Critical Race History as Pedagogy: The Case of the Puente Research Team

• In Event: Critical Race Theory: Methodological and Pedagogical Tools for Critical Race Theorists and Beyond

Abstract

This paper reflects a collaborative effort at praxis in the development of a Critical Race History (CRH) in education pedagogy. This union of theory and practice is described as it emerged in an after-school research seminar with a group of secondary school students in Pasadena, California. The objective of this work is to share the applied utility of CRH both inside the academy and a high school setting.

The guiding frameworks for this collaborative project are CRT, Latina/o Critical Theory (LatCrit), and CRH. Each of these frameworks emphasize the importance of recognizing the intersectionality of race and racism with other forms of oppression (Solórzano, 1998). While CRT and LatCrit acknowledge the importance of historical context, they do not go far enough in actual analysis of history. CRH stresses the importance of moving beyond historical context, and beginning to write history from a critical race perspective. Thus, history serves as the cornerstone of this collaborative effort. In order to merge critical race theory with practice, it is essential that the literature on critical race pedagogy be explored. Lynn (1999) has defined critical race pedagogy, “as an analysis of racial, ethnic, and gender subordination in education that relies mostly on the perceptions, experiences, and counterhegemonic practices of educators of color” (p. 615). He also distinguishes critical race pedagogy as one that values the historical axes of race, class, and gender oppression equally (Lynn, 1999), including myriad “emancipatory pedagogical strategies and techniques proven to be successful with racially and culturally subordinated students” (Lynn, 2004, p. 154).

The theory provided by the aforementioned frameworks informed a larger curriculum on recovering community history which was implemented as an after-school research seminar with twelve students in the Puente program (a University of California-based outreach initiative) at Marshall Fundamental Secondary School. The critical race history in education pedagogy created for this project highlighted and affirmed the importance of history for Communities of Color. Since all of the participants in this project shared a common Chicana/o & Latina/o background, the seminar curriculum was centered on the community history of Latinas/os in Pasadena. This paper explores in depth the construction and implementation of the 6-week long CRH seminar that introduced students to basic research terms such as “theory”, “theoretical perspective”, “methodology”, and “methods”. Additionally, students engaged four theoretical perspectives used to explain Chicana/o educational pipeline data (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001b), the community cultural wealth model (Yosso, 2005; 2006), and basic oral history techniques. The culmination of the seminar was a student led presentation at a national academic conference, where students shared their experiences, stories, and knowledge about local community history. This paper and presentation draws upon data sources such as artifacts from the seminar, researcher notes, and reflections to document this CRH in education praxis project. Critical examination and discussion of praxis-based curriculum is needed for the continued movement of the field. Thus, this collaborative project and paper adds a much-needed utilitarian perspective to our conversations about how to unite methodology with pedagogy.

Author

• Ryan Edward Santos, University of California - Los Angeles