British educational researcher, defines White privilege as “an awareness of the multitude of ways in which people who are identified as ‘White’ enjoy countless, often unrecognized, advantages in their daily lives” (Gillborn, 2006, p. 319). In America, hegemonic practices affirm White privilege and the belief that “racist hierarchal structures govern all political, economic, and social domains” (DeCuir & Dixson, 2004, p. 27). To be clear, public schools, since their inception, are racist structures that affirm White privilege.

The Salience of Race Race matters in schools. More than half of the 50.7 million students who attend the nation’s public schools identify as non-White; however, 80 percent of nearly four million teachers identify as White. This mismatch is problematic as race was found to play a critical role in how teachers perceive their students’ potential for academic success. Teacher expectations and perceptions are critical to student success. As early as 5 years of age, a child’s race determines how adults perceive them. Researchers at Georgetown University’s law school found that adults view Black girls as ‘less

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innocent’ and ‘aggressively feminine’ in comparison to White girls of the same age (Epstein, Blake, & González, 2017). The 325 adults who participated in the Center’s study were randomly assigned a questionnaire that focused on their perceptions of either Black or White girls. Then, using an advanced statistical technique (measurement invariance analyses), findings revealed that Black girls were perceived to need significantly less affection, care, and support—the basis of human needs (Maslow, 1954)—than their White peers (Epstein et al., 2017). The low expectations, (mis)perceptions, and adultification of Black girls serves to push them out of school and into the school-to-prison pipeline at an alarming rate. The following incidents reveal this ugly truth:    

8-year-old Jamiyha Rickman was arrested at Love Joy Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, for having a tantrum. School officials in Florida arrested 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot, an honor student, because of a botched science experiment. A 12-year-old Black girl was threatened with expulsion from a Florida private school for wearing her hair in its natural state. A 16-year-old Black girl was thrown to the floor by a school resource officer for disobedience in a South Carolina high school (Ford, Botelho, & Conlon, 2015).

In each of the above instances the fact that the girls were Black determined how the adults, who were in positions of power, perceived them and performed their duties. All of the adults ignored the fact that the girls were children. While staggering, the disregard of Black girls in the places that we call schools is not novel. In 1850, officials physically removed 5-year-old Sarah Roberts from her local, ‘White only,’ elementary school. The Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the school’s decision and mandated Sarah attend an all-Black school that was located several miles from her home (Roberts v. The City of Boston, 18501). More recently, in 2014, a 12-year-old Black girl faced expulsion from her elementary school along with criminal mischief charges after she and a White classmate wrote on a locker room wall (Little, 2015). The White student faced much less severe charges. And while the Black girl’s infraction was later reduced to a suspension (after her guardian obtained legal counsel), the fact that the girls were treated disparately makes it clear that schools are still inhospitable to Black girls. Nevertheless, despite their race-based challenges, many Black girls are able to achieve academic success. Importantly, Archer-Banks and Behar-Horenstein (2012) tested the relevance of Ogbu and Simons (1998) theory of oppositional culture by examining the self-reported schooling experiences of eight high achieving Black girls. During focus group interviews several participants shared experiences wherein they were stereotyped by teachers and school personnel. One girl relayed the following account: “One of our teachers told us toward the beginning of the semester that many of us would get pregnant before the semester was over” (Archer-Banks & Behar-Horenstein, 2012, p. 209). Many Black

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TABLE 8.1 Tenets of Black Feminist Thought.

Tenet

Definition

Self-definition

Privileges the self (the Black woman) as a creator of Black womanhood and recognizes the individual and collective Black woman’s reality. The reality and claims of the knower (Black women) is considered truth and is not subject to interrogation. Acknowledges the active participation of the speaker and the listener in knowledge claims. Places agency on the knower. Black women and girls are responsible for Black women and girls.

Lived experience Use of dialogue Personal accountability

girls face such ‘bad’ girl typecasting. Ironically, Archer-Banks and Behar-Horenstein (ibid.) noted that the girls’ racial identity contributed to their academic success.

The Role of Femininity Femininity is often contrary to Black girls’ sense of identity. Femininity centers Whiteness and denigrates Black women and girls who do not align to hegemonic attributes and behaviors deemed acceptable for women and girls. Black girls who fall outside of this paradigm are considered ‘loud,’ ‘ratchet,’ or ‘hypersexual.’ In schools, femininity serves to disenfranchise Black girls as it considers their race and their gender incompatible. In other words, schools employ feminist standards to promote racist and sexist stereotypes that render Black girls invisible at best and problematic at worst. Schools teach Black girls that in order to be successful they must mimic the behaviors of White, middle-class girls (Grant, 1984) and when they fail to do so they are punished (see Crenshaw et al., 2015; Morris, 2016; National Women’s Law Center, 2014). Black girls are punished in schools more than all other girls in every state in the nation (National Women’s Law Center, 2017). They are three times more likely than White girls to be suspended from school and account for one of three school related arrests (National Women’s Law Center, 2017; Morris, 2016). Morris (2012) explained how Black girls’ schooling experiences are framed by identity politics. Hence, Black girls are punished in schools for who they are (Black and female) rather than what they do. As a result of this reality Black girls must choose between being perceived as a ‘good’ girl and adopt White ideals of femininity or align with ‘bad’ girls, “Girls that behave in a ‘ghetto’ fashion—which exacerbate stereotypes about Black femininity” (ibid., p. 5). Neither choice is amenable as they decenter Black girls’ standpoints and hinders their individuality. As a remedy to hegemonic ideals of femininity, Black Feminist Theory (Collins, 2000) provides tools for Black women and girls to understand their nuanced

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realities. Watson (2016) utilized the latter approach in her study, Talking Back: The Perceptions and Experiences of Black Girls Who Attend City High School. As a Black woman, mother, and scholar she wanted to “honor voices that are oftentimes silenced in schools and to employ standpoints that are seldom considered in education research” (ibid., p. 239). She juxtaposed the school-based narratives of six Black girls to the tenets of BFT (Table 8.1) in order to celebrate the girls’ standpoints, efficacy, and brilliance. Unfortunately, schools do not promote attributes that sustain and encourage the well-being of Black girls. Watson’s study revealed that many of the Black girls at City High School felt overwhelmed and were in need of counseling. School was an unwelcoming place where they often felt invisible. Iesha, a senior, shared the following memory: In my sophomore year I was diagnosed with depression. My grades went from high 90s and 80s to completely failing the majority of my classes. It felt even worse because no one noticed my grades like “How do you go from 85 to 55?” (Watson, 2016, p. 243) Schooling, for many of the Black girls in Watson’s study, was an unpleasant experience that rendered them unsure of themselves and with feelings of low selfesteem. Based on his 2-year ethnographic study at Matthews Middle School (a pseudonym), Morris found that teachers unwittingly contributed to Black girls’ feeling unwanted by encouraging them to strive for hegemonic ideals of femininity. He wrote: Many teachers encouraged these girls [Black girls] to exemplify an ideal, docile form of femininity, emblematized in the prescription to act like “ladies.” At the same time, however, most teachers viewed the existing femininity of these girls as coarse and overly assertive, leading one teacher to describe them as “loudies.” (Morris, 2007, p. 490–491) The teachers’ depiction of Black girls is unsettling to the say the least and contrary to what seminal African American sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois (1935) believed to be essential for a proper education of Black children, “a sympathetic touch between teacher and pupil” (p. 328). Paradoxically, Morris (2007) discussed the ways in which several Black teachers at Matthews treated Black girls poorly based on a normalized concept of femininity. As mentioned, schools, by and large, privilege Whiteness and do not affirm nor celebrate Black girls (Archer-Banks & Behar-Horenstein, 2012; Grant, 1984). Similar to the Black girls who participated in Watson’s (2016) perception study

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and Morris’s (2007) ethnographic study, the Black girls who participated in IspaLanda’s (2013) study were characterized as ‘loud’ and ‘ghetto.’ In the above-cited studies Black girls were able to push back on classmates, teachers, and school personnel who attempted to marginalize them. Interestingly, the very ‘Blackness’ that was used to disparage the girls was essential to their survival in and out of school.

The Potency of Privilege Privilege plays a powerful role in schooling as it upholds Whiteness and those who adopt White norms. The Black girls who participated in Archer-Banks and Behar-Horenstein’s (2012) study were successful despite being stifled by their ‘Blackness.’ Morris indicated similar findings: While Black girls have been able to achieve a certain degree of academic success, they have also been subjected to powerful narratives about their collective identity that impact what they think about school, what they think about themselves as scholars, and how they perform at school. (Morris, 2016, p. 13) While disappointing, these findings are not shocking as privilege, like femininity, is purposefully aligned to Whiteness. The potency of privilege shapes society’s disdain for Black girls. This truth is evident in Black girls’ schooling experiences. As stated, many Black girls, contrary to the ideals of femininity, demonstrate ‘loud’ and ‘aggressive’ behaviors in order to survive in and out of school settings. Morris (2007) argued such actions are needed because Black girls do not enjoy the same protection and privilege as other girls. In her book, Downed by Friendly Fire: Black Girls, White Girls, and Suburban Schooling, Fordham (2016) examined the impact of privilege and the ideals of femininity on the schooling experiences of girls who attend a suburban high school located in upstate New York. She coined the term ‘symbolic violence’ to describe the ways in which words, language, and images negatively impacted girls, especially Black girls, creating inequity and race-based schooling experiences. The potency of privilege in Black girls’ schooling experiences is also evident in a 2015 brief issued by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). Data revealed that Black girls who attend public schools in New York City and Boston were 10 and 11 times more likely to be suspended from school than their White counterparts (Crenshaw et al., 2015). The girls who were interviewed for the report felt targeted by their school’s safety agents and that their presence in school was unwelcome. The Black girls in Watson’s (2016) study also reported feeling ‘overpoliced’ in City High School (a pseudonym). One girl explained, “You could be doing what you have to do, walking through the hallway and they [security agents] just want to put you in the Safe Room [a room where truant and difficult

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students are held]” (ibid., p. 243). Participants felt that the school’s safety officers viewed them as behavioral problems and punished them unjustly. In Sister Citizen, Harris-Perry (2011) shared how, beginning in slavery, Black children were equated to chattle. She also found that Black girls and women were often perceived as ‘angry’ and ‘aggressive,’ which may account for the racialized disparities in school discipline data. This finding is evident in Morris’s (2016) publication, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. Morris explained that despite the fact that Black girls make up only 16 percent of the student body nationwide, they account for one out of three school related arrests and are systemically ‘pushed out’ of schools. Studies also report that many Black girls who are involved in the school-to-prison-pipeline are victims of physical, sexual, or psychological trauma (National Women’s Law Center, 2014). Many Black girls are traumatized in schools and their reports of assault are often met with either disbelief or indifference (see Crenshaw et al., 2015; Morris, 2016). For instance, during the 2015–2016 school year, three Black girls between the ages of 13–15 filed federal complaints against New York City’s Department of Education (Katz, 2016). The girls were sexually assaulted while they were at school and were further victimized by school officials. To explain, one young girl was forced to perform oral sex on two boys, another was battered and ‘dry humped’ by her assailant, and a third was told by the principal of her middle school to transfer to another school to avoid the gossip and humiliation garnered by her sexual assault (ibid.). In each of these instances Black girls were not given the same affection, care, and support that privilege affords their counterparts.

#BlackGirlsMatter Black girls occupy a unique space based on the intersection of race and gender. In many ways, their very existence demands that they reject racism and hegemony. Black girls know inherently that they matter and even with the salience of race, the role of femininity, and the potency of privilege evident in their schooling experiences, they continue to advocate for equitable and socially just schools. The report, Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity, produced by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in conjunction with the National Women’s Law Center (2014), calls attention to the groundbreaking efforts of Black girls, who helped to change the face of public education. The following paragraphs highlight the narratives of Sarah Roberts, Linda Brown, and Barbara Rose Johns—trailblazers for educational justice.

Sarah Roberts Sarah Roberts was the first Black girl to lead the charge for equitable schooling (National Women’s Law Center, 2014). She paved the way for the historic Brown v.

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Board of Education (1954) decision, which outlawed de jure segregation in the nation’s public schools. To expound, a century before the historic Brown ruling Benjamin Roberts, Sarah’s father, attempted to enroll her in an all-White school that was in close proximity to their Boston home. The all-Black school Sarah was required to attend was further from their home and in poor condition in comparison to the nearby White schools. After Sarah was denied entry into her neighborhood school, and was physically removed from another all-White school, her father challenged the state’s segregated and discriminatory educational system (National Women’s Law Center, 2014; Roberts v. Boston, 1850). While the Massachusetts Supreme Court deemed Roberts’s case without merit, in 1855 Sarah brought her case to the state’s legislature and Massachusetts became the first state to ban segregation in its public schools (National Women’s Law Center, 2014).

Linda Brown In 1950 Linda Brown, like Sarah Roberts, was denied entry into an all-White school based on the color of her skin. The third grader was forced to walk over an hour and across dangerous railroad tracks to attend an all-Black school. In 1951, Linda’s parents (Oliver and Darlene Brown) joined Lena Carper, Sadie Emmanuel, Marguerite Emerson, Shirley Fleming, Zelma Henderson, Shirley Hodison, Maude Lawton, Alma Lewis, Iona Richardson, and Lucinda Todd to file a class action suit against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. Led by Topeka’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the plaintiffs sought relief for their children who were mandated to attend Kansas’s segregated public schools (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954; National Women’s Law Center, 2014; Roberts v. Boston, 1850).

Barbara Rose Johns The Brown case, as heard before the Supreme Court, was a combination of five cases (Brown v. Board of Education, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Gebhart v. Belton, and Bolling v. Sharpe) and aimed to dismantle segregation in the nation’s public schools. Of the five cases, Davis was the only one that began as a student protest and 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns—a Black girl—led the dissent (National Women’s Law Center, 2014). Johns attended the all-Black Robert Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The school was overcrowded and did not have the basic necessities for an appropriate education; namely, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, classrooms, and importantly, desks. Johns organized a school-wide boycott and led 450 classmates to the homes of school board members in an effort to make them aware of the deplorable conditions of their high school (ibid.).

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The Problem with Whiteness The efforts of Sarah Roberts, Linda Brown, and Barbara Rose Johns remind us that if we want to improve our reality and the educational outcomes of all children, we should study the efforts and schooling experiences of Black girls. McGuffey and Rich (1999) found Black girls to be more assertive and communal than other children. This ethos is evident in the advocacy efforts of the abovementioned Black girls, and as the National Women’s Law Center (2014) made clear, “This legacy is just one example of the determination of African American girls and women to access education to improve not only their lives but also the lives of others in their communities” (p. 6). To date, Black girls continue to face challenges in the nation’s public schools based on their race and gender, and centered in Whiteness. Whiteness is perpetuated when children are racially isolated. As schools are among the first places wherein socialization occurs, active racial socialization helps children challenge Whiteness while enabling them to effectively navigate in and out of school. As a possible remedy to the inequities women and girls of color experience, President Barack Obama established the White House’s Council on Women and Girls. While the Council has not been active under the current Trump presidency, this initiative is considered in the following pages, along with other policies and programs created to improve the educational outcomes of children, especially Black girls.

The White House’s Council on Women and Girls Established in 2009, the Council is a federal initiative and is fueled, in part, by $100 million from public women’s foundations. The mission of the Council is to: Establish a coordinated Federal response to issues that particularly impact the lives of women and girls and to ensure that Federal programs and policies address and take into account the distinctive concerns of women and girls, including women of color and those with disabilities. (Obama, 2009) In 2014 the Council issued a report, Women and Girls of Color: Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunities (White House Council on Women and Girls, 2014). This report highlighted the barriers that hindered the educational outcomes and life chances of women and girls of color. Data included in the report showed from 2009–2012 while Black girls made gains in terms of educational attainment, they still lagged behind their White peers and all other girls of color. A year later the Council released a follow up report, Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color (White House Council on Women and Girls, 2015). This report detailed the most recent efforts of President Obama’s administration

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to improve the schooling experiences of girls of color and included the following data-driven initiatives: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Fostering school success and reducing unnecessary exclusionary school discipline by implementing supportive school discipline strategies and policies, including through public awareness of the impact on girls of color; Meeting the needs of vulnerable and striving youth by recognizing and responding appropriately to the finding that many girls enter intervening public systems through a route that begins with sexual abuse and trauma; Increasing access to inclusive STEM education to meet 21st-century workforce demands and reducing opportunity gaps that affect women broadly in STEM education and fields, but often affect women and girls of color the most; Sustaining reduced rates of teen pregnancy and building on success through expanded access to knowledge about birth control and preventive health services; Expanding pathways to economic prosperity through opportunities for job mobility and investments in fair, equitable workplace policies (ibid., pp. 2–3).

While the aforementioned efforts are vital to achieve educational equity, based on the literature, a federal mandate requiring all states (and U.S. territories) to make school discipline data disaggregated by race, gender, English language learner, and disability status available to the public is sorely needed.

The Departments of Education and Justice The federal government has indirect yet considerable influence over education policies when states accept attached federal dollars. Hence, on January 8, 2014, in alignment with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, the U.S. Department of Education (2014) released a resource package. This collaborative set of guidelines were intended to promote fair and effective school disciplinary practices and to “assist states, districts and schools in developing practices and strategies to enhance school climate, and ensure those policies and practices comply with federal law” (n.p.). The resource package consisted of four components: 1. 2. 3.

a crucial “Dear Colleague guidance letter”—to ensure schools and districts were not practicing disparate and exclusionary school discipline; a host of “Guiding principles”—to promote new research and best practices while improving school climate and school discipline; a robust “Directory of Federal School Climate Discipline Resources”—to help schools and districts access technical assistance and federal resources centered on school climate and school discipline; and

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4.

a comprehensive “Compendium of School Discipline Laws and Regulations”—to ensure that all stakeholders have access to school discipline laws and regulations for each of the 50 states and U.S. territories.

Educational advocates were pleased when President Obama’s administration released educational and juvenile justice data to better direct their efforts. And while this was good news, a disproportionate amount of Black girls continue to participate in the school-to-prison pipeline. Therefore, in addition to the previously mentioned federal mandate requiring all states (and U.S. territories) to make school discipline data (disaggregated by race, gender, English language learner and disability status) available to the public, district-level initiatives and resources are needed to challenge inequitable school discipline policies. In March of 2014, the monthly periodical Race & Justice News detailed how Texas, Minneapolis, and New York were taking data-driven steps to close the discipline gap. The following paragraphs provide an understanding of the state and district-level efforts.

Closing the Discipline Gap In 2013 Texas passed two laws (Senate Bills 393 and 1114) that led to an 83 percent decline in children being prosecuted as adults for alleged crimes committed at school (Lindell, 2014). Prior to the laws, the vast majority of children indicted for misdemeanor offenses, such as disrupting class and fighting on school grounds, were Black and Hispanic. Importantly, senate Bills 393 and 1114 kept nearly 90,000 children out of adult court and mandated schools to handle their own disciplinary infractions. Opponents of the bills stated that by restricting the type of citations issued on school grounds, children will bring their violent behaviors into the classroom creating an unsafe environment learning environment (ibid.). The reasoning demonstrated by opponents of Senate Bills 393 and 1114 was racially biased and discounted the valuable roles teachers, guidance counselors, and school leaders play in promoting positive student behavior. Indeed, if schools provided appropriate mental health counseling children would learn how to manage their emotions reducing their overall need to be policed—in and outside of school. One superintendent in Minneapolis, Bernadeia Johnson, realized the role of district leaders in closing the discipline gap (Johnson, 2014). In the fall of 2014 she imposed a moratorium on suspensions for students in the first grade and younger for nonviolent behavior and began working with her leadership team to review cases wherein there was a racial disparity in school discipline, specifically, out-of-school suspensions. In an op-ed Johnson penned in the Washington Post, she explained her stance on school discipline: The problem of racial disparities in school discipline doesn’t affect Minneapolis alone. Nationwide, black and white children suffer different

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consequences for their behavior as soon as they begin school. Black students are just 18 percent of all preschoolers, but they are 48 percent of preschoolers with more than one out-of-school suspension Minority students do not misbehave more than their white peers; they are disciplined more severely for the same behavior. (Johnson, 2014) Ironically, Johnson’s critics believed her discipline plan discriminated against racial groups, specifically White students. In a commentary published in Minneapolis’s Star Tribune, Tom Corbett (2014) found the new policy “expressly discriminates between racial groups by providing additional review of proposed suspensions of black, Hispanic and American Indian students for nonviolent behaviors.” This logic is faulty in that it assumes that only the suspensions of students of color would be reviewed. In actuality, Johnson’s new policy called for all out-of-school suspensions—in which children of different races received disparate rulings—to be reviewed. Unfortunately, two months after Johnson revised the district’s discipline policies she resigned. There was an immediate rise in out-of-school suspensions and the district’s data also revealed a spike in in-school suspensions (Matos, 2015). In the spring of 2015, Bill de Blasio (the Mayor of New York City) revised the Department of Education’s (DOE) discipline policies for the city’s nearly 1,800 public schools. He required principals to receive permission from the DOE’s Office of Safety and Youth Development before a student can be suspended and ordered New York City’s Police Department to track and report each time a student was placed in handcuffs (Harris, 2015). The Mayor’s critics were initially unimpressed with his revised school discipline policies. However, based on data released nearly a year later, de Blasio made the right decision: the DOE’s suspension rates decreased by 32 percent (Zimmer, 2016). Furthermore, while the aforementioned state laws and school discipline policies and practices are worthwhile efforts to remedy the school discipline gap, they did not focus on the nuanced realities Black girls face in schools, which oftentimes funnel them to prison. In 2016 the American Bar Association’s Joint Task Force on Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline published a draft report along with recommendations in their efforts to analyze the complex issues surrounding the school-toprison pipeline. Their recommendations included the following observation and best practices: The school-to-prison pipeline is a complex problem with no easy or simple solutions. At their core, solutions should focus on ways to (a) improve academic achievement and increase the likelihood that students will remain in school, graduate, and prepare to become positive, contributing members of

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our society, (b) decrease the number of suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to law enforcement; and (c) decrease disparities along racial and other lines relating to discipline and academic achievement. (Redfield & Nance, 2016, p. 13) Indeed, these findings are helpful; however, specific solutions germane to race and gender are needed to address the impact of Whiteness on the schooling experiences of Black girls. In the final section, best practices are proffered to improve the schooling experiences and life chances of Black girls.

Just For Black Girls This review of literature highlights the ways in which White privilege, specifically the salience of race, the role of femininity, and the potency of privilege hinders the educational outcomes of Black girls. Studies reveal that based on the intersection of race and gender, Black girls are suspended from school more than all other girls and most boys (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Morris, 2016; National Women’s Law Center, 2014). Moreover, far too many Black girls are suspended from school under a subjective set of infractions, including ‘disobedience,’ ‘defiance,’ and ‘improper dress’ (Hannon, DeFina, & Bruch, 2013). These exclusionary practices serve to propagate the school-to-prison pipeline, leaving Black girls vulnerable to further acts of emotional and physical trauma. It is critical that school leaders, utilizing school and district-level data, work with educational activists, parents, teachers and Black girls to revise subjective discipline policies that disproportionally punish Black girls. Next, leadership matters. Second only to teachers, school leaders have a profound effect on student achievement (Leithwood & Louis, 2011) and on affecting the life chances of students (Jean-Marie & Mansfield, 2013). As mentioned, Black girls were found to be more assertive and communal than other children (McGuffey & Rich, 1999) and have led the way in the fight for equitable and just schooling (see Brown v. Board of Education, 1954; Roberts v. Boston, 1850). These characteristics and practices are also evident in Black women (see Collins, 2000; Johnson, 2014). Minneapolis superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, a Black woman, knew what she was doing when she issued a moratorium on the suspensions of young children for non-violent offenses and mandated a review of disparate school discipline practices. If states and districts are truly interested in improving the realities of Black girls in schools, they should launch leadership preparation initiatives aimed at increasing the amount of Black women in leadership positions in K-20 settings. Last, the angst Black girls experience in schools throughout the nation is palpable. Schools are, by and large, racist institutions, and schooling affirms White racial dominance by over-policing and marginalizing Black girls, instead of protecting and celebrating them. And, as the vast majority of school leaders and teachers in the U.S. are respectively White and White women

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(Albert Shanker Institute, 2014), their inherit privilege renders them immune to the potency of Whiteness. Moreover, as an unfortunate consequence of their lived experiences and innate bias, White people (and some Black people) reconstruct Whiteness. In order to counteract Whiteness and its effects on Black girls’ schooling experiences, all school leaders and teachers should be required to take a series of courses centered on eradicating Whiteness and fostering culturally relevant methodologies that challenge implicit race and gender biases.

Note 1 This case was later cited in the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision, which established ‘separate but equal’ schools for Black and White children.

References Albert Shanker Institute. (2014). The state of teacher diversity in American education. Washington DC: Author. Archer-Banks, D. A. M., & Behar-Horenstein, L. S. (2012). Ogbu revisited: Unpacking highachieving African American girls’ high school experiences. Urban Education, 47, 198–223. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas. 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954). Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge. Corbett, T. (2014). Why Minneapolis is wrong on school suspensions. StarTribune. Retrieved from www.startribune.com/why-minneapolis-is-wrong-on-school-susp ensions/282345011/ Crenshaw, K. W., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: The New Press. Crenshaw, K., Owen, P., & Nanda, J. (2015). Black girls matter: Pushed out, overpoliced, and underprotected. Retrieved from www.law.columbia.edu/null/download?&exclu sive=filemgr.download&file_id=613546 DeCuir, J. & Dixson, A. (2004). “So when it comes out, they aren’t that surprised that it is there”: Critical race theory as a tool of analysis of race and racism in education. Educational Researcher, 33(5), 26–31. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (Eds.). (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction (2nd ed.). New York: New York University Press. DuBois, W. E. B. (1935) Does the negro need separate schools? Journal of Negro Education, 4(3), 328–355. Epstein, R., Blake, J. J., & González, T. (2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of Black girls’ childhood. Retrieved from www.law.georgetown.edu/academics/cen ters-institutes/poverty-inequality/upload/girlhood-interrupted.pdf Ford, D., Botelho, G., Conlon, K. (2015). Spring Valley high school officer suspended after violent classroom arrest. Retrieved from www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/us/south-ca rolina-school-arrest-video Fordham, S. (2016). Downed by friendly fire: Black girls, White girls, and suburban schooling. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

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Gillborn, D. (2006). Rethinking white supremacy: Who counts in ‘Whiteworld.’ Ethnicities, 6(3), 318–340. Grant, L. (1984). Black females ‘place’ in integrated classrooms. Sociology of Education, 57: 98–111. Hannon, L., DeFina, R., & Bruch, S. (2013). The relationship between skin tone and school suspensions for African Americans. Race and Social Problems, 5(4), 281–295. Harris, E. (2015). Suspension rules altered in New York City’s revision of school discipline code. The New York Times, 13 February. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2015/02/ 14/nyregion/suspension-rules-altered-in-new-york-citys-revision-of-school-disciplinecode.html?_r=1 Harris-Perry, M. V. (2011). Sister citizen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ispa-Landa, S. (2013). Gender, race, and justifications for group exclusion: Urban Black students bussed to affluent suburban schools. Sociology of Education, 86(3): 218–233. Jean-Marie, G., & Mansfield, K. C. (2013). Race and racial discrimination in schools: School leaders’ courageous conversations. In J. S. Brooks & N. W. Arnold (Eds.), Antiracist school leadership: Toward equity in education for America’s students (pp. 19–36). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Johnson, B. (2014). Critics say my discipline policy is unfair to white students. Here’s why they’re wrong. The Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost. com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/26/critics-say-my-new-discipline-policy-is-unfa ir-to-white-students-heres-why-theyre-wrong/?utm_term=.bc50d8ef1d11 Katz, M. (2016). NYC schools accused on ‘institutionalized deliberate indifference’ to sexualt assault survivors. Retrieved from http://gothamist.com/2016/06/08/doe_sexua l_assault_mishandling.php Leithwood, K., & Louis, K.S. (2011). Linking leadership to student learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Lightfoot, S. L. (1976). The education and socialization of young Black girls in school. Teachers College Record, 78(2), 239–262. Lindell, C. (2014). New laws drastically cut prosecutions of Texas students . myStatesman. Retrieved from http://www.mystatesman.com/news/new-laws-drastically-cut-prosecu tions-texas-students/ULnmGlorMdwAhuV1Qbc5EM/ Little, A. (2015). #BlackGirlsMatter: When girls of color are policed out of school. Retrieved from http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/02/05/blackgirlsmatter-when-girls-of-color-are-p oliced-out-of-school Maslow, A. H. (1954). The instinctoid of nature of basic needs. Journal of Personality, 22, 326–347. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1954.tb01136.x Matos, A. (2015) Minneapolis school suspensions up under new leadership. StarTribune. Retrieved from www.startribune.com/minneapolis-school-suspensions-up-under-new-lea dership/304826151 McGuffey, S. C., & Rich, B. L. (1999). Playing in the gender transgression zone: Race, class, and hegemonic masculinity in middle childhood. Gender & Society, 13(5) 608–627. Morris, E. W. (2007). “Ladies” or “loudies”?: Perceptions and experiences of Black girls in classrooms. Youth & Society, 38(4) 490–515. Morris, M. W. (2012). Race, gender, and the school-to-prison pipeline: Expanding our discussion to include Black girls. New York:African American Policy Forum. Morris, M. W. (2016). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. New York: The New Press.

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National Women’s Law Center. (2014). Unlocking opportunity for African American girls: A call to action for educational equity. Retrieved from https://nwlc.org/resour ces/unlocking-opportunity-african-american-girls-call-action-educational-equity Obama, B. (2009). Executive Order 13506 of March 11, 2009: Establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. Federal Register, 74(49). Retrieved from www.gp o.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-03-16/pdf/E9-5802.pdf Ogbu, J. O., & Simons, H. D. (1998). Voluntary and involuntary minorities: A culturalecologocial theory of school performance with some implications for education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 29(2)155–188. Patton, L. D., Crenshaw, K. W., Haynes, C., & Watson, T. N. (Eds.). (2016). Editorial introduction. Why we can’t wait: (Re)Examining the opportunities and challenges for Black women and girls in education. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(3) 194–198. Redfield, S. E., & Nance, J. P. (2016) Preliminary report. American Bar Association Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice, Criminal Justice Section, and Council for Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline. Retrieved from https://scholarship.law.ufl. edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1765&context=facultypub Roberts v. The City of Boston, 59 Mass. (5 Cush.) 198 (1850). Schott Foundation. (2010). Yes we can: The Schott 50 state report on public education and Black males. Retrieved from http://schottfoundation.org/resources/yes-we-ca n-schott-50-state-report-public-education-and-black-males. United States Department of Education. (2014). U.S. Departments of Education and Justice release school discipline guidance package to enhance school climate and improve school discipline policies/practices. January 8. Retrieved January 12, 2018 from www. ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-departments-education-and-justice-release-school-discip line-guidance-packageWatson, T. N. (2016). “Talking back”: The perceptions and experiences of Black girls who attend City High School. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(3), 239–249. White House Council on Women and Girls. (2014). Women and girls of color: Addressing challenges and expanding opportunities. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www.white house.gov/sites/ default/files/docs/cwg_women_and_girls_of_color_report_112014.pdf White House Council on Women and Girls. (2015). Advancing equity for women and girls of color. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/ADVANCING_EQUITY_FOR_WOMEN_ AND_GIRLS_OF_COLOR_REPORT.pdf Zimmer, A. (2016). NYC public school suspensions drop 32%, city says. Retrieved from www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160331/hunts-point/nyc-public-school-suspensionsdrop-32-percent-doe-says

9 A PHOTO-TESTIMONIO Educational Expectations for Resiliencies of First-Generation Latina STEM College Students Lindsay Romasanta and Daniel D. Liou UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO AND ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Introduction Despite decades of research devoted to understanding the access and degree attainment of low-income, first-generation college students, universities’ abilities to create a safe, inclusive, and equitable campus racial climate remains a fundamental challenge. The persistence of such challenge is due in part to universities’ emphasis on broadening college access without intentionally considering how to create structures and processes to foster the educational success of historically underrepresented populations. This includes many students of color who are the first in their family to attend college. As the K-12 population continues to grow and diversify at the intersection of race and first-generational status, the need is pressing for administrators at four-year universities to seek ways to increase the degree attainment of this particular population. In the meantime, leakage along the educational pipeline continues persist for many students of color (Solórzano & Yosso, 2006), and many universities across the United States have not yet asked the right questions to create the necessary systems and opportunities that genuinely address these students’ needs when they arrive on college campuses. For example, Latinx are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States (Brown & Lopez, 2013). When examining the P-20 Latinx educational pipeline, only one in ten Latinx between the ages of 18 and 24 has a bachelor degree (Reyes & Nora, 2012). These numbers are even more troublesome when we look into gender differences and the statistics concerning Latinas, and their access into graduate and professional schools (Solórzano & Yosso, 2006). Nationally, one in every five women in the country is a Latina (Gándara & Mordechay, 2017), making them one of the fastest growing and most underrepresented on college campuses when compared to other racial groups. Within

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this population, the educational trajectories of Latinas can vary at the intersections of social class, immigration status, and educational attainment (Covarrubias, 2011; Covarrubias & Lara, 2014; Solórzano & Yosso, 2006). Additionally, Latinas are disproportionately impacted by economic injustices and access to healthcare when compared to men and other women in the United States (Gándara, 2015). Among the college undergraduate population, Latinas are less likely to complete a college degree, especially in STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and math) when compared to other women (ibid.). So far, the prevailing narrative on the “lack” of college degree attainment has largely focused on Latinas’ academic readiness and deficiencies (Reyes & Nora, 2012). These well-worn analytic frameworks failed to take into account of their institutional experiences, resulting in research that attribute their academic challenges to issues related to home culture, lack of parental support, and other personal traits. We need to take into account the institutional factors and situations that threaten their academic progress (Gillborn, 2010; Harper, 2010; Valencia, 2011). The visibility of these challenges has not yet created new conditions for administrators to fully understand the systemic problems that may exist at their university, nor has it provided new opportunities to learn about the nuances of stories and experiences of Latinas in the STEM fields. In fact, the images and dayto-day experiences of Latinas have remained invisible for those seeking to cultivate a more inclusive and equitable campus racial climate (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009). More recently, many higher education administrators and student affair professionals have increasingly relied on grit as a framework and strategy for policy and academic intervention. However, many researchers have also argued that such approach is limited and individualistic, and failed to account for the structures, belief systems, and institutional practices that contribute to the campus racial climate. Another underlying assumption of grit is the perspective that students who do not persist educationally are not already exercising some forms of human agency to be academically resilient (Rea, 2015; Yosso, 2005). Noguera (2015) explained that the concepts of “grit” and “human agency” are fundamentally different, but they are often mistakenly coalesced to reinforce “self-help” ideologies without looking into possible systemic factors that are perpetuating these inequities. Instead, Noguera (ibid.) elaborated on the need to ameliorate these inequities with a clear and effective infrastructure to collectively cultivate the academic success of students. The distinction between the concepts of grit and human agency has allowed us to understand the importance of institutional context in which students learn. So far, there is no research showing college students expecting their own failure once they get into college. Additionally, research is limited in centering Latina’s perspectives and experiences in coping with adversity and situations that threaten their academic wellbeing to shed light on existing barriers and solutions to their degree attainment. Therefore, this study was designed to learn from the students’ perspectives

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of what they are already doing to draw upon their expectations to harness academic resilience, and how universities can create structures and systems to further assist these students to meet their educational objectives. Through students’ perspectives, we hope to create a new window of opportunity for university administrators to listen to these students’ accounts, and ask a different set of questions that will lead to more effective solutions to support their academic resilience and college success. The purpose of this chapter is to inform university administrators and student affairs professionals on the existing images and practices of Latina undergraduate college students’ expectations for academic resiliencies towards college attainment in white-serving institutions. Using one university in America’s southwest as a case study, this work is especially significant given the pressing need to strengthen the educational pipeline for Latina students. Equally important, universities also need to look closely at issues associated with campus racial climate that, many have reported, have increasingly become hostile due to the anti-Latinx political climate under the Donald Trump presidency. The study draws on Latina undergraduate STEM students’ photo-testimonios to capture their perceptions and expectations of academic resilience navigating their institution’s campus racial climate. We refer to photo-testimonios as a platform for historically marginalized populations to utilize photo images accompany with storytelling to illuminate their perspectives, material realities, and life experiences at the intersections of race, gender, immigration, and first-generational status. We specifically focused on the experiences of STEM Latina students due to the white-male dominated context, and increased concerns about the severe underrepresentation of Latinas in the STEM field. We hope that our research participants’ photo-testimonios will engage current and future university leaders to envision a new set of approaches, resources, and strategies to better support Latinas, as well as to learn from their stories of success navigating institutions of higher education. The study asked the following research questions: 1. 2.

How do first-generation Latina STEM college students harness their academic expectations for college resiliency in a majority white institution? How do first-generation Latina STEM college students act upon their academic expectations for college resiliency to resist systems of marginalization in a majority white institution?

Instead of recycling dominant narratives about students’ deficits, this chapter proposes that we have much to learn from Latina STEM undergraduates’ perspectives of their experiences on college campuses. From their photo-testimonios, the study looked to capture how they made sense of their college experiences and to provide these students a platform to challenge prevailing narratives about their presumed deficits and expectations of college success.

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Expectations about Latina, Low-Income, First-Generation College Students In the following section, we explored the literature to discuss the context in which Latinas often found themselves in expectancy situations, the status of such context for Latinas in the STEM majors in college, and the role of academic resilience in helping them to resist and survive the campus racial climate within their university. Historically classified as “at risk,” the enrollment of Latinas in predominantly white-serving institutions often perpetuate generalizations, stereotypes, and statements about their missing characteristics and dispositions to be academically successful (Valencia, 2011). These deficit perceptions are not new to Latinas, as K-12 teachers often expect this population to be non-college bound, and more likely to hold careers that do not require a college degree (Dabach, Suárez-Orozco, Hernandez, & Brooks, 2017; Liou, 2016). Furthermore, K-12 teachers’ college-going expectations of racialized populations have been identified as a strong predictor that can bolster or undermine students’ postsecondary trajectories (Dabach et al., 2017; Gregory & Huang, 2013). In similar ways, students’ of color own college-going expectations often translate into efforts to be successful in the college classroom. The combination of these expectations have shown to be additive and promotes students’ willingness and capacities to learn regardless of their “risk” status (Gregory & Huang, 2013). Once arrived in college, many students of color further encounter negative expectations as they are often assessed into remedial classes or steered away from academic majors that are perceived to be too difficult for them. For this reason, many of these students reported to experience stereotypes that put their status as college students and intellectual qualifications into question (Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005). Spencer, Logel, and Davies (2016) underscored the ways in which racial stereotypes can be operative in a given social environment to disrupt or influence college students’ behaviors and undermine their aspirations and performances. This further added barriers to college students’ human propensity to seek help when necessary. These barriers, along with pervasive racial doubts cast a hostile campus racial climate for Latinas and other students of color in ways that minimizes their self-worth and sense of belonging (Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009). Research on stereotype threat showed these hostile campus racial climate to induce behaviors and interactions based on wrongful assumptions and stereotypes. When the perpetrator and recipient of these racial attitudes are socialized to view these threats as normal and justified, these power dynamics can be recreated systemically and interpersonally in a hierarchical manner to reinforce one’s “risk” and “superiority” status (Cabrera, 2014; Liou & Rotheram-Fuller, 2016). Together, low educational expectations in the classroom and a hostile campus racial climate are two of the biggest threats to degree attainment by students of color (Museus, Nichols, & Lambert, 2008).

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Status of Latinas in the STEM Fields In STEM education, the enrollment and post-secondary completion of Latinas in these academic disciplines is largely disproportionate when compared to other groups at the intersections of race and gender. In fact, Latinas are less likely to get a degree in one of the STEM areas than other women (Gándara, 2015). In 2010, whereas Asian and White females are earning STEM degree rates at 33 percent and 23 percent respectively, Latinas earned 17 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the STEM fields (ibid.). The disparity in STEM participation included a severe lack of diversity in STEM faculty and staff, role models, and awareness about career opportunities in the sciences (Peralta et al., 2013). Additionally, Latinas in STEM and other women of color experience additional barriers when encountering racial stereotypes that intersect with their gender identities and academic disciplines where they are severely underrepresented. Many of these students face micro aggressions where they are often one of few women and of color in the classroom. As such, they experience instances of racial stereotypes about their academic abilities from faculty and peers (Johnson, 2012). They also disproportionately experience isolation and the feeling of being unwelcomed, unsupported, and invisible (Espinosa, 2011). These are all institutional challenges associated with lower educational expectations that have historically threatened Latinas’ mobility at the university setting. Instead of further pathologizing Latinas as passive recipients or perpetrators of their own race and gender oppression, we draw on research to illuminate the capacity of human agency to resist marginalization and effectively interact with their institutional context. As a starting point, we need to acknowledge that Latinas enter the university in the STEM fields as a result of their own choosing in the midst of race and gender inequities (Acevedo-Gil, 2017). This is a clear sign that they have strong aspirations and expectations to do well upon acceptance into the academic major. However, this body of work has fall short on theorizing or empirically documenting the resilience of Latinas in the STEM fields. This further necessitated this study, given Latina’s history of leadership in organizing for their civil and educational rights (Delgado Bernal & Aleman, 2016; Morales, Avina, & Bernal, 2016).

Academic Resilience as Forms of Survival and Resistance in STEM In this study, academic resilience is defined as people’s capacity to cope and successfully adapt despite adversity and threatening situations (Howard & Johnson, 2000; Huang & Lin, 2013; Johnson, Taasoobshirazi, Kestler, & Cordova, 2015; Martin & Marsh, 2006). Many students of color operate in racialized contexts where they resist hostile campus racial climate by fostering resilience as a method to survive within the educational pipeline (Cammarota, 2014; Covarrubias & Revilla, 2003; Muñoz, Espino, & Antrop-Gonzalez, 2014; Solórzano & Bernal,

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2001). Resilience research is often discussed through these components: risk factors, protective factors, and compensatory strategies. Risk factors refer to barriers that stand in the way of a student’s achievement (Morales & Trotman, 2004). Protective factors are the strengths the individual possesses that can mitigate risk factors, and compensatory strategies are the methods that individuals cultivate to overcome threats and vulnerabilities (Kitano & Lewis, 2005). While most of resilience research has “focused on individuals who experience severe hardship yet manage to achieve healthy development and academic success” (Campa, 2013, p. 435), this perspective can reinforce our earlier concerns about grit, which undermines the significance of educational structures in rendering the material and experiential realities of these students. Therefore, as a distinguishing point to make is that in this study, resilience does not exist in vacuum, but is situated in institutional context and processes that shape the lives of first-generation STEM college students. We posit that risk factors are not a fixed attribute of a certain individual, but instead can be seen as conditions and support systems underpinning college students’ human agency. These forms of resistance and survival are defined by students’ adaptations, resistance, responses, and interactions with their campus environment.

Theoretical Framework Arguably, students’ institutional experiences are nuanced and contextualized. The current failure to fully understand the perceptions and experiences of first generation Latinas is problematic, given their emergence in U.S. population and the dire need for them to contribute to the STEM fields. We posit that the university structure and environment to be a part of risk and protective factors, as evident in the research on campus racial climate, racial micro aggressions (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015; McGuire, Casanova, & Davis III, 2016), and stereotype threat (Spencer, Logel, & Davies, 2016). To capture these structural and environmental protective factors that support student expectations and resilience toward STEM degree attainment, we draw on photo-testimonio to illuminate the centrality of students’ race, gender, and first-generational experiences, and the ways our research participants draw upon their surroundings, social networks, and resources to operationalize their expectations of academic resilience and degree attainment. From this vantage point, the study draws upon the scholarship of race-gender epistemology (Bernal, 2002), community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), and culturally engaging campus model (Kiyama, Museus, & Vega, 2015) as analytic frameworks to understand the resilience of first-generation Latina STEM college students. This analytic framework consists of students’ mindsets, skillsets, and their perceptions of the opportunity structure to underpin their educational expectations and resilience towards degree attainment. We consider this scholarship to give us the analytic perspective to visualize the way in which Latina STEM students interact with the university systems, and in contexts where lower educational

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expectations and a hostile campus racial climate served as their barriers towards success. First, Bernal (2002) illuminated that the epistemologies and educational experiences of students of color have long been undertheorized, overlooked, and misinterpreted by Eurocentric perspectives. These Eurocentric perspectives of the college experience can often minimize the role that race and gender plays in the lives of Latinas, especially in career fields that are dominated by white males. Furthermore, the scholarship of race-gender epistemology recognizes students of color as legitimate holders and generators of knowledge. This vantage point is consistent with our study on the centrality of Latinas’ ability to name and describe their institutional experiences, especially in intersectional race and gender contexts where their existence or prior knowledge have not been fully recognized by the dominant knowledge system. Second, to reinforce Latina STEM students’ race-gender epistemologies as a strength and not a liability in STEM education, the scholarship on community cultural wealth provides us the analytic tool to understand students’ cultural assets and the skillsets they possess to enact their agency for college resilience. This includes the resources and skills they possess to support their expectations and resilience in the educational pipeline. By centering students’ race-gender epistemology at the center of analysis, the study provides a context where their knowledge systems becomes the basis to illuminate their cultural assets, such as aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistance capitals. Although this work has developed several conceptual diagrams to explain the relationships and linkages of these capitals (Yosso, 2005; Yosso & Garcia, 2007), the literature has yet to extend this analytic perspective to capture visual images through students’ photo-testimonios of their academic expectations and resilience. By definition, aspirational capital refers to the first-generation college-going Latinas’ hopes and dreams to earn a degree in the STEM fields. Linguistic capital refers to Latinas’ languages, expressions, and communication skills that they bring to contribute to intellectual discussions in the classroom, as well as their overall contribution to the range of diverse thoughts and experiences that benefit the college and dormitory environment. Familial capital refers to Latinas’ families that provide them with resources and guidance to help them to obtain their educational objectives. By extension, social capital refers to Latinas’ friends, colleagues, and other social networks that they can count on to provide advice, peer mentorship, and information to gain access to college and the STEM fields. Navigational capital is defined by the skills and strategies that Latinas utilize to effectively navigate educational institutions as first-generation students. Resistance capital allows for Latinas to leverage their personal perspectives, skillsets, and social networks to resist injustices, and in turn, to use their resistance capital and college degree to help others, solve complex social problems, and to transform society.

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Whereas dominant perspectives on social capital tend to use white, middle class interpretations of college experiences that often result in a deficit analysis of students of color, the concept of community cultural wealth provides the tools to understand the nuances in which Latina STEM students harness their expectations and resilience for college success. Importantly, the concept of community cultural wealth also provides a language for researchers to identify the strengths and resources of people of color, and the role of these interrelated forms of capitals in facilitating the development of students’ expectations and resilience of college attainment. Third, the analytic framework of culturally engaging campus model provides a vantage point to examine the opportunity structure that students were engaging in (Museus, Yi, & Saelua, 2017). Museus, Yi and Saelua (ibid.) explained the importance for the university to be intentionally relevant and responsive when establishing campus environments for student engagement. Specifically, they identified culturally engaging campus environments to encompass nine institutional indicators such as spaces for students’ knowledge to be a central part of university’s curriculum, both in the classroom and in student life. Other indicators include opportunities for students to give back to their communities, crosscultural engagements, meaningful relationships, access to faculty and staff who deeply care about students and come from similar life experiences, a campus climate that value collective success, and proactive and validating approaches to interactions with students in ways their knowledge, background, and identities are treated with genuine equity and respect. Museus et al. (ibid.) argued that these indicators are significant to recognizing diverse epistemologies, life experiences, and needs of students in systems of higher education. Together, these analytic frameworks of Latinas’ mindsets, skillsets, and ways they engage with the STEM opportunity structure allowed the study to critically examine how they conceptualize and demonstrate their expectations of resilience in the university context.

Research Context This study took place at Borderland University, a large, four-year university in America’s southwest. It is recognized as one of the most diverse public universities in the U.S. and has accomplished this through an explicit mission to recruit and educate students of low-income and first-generation backgrounds. Given the history of America’s southwest as one of the starting points of Latinx migration and immigration, Borderland University is particularly interested in the educational success of Latinx students and their abilities to contribute to the economic future in the region. Borderland University offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees. In total, there were 58,848 undergraduate students to make up 82 percent of the university’s student population. Within this population, 1 percent are American Indians, 7 percent Asian Americans, 4 percent Black/African

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Americans, 22 percent Latinx, 4 percent two or more races, and 51 percent White Americans. The rest of the students (11%) were international students whose racial backgrounds were unaccounted for by the university. The STEM enrollment at this university totaled over 20,000 students in fall 2016, representing 34 percent of the undergraduate student population. Historically, Borderland University has not investigated into its own campus racial climate. However, despite a rich range of campus diversity, Borderland University does operate in a highly racialized political context that have significant influence on the students’ lives. In the election, and later in his role as the president of the United States, Donald Trump’s white nationalist, economic protectionist politics both dehumanized and criminalized Latinx as “rapist,” “killers,” and “drug dealers” (Moreno, 2016). This created a political climate which normalizes racism and bigotry, and often understood as a form of patriotism to other white nationalists and his followers. Several days after the presidential election, like many other college campuses in the U.S., students arrive on Borderland University to witness graffiti in the residence hall and white supremacy flyers posted across campus kiosks. The flyers read: “Equality is a lie. Race is real. Get woke. Get White.” “White person. Stop apologizing. We don’t owe them anything.” “Come save the White race with us.” “Still scared about being called a racist? May we suggest not caring anymore? Trump didn’t, right?” (Frank, 2016) When challenged by his political oppositions, Trump often failed to denounce these racist public expressions of hate. Instead, he pushed back these accusations by refusing to be “politically correct.” This pattern of white angst was reflective of Trump’s campaign trail and can be traced to his brash signature of abandoning political correctness and openly discussing anti-immigrant rhetoric in many of his early candidate speeches. For instance, during the first debate of the Republican primaries Trump said: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people, I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. (Caesar, 2017) Using this non-apologetic approach, Trump continued to exercise his economic power and white supremacist ideologies throughout the campaign trail, reminding the American audience that he was the “outsider” candidate, unafraid to “make America great again.” To this day, he is still pursuing building a wall, and

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policies to ban Muslims and deport undocumented immigrants. In this white supremacist context, many Latinx in K-12 schools reported to experience an increase of racism from educators and peers. In higher education, Trump eliminated Deferred Action by Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which was designed to allow many undocumented college students to stay in the United States and to attend college. Together, the proliferation of white supremacist ideologies created a deeply racialized context for first-generation Latina STEM students. Nationally, students from all levels of education demonstrated their outcries against Trump’s election, participating in walkouts in almost every major U.S. city. In a local school where this study took place, students participated in the walkout chanting “Not my President!” Despite these demonstrations of solidarity against the newly elected President, Latina students continue to face rising racial tension and increasingly challenging campus climates. More than ever, students are faced with additional barriers while navigating their educational pursuits.

Research Design This research study used non-traditional data collection methods to understand how Latina, low-income FGCS navigate predominantly white institutions. This study relied on participant driven visions and voices to gather what the authors are calling photo-testimonios, which takes the traditions of photoelicitation and oral histories. Photo-elicitation is the use of photographs during an interview process (Collier & Collier, 1986). Participant-produced photoelicitation methods were used because of its ability as a method to access voice, overcome power imbalances between the researcher and the research participants and to facilitate a process of reflective dialogue around a research topic (Liebenberg, Ungar, & Theron, 2014). A testimonio is a qualitative method akin to in-depth interviewing or oral histories, with the addition of it being a conscienticized reflection that brings to light a wrong or an urgent call for action (Reyes & Curry Rodríguez, 2012). Taken together, this one-year study involved the creation of photo-testimonio facilitation groups that involved Latina low-income STEM FGCS in identifying how they develop academic expectations and resiliency in majority white institutions and guided them into identifying the sources of strength that they channeled to overcome those challenges. These methods were intentionally chosen for this study because of their combined parallel philosophies that center around reflection and dialogue (Espino, Vega, Rendón, Ranero, & Muñiz, 2012; Lapenta, 2011). To fully capture student voices, each participant provided their testimonios individually to the researcher first, then the students gathered together over a 10-week period, once a week sharing their photo-testimonios with each other.

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Participants and Sampling Participants in this study were chosen based on race, gender, income, class standing and academic progression for the purpose of studying Latina low-income FGCS and across various identities. Using purposeful sampling, the first criteria involved identifying students who are Latina, low-income FGCS. There are several justifications for this sampling approach, first Latinx students are the largest ethnic minority population at Borderland University. In 2013, Latinx students represented 18.1 percent (13,892 students) of total enrollment. Secondly, Latinx students experience stark differences in staying and eventually graduating from this university when compared to non-Latinx students, with a 6 percent retention rate difference and a 10.4 percent six-year graduation rate difference (data from anonymized source). Lastly, research suggests that although Latinas enroll and graduate from four-year institutions at a higher rate when compared to their male Latino peers, they encounter unique educational barriers that impede their educational pursuits that are even more heightened when they are the first in their families to go to college and come from low income backgrounds (Engle & Tinto, 2008). Some of these unique barriers include balancing family responsibilities, lack of finances, limited family knowledge of college and practical support from families (Gloria & Castellanos, 2012; Sy & Romero, 2008). The second criteria was based on academic discipline. All of the participants had a declared major in a STEM field. The third criteria involved academic progress. To be eligible for the study, participants must have attained at least 30 academic credits, with good academic standing, and were making timely progress towards graduation—these three characteristics represented outcomes of academic resiliency (Morales, 2000). The student participants were recruited via email using an email query provided by Borderland University. Additionally, recruitment invitations were sent to scholarship programs and student organizations. Table 9.1 provides a complete list of demographic information about each participant.

Data Analysis All components of the study were analyzed using grounded theory (Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001). The themes that emerged from the data revealed a lot about the various sources where academic expectations and academic resilience is developed.

Findings When asked to identify risk factors that may influence their educational resilience in STEM majors, students overwhelmingly described risk factors in two ways. The first set of risk factors were educational barriers, such as unsupportive faculty, the lack of financial support, learning opportunities, an inequitable K-12

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TABLE 9.1 Demographic Information for Study Participants.

Identifier (Pseudonym)

Ethnicity/Race

Pell Grant & FGCS

Class Standing (30+Credits)

Major

Age

Flora Anna

Latina Latina

Yes Yes

Sophomore Sophomore

24 19

Jessica

Latina

Yes

Junior

Sammy

Latina

Yes

Senior

Jenny Itzayanna

Latina Latina

Yes Yes

Junior Junior

Microbiology Industrial engineering Mechanical engineering Industrial engineering Robotics Biomedical engineering

21 22 20 21

school system, and lack of diversity in classrooms. The second set of risk factors were societal, such as hostile immigration policies and racism. The study participants perceived these learning conditions to contribute to the campus racial climate. In effect, many research participants reported to cultivate their protective factors, such as networking with other students of color, as the basis to navigate these institutional challenges. When university-level protective factors were lacking, many students were able to draw on resources that supported their expectations and resilience outside of the classroom. Specifically, students identified resources such as peer and familial networks, as well as their navigational skills to help them build resilience against some of the institutional constraints and hostile racial climates that often thwart their degree attainment.

Social Capital Connections Students perceive the facilitation of social capital connections through informal and formal peer networks as closely related to their academic resiliency. All participants in this study named an aspect of a peer network as a major source of support in bridging the gaps of college-related knowledge their parents were unable to pass down to them and in offering a sense of community and a second family at their university. These peer networks offered navigational capital strategies (Yosso, 2000) by sharing and modeling how they maneuvered the institution and informational capital, or the knowledge that can be “processed, stored, and transmitted into a set of actions that support and empower students toward academic and social success” (Cooper & Liou, 2007, p. 44). The participants attributed their educational achievements to peers who were also students of color–these peers provided valuable navigational skills and college

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information that aided with their university transition in a predominantly white institution. Whether it was a member of a student organization reaching out (formal network- institutionally supported form of social support), or a high school friend offering advice (informal network- non institutional form of social support), it is evident that the power of peer networks offers more than just a bridge for social belonging. It is also often a place where personal and professional development can occur, career aspirations can be introduced and emotional support to resist against white majority institutions can be garnered. For example, Itzayanna’s (biomedical engineering, junior) testimonio below illustrated the capacity of formal networks to offer these types of support. She said: Being involved in SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) provides a lot of support. They are definitely people I can relate to. Many of them are in a similar situation as me where they are first-generation. It’s like a support system and there’s opportunities there I might not be able to get if I wasn’t in an organization. The participants above attributed a refinement in their personal and professional growth to formal networks (i.e. established student engagement opportunities at the university), such as a Latina sorority or a Hispanic professional association. Access to these formal networks activated the college capital that continuing generation students are privy to as knowledge related to college is passed down from one generation to the next (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Whereas white, continuing generation students often gain access to knowledge related to college capital from their family members and their privilege, in this study, the participants received college capital knowledge from their Latinx peers. It is important to note that although the participants’ parents did not have prior college experience, they placed a high value on college education and offered support and cultural knowledge that also helped the students navigate the institution. Other formal network connections that came up in the study included cohortbased scholarship support programs for low-income college students, on-campus student employment opportunities, high school outreach programs, mentoring programs, and service-oriented organizations. This suggests that the participants’ social capital connections with institutionally supported networks who shared their similar identities was a highly utilized protective factor. Furthermore, students have indicated that outside of these formal networks that are facilitated by the university, they also have informal networks (i.e. not an established student organization) which further contributes to the development of their academic expectations and resiliency. These informal social capital connections provided a wide range of support—from offering academic skills tips to encouraging the participants to remain enrolled at their university. For example, Itzayanna said:

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I received advice from my friends. Since I was a year behind, my friends from high school who graduated with the group that I was supposed to graduate with, they came to college. They gave me little tips. They said, “You know it always helps if you sit in the front because if you sit in the back you’re not gonna pay attention, and you’re going to be distracted by other people.” The quote above demonstrates that Latina, low-income STEM FGCS receive tangible navigational and informational capital tips from their peers to be successful in a majority white institution. These tips help to instill strategies that fuel academic expectations and resiliency and therefore act as protective factors. Results revealed that the power of these social capital connections (formal or informal) was significant for those who felt they could relate to their peers. They used phrases such as “felt comfortable,” “makes me feel at home” and “they’ve been there before” and they identified their peers as also being low-income, Latinx FGCS to convey that relatable peers helped them to define and develop their academic expectations and resiliency. Due to these connections and their ability to relate to their peers, it has allowed for students to facilitate their social capital and to foster their resiliency. Students in this study perceived the presence of other successful, minority low-income FGCS at their university as a marker that success can be possible for them as well. Their ability to see success modeled from students who have similar experiences as them helped to define and develop their academic expectations and resiliency.

Significance of Diversity in the Classroom Participants in this study perceived the significance of diversity in the classroom as playing a factor in their academic expectations and resiliency. To illustrate, participants shared in their testimonios that a majority of them came from high schools in their home state with a predominantly Latinx population. They shared that when they first arrived at this university, they felt intimidated by the majority white demographic presence in the classroom environment. For many of them, it was the first time that they were not surrounded by students who looked like them. In the testimonios, participants were asked to share information about how they experienced the classroom when they first arrived at the university. Sammy (industrial engineering, senior) described her experience her first semester in the classroom this way: It was overwhelming. My first semester I remember being surprised at all the Caucasians in my class. I felt different because my hair is dark, big, poufy and curly. There was a lot of like straight blonde hair or red heads or whatever. I remember at first I felt inferior. It was kind of hard because I felt really different.

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Sammy’s comments about feeling visibly physically different was similar to other students in this study. The perception of being one of few Latina students in the classroom represented several meanings for Sammy and the participants in this study. They felt less than their white classroom peers because they had instances where they did not see others like them in the classroom. In other words, lack of diversity in the classroom can manifest into a risk factor. Therefore, when students did see other diverse students in the classroom, they stated that they often felt a sense of relief which suggests that for these students, proximity to diversity emerged as a protective factor. For example, Itzayanna said: For my leadership class, I noticed that it had a lot of ethnicities, pretty much all of them. It felt really awesome because I’m like, “Whoa, I’m not the only non-white person here.” I really enjoyed that class and it made me feel a little bit more sure of myself and confident. This demonstrates the significance of diversity in a student’s educational journey. A perceived lack of diversity serves as a risk factor when students do not see people like them in the classrooms. Yet when there is proximity to diversity, such as in the classrooms and in the surrounding campus environment, it can serve as a protective factor that helps Latina, low-income STEM FGCS define and develop their academic expectations and resiliency.

Less Rigorous High School Education Participants discussed that they had points in their academic journeys at their university where they felt that the high school education they received was not up to par with their classmates or with faculty expectations. Sammy described her high school’s academic offerings as inconsistent with what she needed for college requirements. She said, “The curriculum was always changing. One year they had physics available and one year they didn’t. One year they had ‘calc’ available and then they didn’t.” Participants shared that the classroom environment quickly showed that they had to be resourceful in finding ways to catch up with the rigorous coursework. They did this by using compensatory strategies such as seeking tutoring and outside of classroom help, using YouTube videos and Khan Academy to self-teach, and also putting in extra hours of studying time for concepts that they stated seemed to come so naturally to the rest of their peers. As Anna (industrial engineering, sophomore) said: I would not ask for my life to be different because I feel like having to go through this experience without my parents knowing how to help me is making me a more resourceful person because I have to find different ways of getting help and succeeding on my own.

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As Anna stated above, participants in this study largely described themselves as being highly resourceful. They were able to realistically and effectively identify a risk factor (in these cases, not receiving the same quality education as their peers) and they were able to seek out protective factors to mitigate potentially negative consequences of those risk factors. These steps represent important elements of Morales’s (2000) resilience cycle, which suggests that participants in this study might be typified as students who would not be academically resilient because of their high schools’ subpar curriculum, but in fact these students’ resourcefulness is demonstrated by their abilities to seek out a myriad of protective factors. As Jenny (robotics, junior) said: When you’re first generation, you have to be really resourceful and figure everything out on your own. If I can help someone not stress out as much, or if I can help someone without them having to figure it out on their own, that’s really making a positive impact. In the previous section, we learned that Latina, low-income FGCS say that the primary sources attributed for harnessing their academic expectations and resiliency originated from social capital connections with peers who shared similar identity and experiences. To analyze findings for research question 2 (“How do first-generation Latina STEM college students act upon their academic expectations and resiliency to resist systems of white supremacy in a majority white institution?”), the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and data triangulation was used and the data results suggest students act upon their academic expectations and resiliency to resist systems of white supremacy by recalling and reflecting on familial capital (Yosso, 2005) and fostering gratitude for college opportunity.

Familial Capital Yosso (2005) describes familial capital as forms of knowledge “nurtured among familia (kin) that carry a sense of community history, memory and cultural intuition” (p. 79). As such, a common source of strength that participants often discussed was their reliance on their family support system, and how this served as motivation in their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree at their predominantly white institution. Connection to family served as both a catalyst for wanting to pursue college education and also operated as a protective factor while in college. Most of the participants witnessed the financial and quality of life consequences their families experienced as a result of not being educated and being low-income. Additionally, most of the participants were faced with the expectation that college was not an option, but was a must. This is consistent with other research about Latino family dynamics that suggest that although they did not have prior college going experience, they still

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had high education expectations for their children (Peralta, Caspary, & Boothe, 2013). Their families demonstrated support as the students navigated college by offering emotional guidance and encouragement, even if they were not necessarily college educated themselves. Families provide their students with consistent encouragement. For example, Jessica (mechanical engineering, junior) said: They (parents) see how stressed I get sometimes and they always remind me to take a break. “You’re going to get it.” “Go do this.” They just kind of try to help me not stress out as much even though they know I do. They always give me little reminders of how I can do it and how I can get through it. Parents also provided these doses of encouragement through semi-daily reinforcements such as phone call conversations and text messages. For example, a participant shared screenshots of text message conversations with their family members (Figure 9.1). These conversations capture the sense of pride, admiration and investment their parents have regarding their student’s educational pursuits. While the examples above demonstrate daily acts of familial capital, another type of familial capital that emerged in the data was more rooted and permanent; grounded in culture, faith, pride and the participant’s recollections of their own family’s testimonios. In Figure 9.2, Anna captured an image of a blanket with the

FIGURE 9.1

Photo-Testimonio.

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FIGURE 9.2

Photo-Testimonio.

Lady of Guadalupe religious icon emblazoned across the front. She captioned it as, “This is a blanket I have on my bed. It reminds me of my family and reminds me that I’m never alone for when I’m feeling helpless.” Anna elaborated on this photo a bit further in the focus group. She stated that her mother gave her this blanket when she first moved into the residence halls her freshman year and it serves as a visual reminder of her family. She stated that her emotional well-being as a college student was closely tied to her family’s support and encouragement. This is supported by research on the influence of familial factors on resiliency because of the overarching influence families have into all aspects of an individual’s life (Morales & Trotman, 2004). The penetrating influence of familial support as a protective factor also manifested through the participant’s recollections of their families’ experiences—which sometimes represented struggle and pain, and hope and optimism. Similarly, Itzayanna shared the symbolism of a mango tree (Figure 9.3), and what that represented for her family’s testimonio. She captioned the photo, “I don’t really think about this a lot, but I’ve realized that my culture is a crucial part of who I am. My family has shown unconditional love.” In the focus group, Itzayanna described how the mango tree picture represents her family’s agricultural traditions in Mexico. The picture reminds her of how physically demanding her family members’ daily lives are because

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FIGURE 9.3

Photo-Testimonio.

they did not obtain an education. Itzayanna stated that this family history made her first-generation pursuit of a college education so important. This sentiment was agreed upon by all the participants. They stated that just as much as their family’s testimonios fueled their academic pursuits, they knew that their reality as college students was a source of pride for their family. Therefore, the participants all stated that one of the most important things was to make their family members proud by being a college graduate. Both humbled and driven by familial capital, one other source of strength and protective factor emerged from the data and is discussed next—their gratitude for college opportunity.

Gratitude for College Opportunity Although college access for Latina females have largely increased, there is still a graduation rate disparity (Fry & Lopez, 2012). This fact was something that the participants were largely familiar with and it was their actual reality. The participants all discussed throughout multiple points in the study how they were immensely motivated to succeed in college because they felt that being a college student was a tremendous opportunity that they were grateful for. Some of the participants experienced seemingly insurmountable challenges to get to college, which fueled their gratitude for the opportunity to attend even further. For example, Flora (microbiology, junior) discussed how

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immigration issues almost prevented her from having the opportunity to be a college student. In one of the photo-testimonio sessions, she shared an image that portrayed her and her family’s immigration journey (Figure 9.4). She attributed this experience as playing a huge role in sparking and motivating her college aspirations. She captioned this image as, “I am motivated by knowing I was lucky enough to make it to ‘El Norte,’ and to make it back home to ‘Merica’.” She interpreted the image in the focus group for the rest of the participants as the two types of shoes she has had to wear to become someone who could become a college student. The first shoe on the left represents ‘huaraches’ (or sandals) she remembers wearing as her family crossed the border and also a pair of military boots which ultimately paved a path of citizenship for her. All of the participants stated that they were very grateful for attending college and saw it as a tremendous responsibility. Participants stated in various ways that they learned to minimize distractions, practice discipline and prioritize their academics above all else because they could not risk the chance of jeopardizing scholarships, academic standing or their family’s disappointment. In this sense, being grateful for a college opportunity manifests into a protective factor in the predominantly white institution, but sometimes leads to feelings of alienation in settings such as residence halls. Of the six participants who participated in this study, four out of six lived in the residence halls their freshman year. All but one of these participants stated they felt isolated when they were living in the residence halls because they felt that their peers did not experience the same level of responsibility. Participants connected this feeling of isolation back to those moments of when they discovered social capital

FIGURE 9.4

Photo-Testimonio.

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connections from peers who did experience similar challenges. They relished in the fact that although college was a huge responsibility, that they were not alone in having to navigate this opportunity into action. Another finding that emerged from this study centered on how students operationalize these protective factors to navigate their enrollment in a majority white institution. Data analysis of this research study revealed the theme of work ethic and sacrifice.

Work Ethic and Sacrifice Most of the participants in this study came from Latinx families who were firstgeneration immigrants working in manual labor jobs. A resounding similarity among all of the participants was the tremendous work ethic they observed and witnessed from their families and how they transferred that observation to be applicable to their academic success. Flora shared a photo-testimonio image of her father’s hands (Figure 9.5) and captioned it as: When it gets tough, I think about my parents, especially my dad. My dad has worked so hard throughout his life since he was four being a slave to the ranch life, to now, he busts his back working outside in the blazing Arizona sun. I’ve never heard my dad complain. I know that what I am going through would never compare to what my dad has been through. While participants faced challenges in navigating a majority white institution, they felt that those challenges were minimal compared to their family

FIGURE 9.5

Photo-Testimonio.

A Photo-Testimonio 153

members’ past and current sacrifices. Participants agreed in multiple ways throughout the study that observing their family’s back-breaking work ethic allowed them to put things into perspective and see beyond themselves. The participants resolutely described themselves as hard-working, determined and focused, and clearly named their families as the inspiration for those characteristics. For example, Itzayanna said, “That’s one of the things that I got from my parents … like their work ethic and their responsibility. They are very responsible. They are always early to things and that’s one of the best things that I got from them.” Additionally, the participants were reminded frequently by their families that hard work combined with an education was the best way for them to increase their resilience against race, gender, and other intersectional forms of oppression. The participants also spoke often about how their parents emphasized that a college education would lead to a career and not just a job that helped to pay the bills. The participants’ recited those statements in various ways throughout the study and used their parents’ work ethic and sacrifice as a mantra to work hard in school and to value education.

Implications Research lessons learned from this qualitative research study asserts the various ways that Latina, low-income STEM FGCS experience navigating a majority white institution. The focus of participant driven photo-testimonio is to understand how images are given meaning by participants and to offer them the opportunity to give voice to complex experiences (Clark-Ibáñez, 2004). The six Latina students in this study voiced, captured and presented the unique strengths and strategies they harness and act upon to navigate their majority white institution. Despite the racial isolation, hostility and the lack of representation they face, they persisted through community building with other Latinx, first-generation college students and through tapping into their community cultural wealth. This adept resourcefulness and deep rooted pride was conveyed clearly in the students’ stories and in the culturally layered pictures they shared with each other. It’s evident that testimonios as a research genre builds solidarity and exposes individual experiences marked by marginalization (Solórzano & Bernal, 2001). As researchers and practitioners, these two research approaches have transformed our (the authors) potential next steps in the future. The burning question on all our minds is how can we (as administrators, researchers, practitioners) shield, defend and resist a hostile political climate that has unleashed its hostility against students like Itzayanna, Jenny, Sammy, Flora, Jessica and Anna? Further research is necessary to understand the institution’s role and efficacy in acting against the systemic racism that has become pervasive and in some cases presidentially permitted on our college campuses and our greater community.

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Kitano, M., & Lewis, R. B. (2005). Resilience and coping: implications for gifted children and youth at risk. Roeper Review, 27(4), 200–205. Retrieved from http://search.ebsco host.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18549216&site= ehost-live Kiyama, J. M., Museus, S. D., & Vega, B. E. (2015). Cultivating campus environments to maximize success among Latino and Latina college students. New Directions for Higher Education, 172, 29–38. doi:10.1002/he.20150 Lapenta, F. (2011). Some theoretical and methodological views on photo-elicitation. In E. Margolis & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The Sage handbook of visual research methods (pp. 207–208). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. Liebenberg, L., Ungar, M., & Theron, L. (2014). Using video observation and photo elicitation interviews to understand obscured processes in the lives of youth resilience. Childhood, 21(4), 532–547. doi:10.1177/0907568213496652 Liou, D. D. (2016). Fostering college-going expectations of immigrant students through the sympathetic touch of school leadership. Multicultural Perspectives, 18(2), 82–90. doi:10.1080/15210960.2016.1155152 Liou, D. D., & Rotheram-Fuller, E. (2016). Where is the real reform? African American students and their schools expectations for academic performance. Urban Education. doi:10.1177/0042085915623340 Martin, A. J., & Marsh, H. W. (2006). Academic resilience and its psychological and educational correlates:a construct validity approach. Psychology in the Schools, 43(3). doi:10.1002/pits.20149 McGuire, K., Casanova, S., & Davis III, C. H. F. (2016). “I’m a Black female who happens to be Muslim”: Multiple marginalities of an immigrant Black Muslim woman on a predominantly White campus. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(3), 316–329. Morales, E. E. (2000). A contextual understanding of the process of educational resilience: High achieving dominican American students and the “resilience cycle.” Innovative Higher Education, 25(1), 7–22. doi:10.1023/A:1007580217973 Morales, E. E., & Trotman, F. K. (2004). Promoting academic resilience in multicultural America: factors affecting student success. New York: P. Lang. Morales, S., Avina, S. M., & Bernal, D. D. (2016). Education in Nepantla: A Chicana feminist approach to engaging Latina/o elementary youth in ethnic studies. In D. M. Sandoval, A. J. Ratcliff, T. L. Buenavista, & J. R. Marin (Eds.), “White” washing American education: The new culture wars in ethnic studies (pp. 67–93). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Moreno, C. (2016). Here’s why Trump’s “bad hombres” comment was so offensive. The Huffington Post, October 26. Retrieved from www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/here s-why-trumps-bad-hombres-comment-was-so-offensive_us_5808e121e4b0180a 36e9b995 Muñoz, S., Espino, M. M., & Antrop-Gonzalez, R. (2014). Creating counter-spaces of resistance and sanctuaries of learning and teaching: An analysis of Freedom University. Teachers College Record, 116(70307), 1–32. Museus, S. D., Nichols, A. H., & Lambert, A. D. (2008). Racial differences in the effects of campus racial climate on degree completion: A structural equation model. The Review of Higher Education, 32(1), 107–134. doi:10.1353/rhe.0.0030 Museus, S. D., Yi, V., & Saelua, N. (2017). The impact of culturally engaging campus environments on sense of belonging. The Review of Higher Education, 40(2), 187–215. doi:10.1353/rhe.2017.0001

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Noguera, P. (2015). Grit overemphasized, agency overlooked. Motion Magazine. Retrieved December 11, 2017 from www.inmotionmagazine.com/er15/pn_15_grit_and_agency.html Peralta, C., Caspary, M., & Boothe, D. (2013). Success factors impacting Latina/o persistence in higher education leading to STEM opportunities. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 8(4), 905–918. doi:10.1007/s11422-013-9520-9 Pérez Huber, L., & Solórzano, D. G. (2015). Racial microaggressions as a tool for critical race research. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(3), 297–320. doi:10.1080/13613324.2014.994173 Rea, D. W. (2015). Interview with Pedro Noguera: How to help students and schools in poverty. National Youth at Risk, 1(1). Retrieved January 3, 2018 from www.researchga te.net/publication/307820825_Interview_with_Pedro_Noguera_How_to_Help_Stu dents_and_Schools_in_Poverty Reyes, K. B., & Curry Rodríguez, J. E. (2012). Testimonio: Origins, terms, and resources. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(3), 525–538. doi:10.1080/10665684.2012.698571 Reyes, N., & Nora, A. (2012). Lost among the data: A review of Latino first generation college students. Retrieved from https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/83075 Solórzano, D. G., & Bernal, D. D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through a critical race and Latcrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36, 308–342. doi:10.1177/0042085901363002 Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2006). Leaks in the Chicana and Chicano educational pipeline. Latino Policy & Issues Brief, 13, 3. Spencer, S. J., Logel, C., & Davies, P. G. (2016). Stereotype threat. Annual Review of Psychology, 67(1), 415–437. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-073115-103235 Stanton-Salazar, R. D. (1997). A social capital framework for understanding the socialization of racial minority children and youths. Harvard Educational Review, 67(1), 1–40. Sy, S. R., & Romero, J. (2008). Family responsibilities among Latina college students from immigrant families. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 7, 212–227. doi:10.1177/ 1538192708316208 Valencia, R. (2011). Chicano school failure and success: Past, present and future (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Yosso, T. J. (2000). A critical race and LatCrit approach to media literacy: Chicana/o resistance to visual microaggressions. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Los Angeles. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. doi:10.1080/ 1361332052000341006 Yosso, T., & Garcia, D. G. (2007). “This is no slum!”: A critical race theory analysis of community cultural wealth in Culture Clash’s Chavez Ravine. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, 32(1), 145–179. Yosso, T. J., Smith, W., Ceja, M., & Solórzano, D. (2009). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate for Latina/o undergraduates. Harvard Educational Review, 79(4), 659–691. Retrieved from http://her.hepg.org/index/ M6867014157M707L.pdf

10 “ASIANS IN THE LIBRARY” Sophistry and the Conflation of Affirmative and Negative Action Nicholas D. Hartlep and Nicholas C. Ozment METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY AND INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR

Sixty years of empirical research has taught us much about stereotypes. Stereotypes can arise from, and sustain, intergroup hostility. They are sometimes linked to prejudices based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and just about any other social category. They can corrupt interpersonal relations, warp public policy, and play a role in the worst social abuses, such as mass murder and genocide. For all these reasons, social scientists—and especially social psychologists—have understandably approached stereotypes as a kind of social toxin. (Jussim, Cain, Crawford, Harber, and Cohen, 2009)

Introduction This chapter looks at how Asian/Americans are misperceived in higher education spaces, e.g., they are stereotyped as model minorities who are frequently found in libraries studying. We identify how Asian/Americans are used as a wedge in the debate on affirmative action, specifically in regard to how they are stereotyped as overrepresented model minorities who are actually harmed by affirmative action. This characterization is ahistorical and serves the interest of White supremacy. Importantly, we show the distinction between affirmative action and negative action. While Asian/Americans deserve affirmative action, they ought to oppose negative action. In the chapter we argue that institutions of higher education should move beyond simply opposing Asian/American stereotypes and instead advocate centering Asian/Americans and decentering White privilege. Our chapter begins by sharing a case study of White privilege that occurred on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. We examine this case

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study as an example of how higher education works in the United States, namely in the way it perpetuates White privilege and White supremacy. Next, we clarify what “negative” action and “affirmative” action are. We conclude our chapter by identifying how modern forms of sophistry contribute to the model minority stereotype of Asian/Americans and how those in higher education can work towards a new sociology of defining and transcending stereotypes of Asian/ Americans.

United Caucasians Lost among Asians (UCLA) The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public, 4-year, primarily residential research university. In March of 2011 it was cast in the spotlight not for some path-breaking research or for its athletic program winning an NCAA championship, but because a student’s YouTube video went viral. Alexandra Wallace, as the world quickly learned, was a White, female UCLA student. She is seen in her “Asians in the Library” video making sinophobic, stereotypical, and racist commentary, including a “ching-chong ching-chong” parody of Chinese phonetics that would have been more typical in a racist 1940s cartoon. Shortly after posting her video to YouTube, Wallace withdrew from UCLA. She wrote the following apology letter that was published in The Daily Bruin, the UCLA student newspaper: In an attempt to produce a humorous YouTube video, I have offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture. I am truly sorry for the hurtful words I said and the pain it caused to anyone who watched the video. Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn’t erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action. I made a mistake. My mistake, however, has lead [sic] to the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats, and being ostracized from an entire community. Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA. (Alexandra Wallace, quoted in Parkinson-Morgan, 2011) Wallace’s attempt to make a humorous video, and UCLA’s response to the offensive video, embody a form of White privilege that goes under the guise of free speech. The New York Times reported that UCLA officials said they would not discipline Wallace because her video was an exercise of free speech (Associated Press, 2011). The democratic concept of free speech is here used as a shield of protection for White racism. While the apology, and the explanation for why she withdrew, might seem simple and straightforward, one can make some salient observations by unpacking

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the letter. The first two sentences are pretty clear: She realizes she has deeply offended many people and says she is truly sorry “for the hurtful words [she] said and the pain it caused.” But right away she lumps together “the entire Asian culture,” a typical oversight of the fact that “Asia” represents dozens of countries, peoples, ethnicities, and cultures. She reinforces that casual aggregation by referring—almost a non sequitur—to “the ongoing disaster in Japan.” She goes on to lament that she “could write apology letters all day and all night,” but she knows “they wouldn’t erase the video from your memory” (read: “You will never forgive me, so why bother?”). I doubt anyone offended would want her to spend a whole day and night(!) tossing off apology letters; but what if, instead, she decentered her Whiteness—put it aside—long enough to listen to the communit(ies) she offended and to learn more about them? She says she recognizes that her action was an “insensitive mistake.” How about using it as a learning opportunity: facing the fallout, meeting with those to whom she was insensitive, and trying to become educated out of her privileged ignorance? Instead, she closes the letter by focusing on herself and casting herself as the victim. Yes, virtually anyone reading her letter would agree that “harassment” and “death threats” are wrong and unacceptable. It is also an opening for empathy: She can approach her fellow minority students having experienced just a taste of what they have faced for generations. And while, again, we would not approve of any student being made to feel unsafe on a college campus, it does make one reflect: How many students of color and other marginalized students have withdrawn from K-12 schools, colleges, and universities over the decades “for personal safety reasons”? To a person of White privilege, this would be a new, indeed a virtually unthinkable reality. To people of color; to gays, lesbians, and transgender students; to women in some environments; it is an all-too-familiar reality of life. Wallace’s video brought to light a hidden hostility that pervades U.S. higher education, a hostility based on the perception that Asian/Americans are taking over elite institutions of higher education. Irrespective of Wallace’s intention, her video painted Asian/Americans in broad, homogenizing strokes. “Asians in the library” is a contemporary characterization clouded by the prevalent stereotype that Asian/Americans are model minorities (Gladwell, 2008). The trope invoked by Wallace that Asian/Americans are invading elite institutions of higher education such as UCLA and MIT is firmly entrenched.1 It doesn’t matter that in reality these prestigious public institutions of higher learning are highly diverse; they represent American exceptionalism and a form of what Lipsitz (2006) labels a “possessive investment in Whiteness” because these elite universities find themselves situated in a hierarchy of prestige. The same holds true for private institutions of higher education. They don’t call it “Ivy” League for nothing. The subtext is that White supremacy is disturbed when and if there is a real or rhetorical perception that Whites are being displaced by Asian/ Americans, or any other non-White race for that matter. Wallace’s video seemed to validate the narrative of an Asian/American invasion occurring on UCLA’s

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campus, a narrative that those reading this book should identify as being racist and as having historical connections to when Asian/Americans were constructed to be a “yellow peril” in the United States, especially in California. The term “yellow peril” stems from the early twentieth century, and was best embodied by the fictional Chinese villain Dr. Fu Manchu. Asian/Americans were grossly stereotyped in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and were often scapegoated as a threat to American jobs with the competition of cheap labor. As World War II began to loom on the horizon, the “yellow peril” became focused on Americans of Japanese descent. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the war, Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps.

California On January 10, 1862, Leland Stanford—then the eighth governor of California and eventual founder of Stanford University—said in his inaugural address the following: While the settlement of our State is of the first importance, the character of those who shall become settlers is worthy of scarcely less consideration. To my mind it is clear, that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged, by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population. Large numbers of this class are already here; and, unless we do something early to check their immigration, the question, which of the two tides of immigration, meeting upon the shores of the Pacific, shall be turned back, will be forced upon our consideration, when far more difficult than now of disposal. There can be no doubt but that the presence of numbers among us of a degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and, to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration. It will afford me great pleasure to concur with the Legislature in any constitutional action, having for its object the repression of the immigration of the Asiatic races. (Stanford, 1862; emphasis added) At the time of writing this chapter, 32.1 percent of UCLA undergraduates are Asian/American (n = 9,917), compared to 4.8 percent who are African American (n = 1,485) and 26.3 percent who are non-Hispanic White (n = 8,113). As stated earlier, UCLA is a selective university, but it’s public. Do these student body statistics confirm that Asian/Americans are model minorities who are overrepresented? Are White students underrepresented at UCLA? UCLA is the rule, not the exception, when it comes to higher education and the pervasiveness of White privilege.

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White Privilege in Higher Education In this chapter we identify White privilege in the university and how Asian/ Americans are impacted by stereotypes, such as the model minority stereotype and the yellow peril. The model minority and yellow peril stereotypes are two sides of the same White-privilege coin. According to Allred (2007), Asian/ Americans are used as “racial mascots” when it comes to higher education and affirmative action. We will unpack how Asian/Americans are used as racial mascots in the context of higher education to strengthen the logic behind pro-colorblind and merit-based admissions policies at selective institutions of higher education. As legal scholars have affirmed, affirmative action is deeply connected with White privilege (Law, 1999). The purpose of our chapter, then, is to identify both how and why Asian/Americans’ status in higher education is precarious, as well as why the model minority stereotype is enigmatic to study. We focus on how Asian/Americans are positioned within the debate on affirmative action in higher education. We argue that sophistry contributes to the model minority stereotype.

What Does Asian/American Mean? As a point of clarification, in this chapter we use Palumbo-Liu’s (1999) concept of “Asian/American” in our chapter instead of “Asian American” or “Asian-American.” Accordingly, our chapter refers to dynamic as well as hybrid identities (individuals with an Asian heritage, including adopted Asians, and those individuals identifying with Asia or the Asian diaspora). As stated in the epigraph above, we are well aware that the model minority stereotype sustains intergroup hostility and is a kind of social toxin; however, we mostly agree that it can warp public policy such as affirmative action. White privilege and White supremacy in higher education are embedded into discussions of affirmative action and college admissions.

Right Victim, Wrong Culprit: Asian/Americans and the Attack on Affirmative Action Asian/Americans and affirmative action in higher education admissions is a topic that has received less attention from higher education scholars (see Hartlep & Lowinger, 2014; Hartlep, Ecker, Miller, & Whitmore, 2013; Teranishi, 2017) than it has from legal education scholars (see Harvard Law Review, 2017; Kang, 1996; Lee, 2008; Leong, 2016; Yen, 1996). This may be because affirmative action is a legal concept, not necessarily an educational one; although higher education certainly is directly impacted by its legal implementation. Because affirmative action has been racialized, it has been misunderstood by those outside

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of legal education, including by those inside higher education. The racialization of affirmative action has led some to believe that affirmative action harms not only Whites but also Asian/Americans, who are “model minorities.” Evidence of this can be seen in websites created by Students for Fair Admissions (SFA), which was created by Edward Blum. The websites serve as propaganda for conservative ideology that advocates the elimination of affirmative action.2 SFA’s websites imply that affirmative action harms Asian/ Americans. The websites are rhetorical and ahistorical because affirmative action historically has benefited Whites (Katznelson, 2005) to the detriment of other races. According to Allred (2007), “Presenting Asian Americans as mascots and holding them up as the model minority creates indignant and embittered parties on all sides. This infighting buttresses and reinforces the power of the white majority” (p. 76). Asian/Americans have been used to serve the interest of the White majority, who wish to see affirmative action eliminated from higher education. As Golden (2017) contends, Asian/Americans have been treated unfairly in admissions, and affirmative action is a convenient scapegoat for those who seek to pit minority groups against each other. A common claim made by those who contend affirmative action should be eliminated in college admissions is that it is “reverse discrimination” (i.e., discrimination against Whites). These opponents feel strongly that colorblindness is the only way admissions can be truly fair: The best will get in because they will have the highest SAT scores and GPAs and will thereby, under meritocratic logic, be the ones who deserve to gain admission. But pro-affirmative action supporters argue that affirmative action in college admissions helps level an uneven playing field. To untangle this convoluted web of affirmative-action beneficiaries and victims, it is necessary to distinguish the differences between “negative” (Kidder, 2006) and “affirmative” action. The “Not Fair” websites use Asian/ Americans as racial mascots for the war against affirmative action. Asian/ Americans are the right victim, but affirmative action is the wrong culprit; White supremacy’s conflation between “negative” and “affirmative” action is the real culprit.

“Negative” Action vs. “Affirmative” Action The moment Asian/Americans attack affirmative action, they instantly become weaponized against other groups of people of color. People of color—and Asian/ Americans are people of color—deserve affirmative action. What Asian/Americans ought to be protesting against is “negative action.” The difference between the terms is large. According to Kang (1996), “negative action against Asian Americans is in force if a university denies admission to an Asian American who would have been admitted had that person been White” (p. 3).

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Leong further clarifies: Why the groundswell of conservative concern for Asian Americans when it comes to affirmative action? The answer is that Asian Americans provide a convenient opportunity for affirmative action opponents to disguise their underlying motives. The true, unstated concern of such opponents is that affirmative action would disrupt the existing racial hierarchy—one that primarily benefits white people by preserving the disproportionate share of social resources and opportunities available to them. Of course, opposition to affirmative action cannot be framed this way because to do so would make transparent a commitment to maintaining white supremacy. So Asian Americans allow for a reframing of such opposition. That is, opposition to affirmative action seems less racist if affirmative action programs can be characterized as harmful to both white and Asian American people, rather than something that is good for everyone but white people. (Leong, 2016, pp. 91–92) Consequently, if we were to draw from Bell’s (2004) concept of “silent covenants,” we could argue that the move to abolish affirmative action is an interestconvergent silent covenant. According to Bell’s theory of “interest-convergence” (ibid.), Whites only support minority rights when it’s in their interest as well. Bell notes that interest-convergence covenants are decisions in which “[Asian/American] rights are recognized and protected when and only so long as policymakers perceive that such advances will further interests that are their [whites’] primary concern” (ibid., p. 49). Exceptio probat regulam, which means the “exception that proves the rule,” is how White supremacy uses Asian/Americans to maintain power and influence. Tellingly, this interest convergence—and how the silent covenant can be broken when personal interests diverge—becomes particularly exposed in recent backlash to the number of Asian/Americans attending Ivy League universities. Some concerned White parents have suggested there should be a cap on the number of Asian/Americans admitted—a sort of reverse affirmative action for White students to insure their children’s spots are not usurped by these Asian “invaders.” In a twist of irony, Asian/Americans are singled out for their presence on elite college campuses, such as UCLA, but this presence (real or not) is used as a way to deny them affirmative action protections. Lee (2008) writes how Asian/ Americans’ overrepresentation is used in a way that “de-minoritizes” them within higher education. The model minority characterization of Asian Americans in higher education quickly becomes a form of “yellow peril,” as these White parents view higher education as a zero-sum game: If more Asian/Americans get the plum admissions, there will be fewer for their Caucasian offspring. Samson’s (2013) research testifies to this point, by documenting that whether or not White people want merit-based admissions policies depends on who their competition is. In other words, “white people put a greater emphasis on test scores when

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those considerations of merit are more likely to give them a leg up over students from other racial backgrounds” (Massie, 2016, para. 4).

How Does Sophistry Contribute to the Model Minority Stereotype? In this section we will argue that a new sociology of the model minority stereotype is needed because the current sociological approach to debunking the stereotype merely opposes the stereotype without fully reshaping and broadening the culture’s perception. In other words, it tilts at stereotypes without offering anything in their place should those stereotypes fall. Take, for instance, the common practice of “counter-storytelling,” which pushes back at and problematizes “dominant” or “meta narratives” by offering counter-narratives. One such dominant model-minority meta-stereotype suggests Asian/Americans tend to perform extraordinarily well on the SAT. Well, looking at the raw data, it appears that they do. The most recent SAT achievement data available seems to confirm the idea that Asian/Americans outperform all other racial groups; yes, including Whites (see Table 10.1). Table 10.1 does in fact show that Asian/Americans’ Total Score (1,181), EvidenceBased Reading and Writing (ERW) Score (569), and Math Score (612) exceeds Whites’ respective scores of 1,118 (Total), 565 (ERW), and 544 (Math). So shouldn’t the general public believe that Asian/Americans score higher than Whites on the SAT? Isn’t Table 10.1 evidence that supports the idea that Asian/Americans are the most academically superior racial group? No, Table 10.1 illustrates sophistry.

What is Sophistry? Modern-day sophistry is quite different than what was practiced by Ancient Greek sophists—teachers of rhetoric. Sophistry today refers to reasoning that seems plausible on a superficial level but is actually unsound. This incorrect reasoning is often used intentionally to deceive. How does sophistry maintain White supremacy and contribute to the model minority stereotype? One example is this sophistic argument of superior test scores that makes the model minority stereotype appear empirically plausible. Asian/Americans as a group score higher on the SAT than any other racial group; therefore, Asian/Americans must all be superior academically. That’s what the data in Table 10.1 allege, right? Without closer examination, this claim appears to be correct. Look more closely, though, and it falls apart. Because the dominant narrative uses the SAT scores of Asian/Americans as evidence to confirm that they are “model minorities,” a “counter-storytelling” approach would problematize the claim that high SAT scores are evidence that Asian/Americans are model minorities. For instance, Teranishi (2010) offers a valid statistical counter-story to the factoid that Asian/Americans score higher on the SAT than other races in his book Asians in the Ivory Tower: Dilemmas of Racial

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TABLE 10.1 New SAT Performance, by Race/Ethnicity.

Mean Scores Total Group American Indian/ Alaska Native Asian Black/African American Hispanic/Latino Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander White Two or More Races No Response

MET Benchmark

Total

ERW

Math

Both

ERW

Math

None

1060 963

533 486

527 477

46% 27%

70% 53%

49% 29%

27% 45%

1181 941

569 479

612 462

70% 20%

81% 49%

76% 22%

12% 50%

990 986

500 498

489 488

31% 32%

58% 57%

33% 34%

39% 40%

1118 1103

565 560

553 544

59% 54%

83% 80%

61% 56%

15% 18%

961

475

485

27%

48%

33%

47%

Inequality in American Higher Education by identifying the practice of lumping international Asian/American SAT scores (which tend to be higher) with the scores of domestic Asian/Americans (which tend to be lower). Commenting on the SAT, Teranishi states the following: For the Math portion of the test, students who attended high school outside the United States scored 90 points higher, on average, than students who attended a high school in the United States. For the Verbal portion of the exam, students who attended high school outside the United States also scored higher than their counterparts who attended high school in the United States, with a difference of 33 points on average. (Teranishi, 2010, p. 113) He goes on to point out that the score distribution of Asian/Americans is bimodal, which is the crux of the counter-story: Asian/Americans cannot be model minorities if their test performance is bimodal, because while some have unusually high scores, others have unusually low scores. In addition to the argument that Asian/American academic outcomes are bimodal in distribution, critics of the model minority stereotype might also argue that Asian/American SAT test performance needs to be examined via disaggregated analyses because there are so many different subgroups. In practice, however, disaggregation is difficult, primarily because there is a limited number of

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datasets that include large enough sample sizes of Asian/American subgroups to allow researchers to perform subgroup analyses. This reality partially explains why it is very common for statisticians to lump all Asian/Americans together in order to increase the n sizes in their studies. Aggregating the Asian/American population leads to more harm than good. Conclusions that can be drawn from the data are limited because lumping heterogeneous Asian/Americans together introduces error terms and statistical noise. Despite the statistical limitations that accompany aggregation, the practice remains common. Homogenizing the Asian/American population leads to masking real social phenomena, such as wealth inequality (Weller & Thompson, 2016) caused, for example, by less educated Asian/Americans being particularly neglected in the labor market because of their incongruence with the model minority image (Kim & Sakamoto, 2014). Not disaggregating the Asian/American population also may inadvertently lead to the Simpson’s Effect, which is a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several different groups of data but disappears or reverses when these groups are aggregated (see Morgan & Hodge, 2015a, 2015b).

So We Should Rush to Disaggregate? Not So Fast … Ironically, an unintended consequence of “disaggregating” the Asian/American population is that it can unintentionally lead to one subgroup becoming an “other.” Naturally, disaggregation leads to intra-group comparisons. The “comparison” group, which technically can be any group, frequently is selected for statistical or practical purposes. Southeast Asian/Americans, including Hmong and Cambodian, are commonly the comparison group in these sorts of analyses. By default, then, they are the recipients of this unintentional damage. So does disaggregation do more help than harm? Should anti-model minority scholars rush to disaggregate? Not so fast. Let’s revisit the discussion of framing. While studying racism’s impact on White people might be a novel inversion of the modus operandi of studying racism, it still problematically centers Whiteness. Therefore, a new sociology of the model minority stereotype might aim to decenter Whiteness, while simultaneously centering who they are as a population and people. The objective of a new sociology might focus energies on decentering Whiteness and centering Asian/ Americans. However, as was previously stated, most anti-model minority scholarship offers narratives of what Asian/Americans are not. Instead, we might consider examining a new sociology of the model minority stereotype: Who are Asian/Americans? This sociology may not even need to invoke the word “model minority” because if scholarship focuses on who Asian/Americans are now, then perhaps it does not need to worry about pushing back against a stereotype. The most common approach taken by anti-model minority stereotype scholarship is simply to “oppose” the model minority stereotype. If the model minority

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stereotype purports A, then the objective of the study is to demonstrate why A is not accurate. Poon, Squire, Kodama, and Byrd (2016) report on this phenomenon in their article “A Critical Review of the Model Minority Myth in Selected Literature on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Higher Education” published in Review of Educational Research. According to Poon et al.’s critical review of the model minority stereotype, the prevailing approach of countering the myth “problematically privileges narratives of what AAPIs are not, rather than who they are” (ibid., p. 470, italics added). A parallel phenomenon can be seen in sociology, when racism is used as a construct and studied in ways that question and respond only to racism’s harmful impact on people of color. Why not frame the problem in reverse? Why not ask, “How does racism negatively impact White people?”

Theoretically Moving Towards a New Sociology of Defining and Transcending Stereotypes This new sociology may also question the way it frames and defines stereotypes themselves. According to Jussim, McCauley, and Lee (1995), defining stereotypes as merely inaccurate “creates serious conceptual problems. This definition would seem to require that researchers interested in stereotypes study only beliefs about groups for which invalidity has been clearly documented” (p. 5). Instead, a more useful definition may be, “stereotypes constitute people’s beliefs about groups— beliefs that may be positive or negative, accurate, or inaccurate” (ibid., p. 6). This is what we mean when we point out that the extant literature mostly recycles findings of the scholarly community from earlier work. A new sociology will also draw from fields outside of education and psychology, such as law and philosophy. Just as the psychological “9 dot” test, which is where the expression “thinking outside of the box” originated, is brave, so too must the new sociology be bold and look outside of the traditional fields of study that have supported and housed this work. The proverbial box of the existing sociology is based around existing epistemologies, which leaves the model minority intact and unaffected. A new sociology may be transdisciplinary, but what is most important is that it de-centers White supremacy. As Claude Bernard says, “It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.” Why are stereotypes like the model minority (i.e., Asian/Americans are studious and get good grades) and yellow peril (i.e., Asian/Americans are invading the United States and its institutions) difficult to pin down? Why are they enigmatic? Because they are largely discursive. Discourse should be thought of as language, symbols, rhetoric, messaging, that seems to point out truths in society. Discourse can be enacted, socially-approved, promoted, and perpetuated, regardless if it is true or not. Discourses develop over time, evolve, and change, as society changes. Literature and media are where that discourse is publicly expressed.

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Kwok’s (2010) semi-autobiographical novel Girl in Translation validates the tenets of the model minority narrative textually and discursively. Kwok, born in Hong Kong, immigrated to the United States as a young child where she worked with her family in a sweatshop. She earned a degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia. While many of the details she writes about in Girl in Translation were fictionalized, the overall narrative is, discursively, model minority through and through. Abboud and Kim’s (2006) Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers—and How You Can Too perpetuates a discourse that seems to validate a “Tiger” mother discourse, even though Amy Chua’s (2011) book wasn’t published in the mid-2000s. In other words, the model minority stereotype, is not merely a single stereotype, but a constellation of many stereotypes. The constellation continues to be added to. None of these particular self-portrayals by Asian/Americans are “wrong” or “inaccurate,” considered by themselves. They certainly do represent the lived experience of many Asian/Americans. They do, however, also feed and reinforce the dominant stereotype. And the problem with stereotypes is that they are used to characterize all people of a given race, group, gender, culture, or religion. This is why it is so difficult to fully exorcise them from society: examples can always be found to buttress the stereotype. The cognitive phenomenon of confirmation bias recognizes this: As with the example of the racist White man who, cheated by another White man, would not have his general perception of Whites altered (he would be likely to hold a nuanced view that there are good White people and bad White people, honest ones and dishonest ones). But being a victim of the same crime perpetrated by a Black man would reinforce his bias toward Blacks; he would not hold the same nuanced view of Black people, tending instead to paint them all with the same broad brush. We remember the examples that confirm our biases, and tend to forget the ones that run counter to them. This is where proponents of counter-stories see their efficacy: Provide enough stories that are “exceptions to the rule,” and perhaps you’ll finally break the rule. Stories can protect Asian/Americans, but stories can also imprison them. The danger of a single story is always problematic. But stories in the plural—stories that empower, stories that are as varied and diverse as Asian/Americans themselves—can help liberate Asian/Americans from their unsolicited role as model minorities who are used to bolster White supremacy.

Notes 1 UCLA has been referred to as “University of Caucasians Lost among Asians” and MIT has been referred to as “Made in Taiwan” (Hartlep, 2014). 2 See http://harvardnotfair.org, http://uwnotfair.org, https://utnotfair.com, and http:// uncnotfair.org.

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References Abboud, K., & Kim, J. (2006). Top of the class: How Asian parents raise high achievers—and how you can too. New York: Berkley Books. Allred, N. (2007). Asian Americans and affirmative action: From yellow peril to model minority and back again. Asian American Law Journal, 14(3), 57–84. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=aalj Associated Press. (2011). Student quits at U.C.L.A. over rant. The New York Times, March 19. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/us/20rant.html Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. New York: Oxford University Press. Chua, A. (2011). Battle hymn of the tiger mother. New York: Bloomsbury. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Golden, D. (2017). Affirmative action, minority students, and the rich, white college applicant. Pacific Standard Magazine, August 10. Retrieved from https://psmag.com/educa tion/affirmative-action-minority-students-and-rich-white-kids Hartlep, N. D. (2014). Lost among Caucasians: The lethal fallacy of the model minority stereotype. Profiles in Diversity Journal, 16(3), 32–33. Hartlep, N. D., Ecker, M. M., Miller, D., & Whitmore, K. E. (2013). Asian Pacific American college freshman: Attitudes toward the abolishment of affirmative action in college admissions. Critical Questions in Education, 4(1), 1–19. Retrieved from https://academyed studies.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/affirmativeactionfinal.pdf Hartlep, N. D., & Lowinger, R. J. (2014). An exploratory study of undergraduates’ attitudes toward affirmative action policies for Asian Americans in college. Equity & Excellence in Education, 47(3), 370–384. Harvard Law Review. (2017). The Harvard Plan that failed Asian Americans. Harvard Law Review, 131(2), 604–625. Retrieved from https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/up loads/2017/12/604-625_Online.pdf Jussim, L., Cain, T. R., Crawford, J. T., Harber, K., & Cohen, F. (2009). The unbearable accuracy of stereotypes. In T. Nelson (Ed.), The handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination (pp. 199–227). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved from http://www.rci. rutgers.edu/~jussim/unbearable.pdf Jussim, L. J., McCauley, C. R., & Lee, Y-T. (1995). Why study stereotype accuracy and inaccuracy? In Y. T. Lee, L. J. Jussim, & C. R. McCauley (Eds.), Stereotype accuracy: Towards appreciating group differences (pp. 3–27). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kang, J. (1996). Negative action against Asian Americans: The internal instability of Dworkin’s defense of affirmative action. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 31(1), 1–47. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=707624 Katznelson, I. (2005). When affirmative action was white: An untold history of racial inequality in twentieth-century America. New York: W. W. Norton. Kidder, W. C. (2006). Negative action versus affirmative action: Asian Pacific Americans are still caught in the crossfire. Michigan Journal of Race and Law, 11, 605–624. Kim, C., & Sakamoto, A. (2014). The earnings of less educated Asian American men: Educational selectivity and the model minority image. Social Problems, 61(2), 1–22. Kwok, J. (2010). Girl in translation. New York: Riverhead Books. Law, S. A. (1999). White privilege and affirmative action. Akron Law Review, 32(3), Article6. Retrieved from http://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article= 1425&context=akronlawreview

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Lee, S. S. (2008). The de-minoritization of Asian Americans: A historical examination of the representations of Asian Americans in affirmative action admissions policies at the University of California. Asian American Law Journal, 15, 129–152. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=aalj Leong, N. (2016). The misuse of Asian Americans in the affirmative action debate. UCLA Law Review Discourse, 64, 90–98. Retrieved from https://www.uclalawreview.org/wp -content/uploads/2016/05/Leong-D64-update.pdf Lipsitz, G. (2006). The possessive investment in whiteness: How White people profit from identity politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Massie, V. M. (2016). Do white people want merit-based admissions policies? Depends on who their competition is. Vox, June 24. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2016/ 5/22/11704756/affirmative-action-merit Morgan, G. B., & Hodge, K. (2015a). A primer on research validity for conducting quantitative studies of the model minority stereotype. In N. D. Hartlep & B. J. Porfilio (Eds.), Killing the model minority stereotype: Asian American counter-stories and complicity (pp. 293–310). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Morgan, G. B., & Hodge, K. (2015b). Statistical procedures for addressing research fallacies such as the model minority stereotype. In N. D. Hartlep & B. J. Porfilio (Eds.), Killing the model minority stereotype: Asian American counter-stories and complicity (pp. 311–333). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Palumbo-Liu, D. (1999). Asian/American: Historical crossings of a racial frontier. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Parkinson-Morgan, K. (2011). Alexandra Wallace apologizes, announces she will no longer attend UCLA. Daily Bruin, March 18. Retrieved from http://dailybruin.com/2011/03/ 18/alexandra_wallace_apologizes_announces_she_will_no_longer_attend_ucla Poon, O., Squire, D., Kodama, C., & Byrd, A. (2016). A critical review of the model minority myth in selected literature on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in higher education. Review of Educational Research, 86(2), 469–502. Samson, F. L. (2013). Multiple group threat and malleable white attitudes towards academic merit. Du Bois Review, 10(1), 233–260. Retrieved from https://www.revistaensi nosuperior.gr.unicamp.br/edicoes/facsimiles/frank_samson.pdf Stanford, L. (1862). Inaugural address. January 10. Retrieved from http://governors.library. ca.gov/addresses/08-Stanford.html Teranishi, R. T. (2010). Asians in the ivory tower: Dilemmas of racial inequality in American higher education. New York: Teachers College Press. Teranishi, R. T. (2017). The attitudes of Asian Americans toward affirmative action. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573712.pdf Weller, C. E., & Thompson, J. P. (2016). Wealth inequality among Asian Americans greater than among Whites. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://cdn.americanprogress.org/content/uploads/2016/12/20111150/AsianWealthI neqaulity-report-11.pdf Yen, A. C. (1996). A statistical analysis of Asian Americans and the affirmative action hiring of law school faculty. Asian American Law Journal, 3(1), 39–54.

11 MYTHS AROUND THE RECRUITMENT OF FACULTY OF COLOR IN THE ACADEMY Marybeth Gasman UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

While giving a talk about Minority Serving Institutions at the New York Times Higher Education Forum in 2016, I was asked a question pertaining to the lack of faculty of color at most majority institutions, especially more highly selective institutions. My response was frank: “The reason we don’t have more faculty of color among college faculty is that we do not want them. We simply don’t want them.” Those in the audience were surprised by my candor and gave me a standing ovation for the honesty. Of note, I didn’t say anything that many people of color had not said before me in other settings. I merely called out behavior that everyone knows exists and has existed since colleges and universities began. Given the short amount of time I had on the stage, I could not explain the evidence behind my statement. I will do so here. In this chapter, I will explore the major and long-term myths surrounding the recruitment of faculty of color in our colleges and universities, including issues of racism, quality, exceptions, academic pipelines, and maintaining the status quo. Moreover, I will provide practical strategies to make meaningful change even amid resistance.

My Background I have been a faculty member since 2000, working at several major, research universities. Although my research has focused on Minority Serving Institutions, I give talks, conduct research and workshops and do consulting related to diversifying the faculty across the nation. My interest in this topic has increased over the years based on my experiences within higher education. I have learned a lot about faculty recruitment over 18 years and because of visiting many colleges and universities. I have come across the same excuses and stories regardless of the type of majority institution I visit. I have also encountered similar circumstances—administrators,

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unfamiliar with the diversity numbers on their campuses, telling me how much they care about diversity among the faculty. And at the very same institutions, faculty of color, pulling me to the side after a talk and telling me how terribly there are treated, often crying when they share their stories. I think it is crucial that Whites, and especially White women speak up about the injustices that they see in faculty recruitment processes as Whites occupy 76 percent of the professoriate (Jackson-Weaver et al., 2010; Gasman, 2016a). If we do not speak up, and push back against injustice, we are complicit in the systemic racism that regularly takes place in higher education. Moreover, White women are all too familiar with the way that racism rears its ugly head as we have seen sexism hurt us in similar ways within the academy. White women have been the victims of systemic sexism that aimed to keep us out and to suppress opportunities for women, and we still are. To not speak up for faculty of color, as White women, is to accept the sexism that we endured as normal and reasonable.

The Myths We Perpetuate in the Academy The interesting aspect about myths is that they are perpetuated from many corners, are long lasting, and are bought into by lazy people who don’t want to find the answer to pressing problems or challenges. Below are common myths in the academy that perpetuate the status quo and sameness in the professoriate. Of note, these are not new and have been present in the literature on faculty recruitment and retention for decades.

Myth #1: Diversity is Important, but not at the Expense of Quality The word “quality” is often used to dismiss people of color who are otherwise competitive for faculty positions (Smith, 2000; Turner & Myers, 1999). Even those people on search committees that appear to be dedicated to access and equity in their research will point to “quality” or lack of “quality” as a reason for not hiring a person of color. Typically, questioning “quality” means that the candidate did not go to an “elite” or highly selective institution for their Ph.D. or that they were not mentored by a prominent person in their field—someone known by members of the search committee and highly respected in the field. These prominent people are typically White men and occasionally White women, but rarely people of color. What people forget is that attending the elite institutions and being mentored by prominent people is linked to social capital and systemic racism ensures that people of color have less of it. Using these measures to assess quality ensures that most people of color are not given full consideration in the faculty recruitment process (Smith, 2000; Turner & Myers, 1999; Gasman, 2016b).

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As a professor, while serving on search committees, we often hear people say, “Well, I care about diversity but I don’t want to sacrifice quality.” When we hear these types of comments, it is important to do two things immediately: 1.

2.

Ask them why they assume that diversity is linked to sacrificing quality. There’s only one reason and that is their own racism; we need to point out that racism to them and those on search committees. Tell them that the only time the words diversity and quality should be in the same sentence is when we say, “our institution would be of a higher quality if we were more diverse.”

Myth #2: There Aren’t Faculty of Color in the Pipeline The most common excuse I hear from deans, faculty, and search committees is “there aren’t enough people of color in the faculty pipeline.” It is accurate that there are few people of color in some disciplines such as engineering, physics, and philosophy. It is also accurate that there are very small numbers of Native Americans across various disciplines, but even these individuals have difficulty securing faculty positions. However, there are considerable numbers of Ph.D.s of color overall in the humanities, education, biology and we still do not have great diversity on these faculties (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wood, 2008). See Figure 11.1 from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which depicts the presence of people of color across the spectrum, with many disciplines considerably higher in terms of producing Ph.D.s of color than representation in the faculty. African Americans only account for 5 percent of faculty nation-wide and Latinos for 3 percent. Given the production of Ph.D.s of color, these percentages are unacceptable (Myers, 2016). When I hear someone say people of color aren’t in the pipeline, I respond with “Why don’t you create the pipeline?” “Why don’t you grow your own?” I typically get silence in response or an excuse for why this isn’t possible despite there being evidence that pipeline programs are not costly (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wood, 2008).

Myth #3: We Rarely Ever Make Exceptions I have learned that faculty will bend rules, knock down walls, and build bridges to hire those they really want (often White colleagues) but when it comes to hiring faculty of color, they insist on “playing by the rules” and get angry when exceptions are made to accommodate people of color, sometimes noting reverse racism (a nebulous concept) and discrimination. However, the biggest secret in the academy is that exceptions are made for White people constantly; exceptions are the rule in academe. During my time as a professor, I have seen faculty fight for mediocre candidates, nearly all White, who ‘deserve’ their positions because

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Doctorates Awarded to Minority U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents, by Ethnicity, Race, and Broad Field of Study, 2016. Note: Hispanic or Latino may be any race. FIGURE 11.1

they are friends with those doing the fighting or because they had a stressful time publishing. I have sat in rooms where excuses are used to tenure people with very little record, including sexist excuses around parenting, even when the person has been given ample time for maternity or paternity leave and still cannot produce a strong research agenda. How often are faculty of color given these exceptions. I have seen faculty find money to bring in an additional White candidate (who wasn’t in the original search pool) when a search failed (a search with three White final candidates) even though there was not enough money to bring in the fourth candidate—a man of color—in the original search. I have seen national searches suspended or at least attempts to suspend them (until someone speaks up) to hire an internal candidate—who is White—without having to “put them through” a national search. How often do we make these arrangements for people of color and if we do, how many people will immediate cry reverse racism (again, a nebulous term)? At first glance, my statements may look like anecdote as they happened in my life, but I have been told these same stories by people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds across the nation, and Patricia Matthew, an associate professor of English at Montclair State University, chronicled these same kinds of stories in her book Written/Unwritten: Diversity and the Hidden Trusts of Tenure (Matthew, 2016). Although the edited collection focuses on tenure, it follows various faculty of color from the hiring process through tenure, detailing their experiences as

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well as their witnessing of underqualified White people excelling without meeting the standards set for people of color. Likewise, Muhs et al. (2012) chronicled these same kinds of incidents in their book Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Despite ample research, grounded in the experiences of people of color in the academy, people of color are often held to higher standards, invisible standards, and not fought for in the same ways as many of their White colleagues.

Myth #4: Search Committees Know How to Search for Faculty Candidates Faculty search committees are part of the problem when it comes to the recruitment of faculty of color. They are not trained in recruitment, are rarely diverse in makeup, and are often more interested in hiring people just like them rather than expanding the diversity of their department. They reach out to those they know for recommendations and rely on ads in national publications that are not aimed at diverse audiences. And, even when they do receive a diverse group of applicants, often those applicants ‘aren’t the right fit’ for the institution. What is the ‘right fit’? Someone just like you? Of note, Julie Posselt found the same ‘fit’ discussions when researching her book, Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping (Posselt, 2016). Faculty hold tightly to maintaining the status quo and ensuring that they are comfortable in their environment. Given that 76 percent of faculty are White, and predominantly men, this results in an environment that is often not welcoming or friendly toward White women or people of color. In 2011, along with Jessica Kim and Thai-Huy Nguyen, I conducted a small study of faculty recruitment at highly selective institutions. We looked at the search committee process in education schools and found the following: search committees were formed haphazardly and without thought toward diversity; search committee members had no training pertaining to recruitment and marketing of positions nor any training related to diversity and inclusion; and many search committee members had deep personal concerns about considering race and ethnicity in the recruitment process (Gasman, Kim, & Nguyen, 2011). We also found that committee member, especially White men, were concerned that new faculty fit in with the existing culture and that they be someone that was relatable in terms of socializing. These kinds of ideas around hiring make it difficult for people of color to have an equitable chance to secure a faculty job (and hurt women overall as well).

Myth #5: We Just Don’t Know How to Recruit a Diverse Faculty—“It’s a Struggle” If majority colleges and universities are truly serious about increasing faculty diversity, why don’t they visit Minority Serving Institutions—institutions with great student (educating 40% of students of color nationwide) and faculty

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diversity—and ask them how they recruit a diverse faculty. Consider the diversity on the faculty of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which boast some of the most diverse faculties in the nation: 56.3 percent Black, 2.4 percent Hispanic, 0.5 percent Native American, 9.5 percent Asian American, 0.2 percent Pacific Islander, 22 percent White, and with the remaining percentage including people of two or more races. Or perhaps, majority institutions should consider talking with those at Hispanic Serving Institutions, which have faculties that on average are 5.3 percent Black, 18.4 percent Hispanic, 0.6 percent Native American, 9.7 percent Asian American, 0.2 percent Pacific Islander, 60 percent White, and the rest claim two or more races (Esmieu, in press). In this country, we have many institutions Minority Serving Institutions with significant diversity among the faculty but all too often, we look to highly selective or ‘elite’ institutions for the answers rather than talking to those institutions that have more success and more experience. Recruiting a diverse faculty isn’t hard. The answers are right in front of us if we want to look. We merely need the will.

Practical Recommendations My last myth pertained to our claiming to not know what to do when it comes to the recruitment of a diverse faculty. As noted, I think this claim has more to do with our will to make change than our actual ability. In fact, I know that there is much we can do to begin recruiting a diverse faculty now. Below are my recommendations. Since faculty members are resistant to hiring their own graduates, why not team up with several other institutions that are “deemed to be of high quality” and bring in more Ph.D.s of color from those institutions? If searching for a position in a field with few people of color in the pipeline, why are we working so hard to “weed” them out of undergraduate and Ph.D. programs? Why not encourage, mentor, and support more people of color in academic fields where they are sparse? For those reading this essay, readers might be wondering why faculty diversity is important. Wondering about the value of diversity is yet another reason why we don’t have a more diverse faculty. Having a diverse faculty—in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion—adds greatly to the experiences of students in the classroom. It challenges them—given that they are likely not to have had diversity in their K-12 classroom teachers—to think differently about who produces knowledge. It also challenges them to move away from a “White-centered” approach to one that is inclusive of many different voices and perspectives. Having a diverse faculty strengthens the faculty and the institution as there is more richness in the curriculum and in conversations taking place on committees and in faculty meetings. A diverse faculty also holds the university accountable in ways that uplift people of color and center issues that are important to the large and growing communities of color across the nation. Although I have always

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thought it vital that our faculty be representative of the nation’s diversity, we are getting to a point in higher education where increasing faculty diversity is an absolute necessity and crucial to the future of our nation. In 2014, for the first time, the nation’s K-12 student population was majority minority. These students are on their way into colleges and universities and we are not prepared for them. Our current faculty lacks expertise in working with students of color and our resistance to diversifying the faculty means that we are not going to be ready anytime soon. It is essential that current faculty members think deeply about their role in recruiting and hiring faculty. How often do they use the word “quality” when talking about increased diversity? Why do they use it? How often do they point to the lack of people of color in the faculty pipeline while doing nothing about the problem? How many books, articles, or training sessions have they attended on how to recruit faculty of color? How many times have they reached out to departments with great diversity in their field and asked them how they attract and retain a diverse faculty? How often do they resist when someone asks them to bend the rules for faculty of color hires but think it’s necessary when considering a White candidate?

Epilogue I received more than 7,000 emails after my essay about diversity in faculty hiring was published in the Hechinger Report (Gasman, 2016a) and The Washington Post (Gasman, 2016b). Most were from people of color telling me their stories of being rejected over and over by faculty search committees, many of them gutwrenching and sad. One African American woman wrote: … despite having terrific credentials and applying for over 200 faculty positions, I have been denied for a faculty position over and over, making me wonder if pursuing a Ph.D. was worth it. … I wonder if I should discourage other African Americans from doing so. People told me my essay made them cry. One Latina wrote: I wept when I read your essay because I have always suspected what you wrote but didn’t know for sure. I am glad you revealed the truth but to hear it was hard, almost devastating. Others thanked me for telling “the truth in a raw and forthright way.” Over 100 people sent me their resumes and asked if I knew of institutions that were seriously seeking a diverse faculty, and they continue to do this whenever the article gets reposted on social media. An African-American woman asked, “Can you introduce me to colleagues who will value me and help me grow as a

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professional? Can you offer advice on my résumé?” Others wrote about the many times they were “told privately that [they] didn’t fit in by a member of a search committee” or that they “weren’t good enough to join the faculty” at various institutions “due to their institutional pedigree.” A Latino man wrote that he was told his pedigree wasn’t good enough for a faculty engineering position even though he attended the flagship university in his state. “I have several published articles in top journals. What more can I do to be qualified in a field with hardly any Latino professors?” One African American man wrote: “I’m actually optimistic that if people read your essay and reflect, perhaps they will change … sometimes it takes being shamed to change your ways and to see the world from the perspectives of others.” I received countless emails from White people telling me that they have seen or experienced most—or everything—I wrote about at their own institutions. A White man told me, “We did the same things you described in your essay to women in my chemistry department for years. We questioned their quality to keep them out.” Some White people told me their stories of fighting for justice and becoming unpopular as a result. Others said that they had remained silent all too often and that my essay inspired them to act and that they were “committed to challenging their colleagues’ racism even if it means being marginalized.” Still others admitted that they were guilty of many of the actions I pointed out in my essay and regretted their behavior. One White man characterized himself as a “recovering racist fighting the good fight now after realizing how much fear and hatred I had about the changing landscape of higher education.” I also received many emails that attempted to justify racism and hate. The most interesting observation from a review of the messages was that although I wrote the essay about people of color in academia more generally, the negative and hateful comments were entirely about African Americans. I have asked myself, “Why the hate for African Americans?” I know for my father, his hate stemmed from his dislike of himself and need to blame others for his own failures and insecurities; he admitted it to me later in life. However, our nation’s overall disdain for African Americans, is, from my perspective, tied to many Whites wanting to forget our nation’s behavior toward African Americans— slavery, beatings, rapes, Jim Crow, discrimination, murders, lynchings, theft of property and land, and so many other atrocities. Many Whites want to pretend that we live in a colorblind society. They fail to realize that the playing field has never been level and in fact, African Americans have rarely been asked or allowed to step on the playing field. Ensuring that African Americans have opportunity and equity means interacting with them daily, having to listen to their voices and perspectives, having to be reminded of what many Whites do and have done to remain in superior positions and protect their privilege. It causes many Whites to be uncomfortable and that is not something that they are used to or want for themselves.

180 Marybeth Gasman

Let me provide an example from one of the many emails that demonstrates my point. According to one White man and professor: Too often the black professorial caucuses are militant agitators. At [my institution] they’ve just about wrecked the place. They’ve gotten the black students so fired up they (the students) are demanding separate lodging, separate dining halls, and separate student centers. They have also forced colleges to institute extreme curtailments on freedom of speech and thought. It is ironic that at [my institution], the militants who hate the place so much will leave school with no student loan debt in accordance with the school’s financial aid policy. There’s gratitude for you. Integration on the college campus is just not working I’m sorry to say. I wish it would. But facts are facts. The presence of African Americans makes this White man uncomfortable. Ask yourself, if a White man is willing to take the time to write me a 500word essay about why African Americans are not qualified to be faculty and how “they cause trouble when they are hired,” what does that say about the person? There’s no need to answer my question, as I know what it says. Having grown up with a racist father, I can spot racism—individual and systemic—from miles away and without my glasses. The visceral hate for African Americans by many in the U.S. and in academe is real and vivid. What concerns me the most is that so many of those writing to me with their hate and disdain for African Americans were faculty teaching in our colleges and universities. These individuals are teaching our children—including our African American children—and harboring these feelings. They, in fact, are not qualified to be faculty.

References Esmieu, P. (in press). Faculty diversity at Minority Serving Institutions. In A. Castro Samayoa & M. Gasman (Eds.), Minority Serving Institutions on the landscape of higher education. New York: Routledge. Gasman, M. (2016a). The five things no one will tell you about why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color. Retrieved from http://hechingerreport.org/five-things-no-onewill-tell-colleges-dont-hire-faculty-color Gasman, M. (2016b). An Ivy League professor on why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color: “We don’t want them.” The Washington Post, September 26. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/09/26/an-ivy-league-profes sor-on-why-colleges-dont-hire-more-faculty-of-color-we-dont-want-them/?noredir ect=on&utm_term=.7a2558f53443 Gasman, M., Kim, J. & Nguyen, T. (2011). Effectively recruiting faculty of color at highly selective institutions: A school of education case study. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4(4), 212–222.

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Jackson-Weaver, K., Baker, E., Gillespie, M.Bellido, C. & Watts, A. (2010). Recruiting the next generation of the professoriate. Peer Review, 12(3), https://www.aacu.org/p ublications-research/periodicals/recruiting-next-generation-professoriate. Matthew, P. A. (2016). Written/unwritten: Diversity and the hidden truths of tenure. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Muhs, G., Niemann, Y., González, C. & A. Harris (2012). Presumed incompetent: The intersections of race and class for women in academia. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Myers, B. (2016). Where are the Minority Professors? Chronicle of Higher Education, February 14. Retrieved from www.chronicle.com/interactives/where-are-the-minorityprofessors Posselt, J. (2016). Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Smith, D. G. (2000). How to diversify the faculty. Academe, 86(5), 48–52. Turner, C. S. & Myers, S. L. (1999). Faculty of color in academe: Bittersweet success. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Publishing. Turner, C. S., Gonzalez, J. C., & Wood, L. (2008). Faculty of color in academe: What 20 years of literature tells us. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 1(3), 139–168.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

Jeffrey S. Brooks is Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor of Educational Leadership in the School of Education at RMIT University. He is a two-time J. William Fulbright Senior Scholar alumnus who has conducted studies in the United States, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and other cross-national contexts. His research focuses broadly on educational leadership, examining the way leaders influence (and are influenced by) dynamics such as racism, globalization, social justice, student learning and school reform. Dr. Brooks is author of numerous refereed journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. He wrote The Dark Side of School Reform: Teaching in the Space between Reality and Utopia and 2013 AESA Critics Choice Award-winner Black School, White School: Racism and Educational (Mis)leadership and is co-author of Foundations of Educational Leadership: Developing Excellent and Equitable Schools. Dr. Brooks is co-editor of twelve edited volumes, including Leading against the Grain: Lessons for Creating Just and Equitable Schools. David L. Brunsma is Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech. He is Founding Co-Editor of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and has also served as co-editor of Societies Without Borders: Human Rights and the Social Sciences as well as a ten-year editorship as Race and Ethnicity Section Editor of Sociology Compass. He has published a dozen books including Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America, The Handbook of Sociology and Human Rights, and A Symbolic Crusade: What the School Uniform Movement Tells Us about American Education. His work has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journal articles including Social Forces, Gender & Society, and Ethnic & Racial Studies. His research currently focuses critical sociologies of race, racism, and racialization. He lives and loves with his family in Blacksburg, VA.

Author Biographies 183

W. Carson Byrd is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisville. His research examines race and educational inequality, inter- and intraracial interactions and their influence on identities and ideologies, and the connections among race, science, and knowledge production. These three areas intertwine under a broader research umbrella examining how educational institutions, particularly colleges and universities, can simultaneously operate as centers for social mobility and engines of inequality. He recently published Poison In The Ivy: Race Relations and the Reproduction of Inequality on Elite College Campuses (Rutgers University Press). Sarah Diem is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on the sociopolitical and geographic contexts of education, paying particular attention to how politics, leadership, and implementation of educational policies affect outcomes related to equity, opportunity, and racial diversity within public schools. She has published in leading educational policy and leadership journals, including American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, American Journal of Education, Educational Administration Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, The Urban Review, Education Policy Analysis Archives, the Journal of Research in Leadership Education, and the Journal of School Leadership, among other publications. Marybeth Gasman is the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves as the director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions. She is the author of over 25 books, including Educating a Diverse Nation (with Clifton Conrad) (Harvard University Press, 2015) and Envisioning Black Colleges (Johns Hopkins University, 2008). Nicholas D. Hartlep is a teacher educator whose work has appeared in Educational Studies, Policy Futures in Education, Journal of Educational Foundations, Equity and Excellence in Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Washington Post. He teaches in the School of Urban Education at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he serves as Associate Professor of Urban Education, Chair of the Early Childhood and Elementary Education Department, and coordinates Graduate Programs. His most recent book is Asian/American Scholars of Education: 21st Century Pedagogies, Perspectives, and Experiences (2018, Peter Lang). His The Neoliberal Agenda and the Student Debt Crisis in U.S. Higher Education (2017, Routledge) was named a 2018 Outstanding Book by the Society of Professors of Education. Andrea M. Hawkman is Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education and Cultural Studies in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. Her research focuses on the enactment of racialized pedagogies in the PK-20 classroom and the intersection of education policy and social studies teaching and

184 Author Biographies

learning. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming book Marking the Invisible: Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies Education. Her scholarly work has also appeared in Art/Research International, Social Education, Teaching Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, and in numerous edited books about social studies, teacher education, and race/ism. She is an avid soccer fan, and enjoys traveling and spending time with her wife and daughter. Sonya Douglass Horsford is an Associate Professor of Education Leadership and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she examines the history and politics of race, inequality, and leadership in U.S. education. Dr. Horsford’s research on Black school superintendents and school desegregation remain foundational to her scholarship, which is concerned primarily with how school and community leaders fulfill the promise of equality of educational opportunity for neglected and oppressed peoples. These themes are central to Horsford’s book, Learning in a Burning House: Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis) Integration, and current projects examining the paradox of race and social justice leadership discourses in education research, practice, and policy. Horsford is an active member of Divisions A and L of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA). Gaëtane Jean-Marie is Dean of the College of Education and Richard 0. Jacobson Endowed Chair of Leadership in Education at the University of Northern Iowa. She is also the series editor of Studies in Educational Administration Series. Prior to UNI, she held administrative and faculty positions at the University of Louisville, University of Oklahoma and Florida International University. Her research focuses on educational equity and social justice in K-12 schools, women and leadership in P-20 system, and leadership development and preparation in a global context. She has over 90 publications which include books, book chapters, and academic articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Career Alumni Award from her alma mater, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In sum, focused and energetic, she enjoys being in and around educational settings as a leader, researcher, observer, facilitator, mentor, and teacher. Francemise S. Kingsberry is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in the Master of School Administration program. She received her Ed.D. in Educational Administration and Supervision from North Carolina State University, a Master in School Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Management/Society and Sociology from UNC-CH. She has served as an elementary and middle school teacher and school administrator. Her research interests include: race and equity, women and educational leadership in the K-12 system, and urban school educational reform. More specifically, her work examines the ways in which African American

Author Biographies 185

women superintendents and aspirants to the superintendency, face and overcome barriers to success. Christopher B. Knaus is a race scholar, critical race theory practitioner, educator, and community advocate. Currently a Professor of Education at the University of Washington Tacoma, Dr. Knaus leads practitioner-based research projects that examine the global impact of colonial school systems and related policies on communities of color. Dr. Knaus focuses on strengthening educational leaders, transforming higher education, and student-centered approaches to transforming the purpose of schooling. Dr. Knaus was also a Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, where he was hosted by the University of the Western Cape. In addition to writing about racism in education, Dr. Knaus has taught in high schools, runs to maintain a healthy outlook in an unhealthy world, and can be seen constantly writing in his journal. Daniel D. Liou is an Assistant Professor at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. His research examines the sociology of educators’ expectations in fostering conditions to support equity and school reform at different stages in the pre-kindergarten to university educational pipeline. Dr. Liou primarily teaches in the educational leadership program. He is the author of twenty-eight peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and other publicly accessible scholarship. As a former Upward Bound student and McNair Postbaccalaureate (TRIO) mentor, Dr. Liou has more than twenty-five years of experience supporting equity initiatives through community-based research projects in the United States. Dr. Liou is an appointed member of the Equity, Inclusion, and Action Committee (Division A) and the Leadership for Social Justice Awards Committee (LSJ SIG) at the American Educational Research Association. He is also the plenary representative for ASU at the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA). Nicholas C. Ozment is an independent scholar and historian in southeast Minnesota. He taught English courses at Winona State for nine years before transferring into the tourism sector as a tour guide. His freelance writing credits include over a hundred journals, magazines, book anthologies, live theater productions, podcasts, and radio programs. He has also copy-edited dozens of books, chapters, journal essays, theses, and dissertations. His web address is ozmentality.com. Lindsay Romasanta currently serves as Director of Student Success Programs at UC San Diego where she leads a variety of holistic student services to support first-generation and underrepresented college students. Dr. Romasanta earned her doctorate in education from Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teacher’s College in Leadership and Innovation. Victoria Showunmi is a Senior Lecturer at Maynooth University and Lecturer at UCL Institute of Education. Her career profile has reflected her interest in the

186 Author Biographies

areas of leadership, identity, gender, race, and equalities research in education. She has developed strong networks internationally in this research area, in part through her memberships in AERA, BERA, BELMAS and NWSA. She is the BELMAS conference Chair and is the Secretary and Treasurer for International Studies SIG for AERA. She is currently engaged with an international research project exploring black girls’/women’s experience in education and the workplace. She has publication links with colleagues in the USA, West Africa, Pakistan and Europe. George Theoharis is a Professor in the Teaching and Leadership Department at Syracuse University. He has extensive experience as a principal and teacher. He previously served as Department Chair, Associate Dean for Urban Education Partnerships, and as the Director of Field Relations. His research and work with K-12 schools focuses on issues of equity, justice, diversity, inclusion, leadership, and school reform. His books titled The School Leaders Our Children Deserve (2009), Leadership for Increasingly Diverse Schools (2015), and The Principal’s Handbook for Leading Inclusive Schools (2014) focus on issues of leadership and creating more equitable schools. George’s work bridges the worlds of K-12 schools and higher education. As such, he writes for public audiences in outlets such as The School Administrator, Educational Leadership (online), The Principal, The Washington Post, The Root, and The Syracuse Post-Standard. Megan R. Underhill is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is a race and family scholar who studies what white parents think about race and racism and how they communicate these ideas to their children. Her research has appeared in several peer-reviewed outlets including Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. Terri N. Watson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership and Special Education at The City College of New York. A Harlem native, her research examines the practices of urban school leaders and the impact of school reform initiatives on children and communities of color. As a scholar-activist, Dr. Watson’s primary aim is to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of historically excluded and underserved students and families. In this light, she engages with school leaders to increase their efficacy, strengthen school-community engagement, and to improve the educational experiences of children, particularly those who are marginalized due to their race, gender, and socio-economic status. This focus is guided by her commitment to produce scholarship that contributes to critical theory and extant school leadership literature and is meaningful for addressing problems of practice.

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to figures. Page numbers in bold refer to tables. Page numbers followed by “n” refer to notes. Abboud, K. 169 abstract liberalism 31, 98 academic resilience 134, 135, 142, 143; definition of 136; as form of survival and resistance in STEM 136–142; Administration of Public Education in the United States, The 38 administrative theory movement 41 Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color 124–125 affirmative action: Asian/Americans’ attack on 162–163; vs. negative action 163–165 African American Policy Forum (AAPF) 121 African American women 69, 79–93: and barrier transcendence theory 86–87; resiliency of 83–84, 86; as superintendents 79–85, 87–88, 90–91; see also Black women, leadership of aid to dependent children (ADC) 28 Aleman, E. 36 Allred, N. 162, 163 Alston, J. 36 America see United States (U.S.A.) American Association of School Administrators 52 American Bar Association: Joint Task Force on Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline 127–128 anti-racism 30, 44, 110–111

“anti-white bias”, in college admissions 31 Araujo, S. 5 Archer-Banks, D. A. M. 118–119, 121 Arnold, N. W. 36 Asian/Americans 158–169; attack on affirmative action 162–163; disaggregation of 167–168; model minority stereotype 159, 162–163, 164, 165–169 aspirational capital 138 authentic leadership 69 Avolio, B. 67 Baldwin, J. 5, 9, 10, 13 barrier transcendence theory 86–87 Beachum, F. 36 Beck, M. 5 Behar-Horenstein, L. S. 118–119, 121 “behavior in organizations”, theory of 41 Bell, D. 11, 12, 47, 164 Bernal, D. D. 138 best practice, as promotion of whiteness 7–9 Black Feminist Theory (BFT) 119–120 Black feminist thought, tenets of 119 Black girls, schooling of 116–129; #BlackGirlsMatter 122–123; Brown, Linda 123; Department of Education 125–126; Department of Justice

188 Index

125–126; discipline gap, closing 126–128; femininity, role of 119–121; Johns, Barbara Rose 123; just for Black girls 128–129; potency of 121–122; problem with whiteness 124–128; Roberts, Sara 122–123; salience of race 117–119; White House’s Council on Women and Girls 124–125; white privilege 117–122 Black Panthers 30 Black women, leadership of 62–77; enacting leadership 70–75; and identity 68–70; methodology 65–66; see also African American women; White women, leadership of #BlackGirlsMatter: Brown, Linda 123; Johns, Barbara Rose 123; Roberts, Sarah 122–123 Blasio, B. de 127 Bloom, C. 80 Bolling v. Sharpe 123 Bonds, A. 80–81 Bonilla-Silva, E. 98 Borderland University 139, 140, 142 bridge people 46 Briggs v. Elliot 123 Brooks, J. 89 Brown, A. R. 90–91 Brown, L. 123 Brown, M. 30 Brown vs. Board of Education 11, 96, 97, 101, 122–123 Byrd, A. 168 Campbell, R. F. 38 Campbell-Stephens, R. 69–70 capital: aspirational 138; familial 138, 147–150; informational 143; navigational 138; resistance 138; social 138, 143–145 capitalism 2; participation in 4 Chambers, T. V. 36 charter schools 102–103, 108–109 China 1, 27 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 27 Chisolm, S. 47 Chua, A. 169 citizenship 4, 26–27, 151 Civil Rights Act of 1964 101, 126 Civil Rights Movement 98 Clark, S. 47 Clarke, S. R. P. 13 Clinton administration 29

COINTELPRO 30 Collins, P. H. 16, 47 colonialism 2 color 8, 13, 28, 31, 89; faculty of color, recruitment of 172–180; girls of 124, 125; superintendents of 79–81, 91 colorblindness 98 Common European Principles for Teacher Competences and Qualifications in the EU 8–9 community cultural wealth 137–139 controlled-choice plans 108 Coons, A. E. 41 Corbett, T. 127 “counter-storytelling” 165 Crenshaw, K. 47, 64 critical activists 46 critical consciousness 44 critical pedagogy 14, 17, 35 critical race theory (CRT) 35, 36, 44, 52, 53; historical perspective on educational leadership 36–37, 44 Crow, J. 27, 29 Cubberly, E. 36, 39 Cullors-Brignac, P. M. 30 cultural racism 98 culturally relevant leadership 44 culturally relevant pedagogy 35 curriculums 5, 13, 146–147; assessment of 7; race in, centralizing 88–89 Dancy, T. E. 89 Dantley, M. 36, 88, 89 Darling-Hammond, L. 8, 9 Davies, P. G. 135 Davis, A. 47 Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County 123 decolonization 17 Deferred Action by Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 141 Dei, G. S. 15, 18 democratic leadership 40–41 Department of Education (DOE) 96; Office of Safety and Youth Development 127; resource package 125–126 Department of Justice 31, 125–126 desegregation 96, 101, 103 DeVos, B. 96–97, 106, 107 DiAngelo, R. 88, 100 discipline gap, closing 126–128

Index 189

diverse faculty recruitment, struggling of 176–177 diversity 92–93: in classroom, significance of 145–146; education policy and 107; faculty 173–174, 176–178; magnet schools and 97, 101; plans, of school districts 90, 92; promoting, through reviewing and changing selection practices 89; v. quality of education 173–174; school choice and 108–109, 111; of superintendents, increasing 87–88 Douglas, T. 36 Douglass, F. 47 DuBois, W. E. B. 120 durable (categorical) inequalities 23 Dutton, S. T. 38, 39 dysconscious racism 98–99 Dyson, M. E. 47

Feagin, J. 22 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 30, 31 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) 28 femininity, role in Black girls’ schooling 119–121 Finnigan, K. S. 108 First Wave of Scientific Management 36, 38–39 First Wave of Spiritual and Social Leadership 37–38 Flagg, B. J. 99 Fordham, S. 121 Frankenberg, E. 102 Freire, P. 14, 16, 44; critical pedagogy 14, 17 Freireian-based education 12 “frog perspective” 6, 12 funding 12

economic segregation 105 education: attainment of 133; democratic 14, 17; Freireian-based 12; as global investment in Whiteness 1–18; indigenous global 12–13; infrastructure 3, 6, 10; high school, less rigorous 146–147; public 96, 107, 110, 117; reform 96; research 117, 120; Whiteness as policy in 96–111 education, leadership in 86–89, 91, 92–93; African American women 82–83; Black and White women’s 62–77; preparation programs, restructuring 88–91; whiteness of 35–48, 52–60, 79, 80–82 educational administration: as humanistic endeavor 42–43; postmodern turn in 43; social justice, leadership for 43–44; as social policy 39–40; and social turbulence 42–46 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 102 ELL services 60 English, F. W. 38 Erlandson, D. 80 Ethiopia 1 European Union 4 Evans, A. E. 104 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) 102

Gardner’s multiple intelligences 14 Garza, A. 30 Gebhart v. Belton 123 Getzels, J. W. 41 Gewertz, C. 82 Ghana, schooling system in 2, 3, 5 Gillborn, D. 98, 106, 117 girls see Black girls, schooling of; White House’s Council on Women and Girls Golden, D. 163 Gonzalez, M. 36 Gooden, M. A. 36, 88, 89 Grande’s red pedagogy 15 gratitude, for college opportunity 150–152 Great Chain of Being 23 Green, T. 36 Green v. New Kent County 101 Griffiths, D. 41 grit 133, 137

faculty of color, recruitment of 172–180 familial capital 138, 147–150 Farmer, F. M. 40

Harris-Perry, M. V. 122 Hemphill, J. K. 41 Henderson, N. 84, 85 high school education, less rigorous 146–147 hiring practices, of school districts 90 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) 96 Holme, J. J. 108 homeownership 28 hooks, b. 12–15 Horsford, S. D. xi, xiin2, 36

190 Index

Howard-Wagner, D. 7–8 human agency 53, 133, 136, 137 human relations, and social policy 39–40 human resource model of administration 42 humanism, educational administration as endeavor of 42–43 immigration status 133 imperialism 3, 10 indigenous-centric education, as act of resistance 18 indigenous global education 12–13 Indonesia: psychological-dependent colonization 10 inequality 2, 7, 11; tangible wealth 9 informational capital 143, 145 institutionalized racism 42, 100 internalized racism 2, 72 interracial discrimination 23 Inwood, J. 80–81 Irby, D. J. 36 isolation, racial 79, 101–102, 103, 108, 136, 151–152; see also tokenism Ispa-Landa, S. 121 Jackson, B. 36 Jackson, B. L. 43, 82 Japan 1, 27 Jean-Marie, G. 36, 89 Johns, B. R. 123 Johnson, B. 126–127, 128 Jussim, L. 168 justice: racial 31; social 31, 35, 43–46, 76 K-12 schools: leadership 52, 53; population 132; racial opportunity gaps in 60; diversity hiring practices in 80; white competence and minority incompetence, perceptions of 54; see also PK-12 schools K-20 schools, Black women and girls in 116, 128 Kang, J. 163 Karanxha, Z. 87 Katznelson, I. 28 Khalifa, M. 36 Kim, C. 169 Kim, J. 169 King, J. E. 99 King, M. L., Jr. 60 Kingsberry, F. S. 82–83, 84 Kodama, C. 168

Kowalski, T. J. 81, 82 Krishnamurti, J. 13, 16 Kwok, J. 169 Ladson-Billings, G. 53 Larson, C. L. 45, 63 Latinas ; as first-generation college students 132–153 leadership: authentic 69; Black and White women’s 62–77; definition of 66–68; educational leadership preparation programs, restructuring 88–91; educational leadership, white privilege and 52–60; educational see educational leadership, whiteness of; enacting 70–75; and identity 68–70; servant 68; for social justice 43–54; “Ubuntu” model of 68; whiteness of see under education, leadership in; see also racially conscious leaders Lee, S. S. 164 Lee, Y.-T. 168 Leonardo, Z. 99, 100 Lieberman, A. 8, 9 Logel, C. 135 Lomotey, K. 43 Loomis, S. 8 López, G. R. 36, 43, 63 Lulat, Y. G.-M. 9–10, 13 MacBeath, J. 2, 3, 5 magnet schools 107–108 Malcolm X 47 Margonis, F. 99 Martin, T. 30 Massey, D. 24 Mathis, W. J. 109 Matthew, P. A. 175 McCauley, C. R. 168 McCray, C. 36 McGuffey, S. C. 124 McIntosh, P. 22, 23, 74, 81 mentorship 85, 86, 91, 92, 138; national program, creation of 90–91 “Mexican Repatriation” program 27 micro-aggressions 71, 81, 82, 83, 90, 136, 137 Miles, Mark 35 Mills, C. W. 2, 4, 7, 103, 104 Milstein, M. M. 84, 85 minority incompetence, perceptions of 54–56, 57, 58, 59 mobilization 17

Index 191

model minority stereotype 159, 162, 164, 165–168, 166, 169 Morales, E. E. 147 Morris, E. W. 119–122 Muhs, G. 176 multiculturalism 15, 110 multiple intelligences 14 Murtadha, K. 36, 45, 63 Museus, S. D. 139 Nation at Risk, A 96 National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) 102; A Call to Action for Educational Equity 122; Legal Defense Fund (LDF) 122; Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls 122 National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) 8 National Women’s Law Center 122, 124 naturalization 98 Naturalization Act of 1790 26 navigational capital 138 NCATE see National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) negative action vs. affirmative action 163–165 neoconservatism 106 neoliberalism 4, 97–98, 106 New Deal 28 Newlon, J. H. 39–40 Nixon, R. 29 No Child Left Behind Act 102 Noguera, P. 133 Normore, A. H. 89 Obama Administration 102, 124–125, 126 Obama, B. 55 O’Donoghue, T. A. 13 Ogawa, R. 36 Ogbu, J. O. 118 Omi, M. 25 opportunity hoarding, institutionalized 22–29; see also white opportunity hoarding Ortiz, F. I. 36 Osler, A. 63 Ovando, C. J. 63 Page Law 27 Palumbo-Liu, D. 162 Parker, L. 99

Parker, P. 69 pedagogy 46; anti-racist 110; critical 14, 17, 35, 89; culturally relevant 35; red 14; sensing/thinking 16; sentipensante 2, 13–18 people of color 23, 28, 31, 81–82, 99, 163, 173–179 personas educadas (globally educated people) 15–17 Peters-Hawkins, April 36 photo-testimonios 132–153, 143, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 PISA see Program in International Student Assessment (PISA) PK-12 schools: Latinx reports of racism in 141; withdrawal of marginalized students from 160; see also K-12 schools PK-12 school leadership 52, 56, 60 Plessy v. Ferguson 129n1 police brutality 30 Poon, O. 168 Posselt, J. 176 “postmodern turn”, in educational administration 43 poverty 4, 11 Prieto, L. C. 90 principals, school: historical role of 37–38, 39, 40, 42–43; race and 42, 52, 55–56, 57, 69 “principle-policy paradox” 31 Program in International Student Assessment (PISA) 8 property rights 12 Public School Administration 39 quality 9; of education 98, 102, 105, 107, 147; of faculty candidates, and diversity 173–174, 177–178, 179; of learning environments 97, 101 race–gender epistemology 138 racial discrimination, post-Civil War 24 racial state 25, 30–32 racialized social structure 23 racially conscious leaders 57–60 racism/race x. 1–2; in American principal’s office, historical perspective on 35–48; asymmetries of 25; bias 58; contract of 4, 8; cultural 98; in curriculum, centralizing 88–89; discrimination 32, 76, 105; diversity x; dysconscious 98–99; equality 63; identity 31, 99, 111n1, 119; inequality 102; inferiority 3; institutionalized 42, 100; integration

192 Index

101; internalization of 10; internalized 2, 72; isolation 101–103; racial justice 31; literacy 110; mascots 162; minimization of 98, 100–101; racial oppression 98; racial prejudice 76; privilege through school choice 96–111; racial rewards 29; salience of 117–119; segregation 28, 103–105; racial stereotype 79, 135, 136; structural 100; systemic 39; racial violence 30 rational bureaucracies, organizations as 41 rationality 42 Reagan administration 29 Reber, D. D. 40 Reeves, R. 24 Rendón, L. 2, 13–16 resiliency: African American women and 79– 93; definition of 84; expectations and 134, 141, 143, 144–145, 147; research on 137 resistance capital 138 responsibility 67 “reverse discrimination” 163 Rich, B. L. 124 Rivera-McCutcheon, R. 36 Roberts, S. 122–123 Roberts v. The City of Boston 118 Rothstein, R. 28 Samson, F. L. 164 Santamaría, L. J. 86 school choice policy: evaluation of 105–109; racial privilege through, reconstructing 96–111 school districts: hiring practices, centralization of equity in 90; transcending barriers in superintendency 92 Second Wave of Scientific Management 37 segregation: charter schools and 102–103; dismantling 101, 123; economic 105; hierarchical 63; of public colleges and universities 96; racial 28, 29, 97, 103–105; residential 100; school 97, 101, 102–103, 123; school choice and 101, 107, 108; see also desegregation Segura, C. C. 5 self-determination 17 self-reflection 15, 17 sensing/thinking pedagogy 16 sentipensante pedagogy 2, 13–18 “servant leadership” 68 Shartle, C. L. 41 Shaw v. Reno 104 Showunmi, V. xi

“silent covenants” 164 Simons, H. D. 118 Singleton, G. E. 56 slave codes 26 Smith, L. T. 17–18 Snedden, D. 38, 39 social capital 138–139; connections, in photo-testimonios 143–145 social class 70, 133 social closure 24 social equilibrium, leadership for 41–42 social justice 16–17, 30–31, 35, 44–46, 76, 87–89, 93; leadership for 43–44 “social process”, of administration 41 Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) 144 sophistry 165–167; and model minority stereotype 165, 166 Spencer, S. J. 135 Squire, D. 168 Stanford, L. 161 Stanford University 161 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math): academic resilience as forms of survival and resistance in 136–142; status of Latinas in 136 stereotypes: definition of 168; gender 79; model minority 159, 162, 164, 165–168, 166, 169; negative 79, 80; racial 79; threat 135; transcending 168–169 Strayer, G. D. 36, 39 structural racism 100 Students for Fair Admissions (SFA) 163 superintendency, transcending barriers in 79–93; African American women and superintendency 82–84; barrier transcendence theory 86–87; departments of education, state and federal 92; diversity promotion through selection practices 89; educational leadership preparation programs 88–91; equity in hiring practices 90; national mentoring program, creation of 90–91; race in curriculum, centralizing 88–89; resiliency 84, 85, 86; school districts 92; superintendent diversity in public schools 87–88; white privilege 80–82 superintendents 54–55; increasing diversity of, in public schools 87–88 Swaffield, S. 2, 3, 5 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 101 systemic racism 39

Index 193

Takao Ozawa v. United States 27 Taylor, F. W. 38 Teach for America 11 Teachers College, Columbia University 38 Teachers Without Borders 11 Teranishi, R. T. 165–166 Terhune, C. P. 83 testimonios, definition of 141; see also photo-testimonios Thailand 1 Theory Movement 40, 41 Theory of Group Leadership 41 Tillman, Linda 36 Tilly, C. 23, 24 Title I 45 tokenism 79 Tonga 1 transformational public intellectuals 46 Trump, D. 134, 140 “Ubuntu” model of leadership 68 United Kingdom (U.K.) xi, 4, 5; Black and White women’s leadership in 62–63 United States (U.S.A.) 4; Black and White women’s leadership 62; Department of Education (DOE) 96, 125–126; Department of Justice 125–126; educational infrastructure 10; National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education 8; photo-testimonios 132– 153; school system x–xi; society, white privilege and 22–32 United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind 27 University of California: equity in hiring practices 90 University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) 159–161, 169n1 Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity 122 upward mobility 1 violence 11; exclusion 23; terrorism 12; white supremacist 30 Voting Rights Act of 1965 28 vouchers 103 Walumbwa, F. 67 War on Drugs 29 Watson, T. N. 36, 120–121 Watson, V. 4 Weber, M. 24, 41 Weber, T. J. 67 Wells, A. S. 107

Welner, K. G. 109 Welton, AJ 36 West, Cornel 47 Western-framed schooling 1, 6 Western gaze 17 white competence 54–56 White House’s Council on Women and Girls 124–125; Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunities 124; Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color 124–125; Women and Girls of Color 124 white ignorance 103–109 “white man’s burden” 9–10 white opportunity hoarding 22–29 white privilege x, 2, 5; and American society 22–32; Black girls’ schooling 116–129; and creation of chilly climate, for African American women 80–82; definition of 117; and educational leadership 52–60; femininity, role of 119–121; framework 52–53; in higher education 162; historical and contemporary challenges to 30–32; inequality 24–25; institutionalized opportunity hoarding 22–29; PK-12 school leadership 53–57; potency of 121–122; racially conscious leaders 57–60; salience of race 117–119; work to confront 58–60 white racial dis-consciousness 54, 56, 57 White Savior Complex 9–12 white sensemaking 103–109, 110, 111 white superiority 10, 23 white supremacy 3, 4, 11, 22, 23, 103; in education policy 97–101 White women, leadership of 62–77 whiteness: best practice as promotion of 7–9; Department of Education 125–126; Department of Justice 125–126; discipline gap, closing 126–128; education as global investment in 1–18; and problems with Black girls’ schooling 124–128; as policy 96–111; as property 52; as schooling, globalization of 2–6; White House’s Council on Women and Girls 124–125; see also education, leadership in whiteness-framed schooling 6 Whiteucation: definition of, x–xi Wiley, K. 82 Wilson, C. 36 Wilson, D. 30 Winant, H. 25

194 Index

women see African American women; Black women, leadership of; White women, leadership of Women and Girls of Color: Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunities 124 work ethic 152–153

Wright, R. 1–3, 6, 10–13 Yancy, G. 12 Yosso, T. J. 47, 147 Zimmerman, G. 30