Toward an Unapologetic Pedagogy of Race: A Critical Race Pedagogy Framework for K-12 Teaching

• In Event: What Makes Pedagogy “Critical,” Anyhow? Translating Social Theory Into Practice in Urban Learning Contexts

Abstract

This project comes out of an effort to build an epistemological home and conceptual framework for our work around pedagogy. Specifically, I will explore and push the boundaries of Critical Race Pedagogy (CRP). I draw from the work of critical pedagogy, which explores how schools, communities, teachers, and students, when working in solidarity with each other, can critique and transform hegemonic forces through humanistic ways of relating to each other. Next it is important to examine international and national writings of Postcolonial Theory with its recognition of the global colonial project. Postcolonial theory offers a perspective that recognizes the legacy of colonialism working to deconstruct hegemonic concepts such as imperialism and white supremacy (Fanon, 1963; Cesaire, 1972). Along with this, I explore the literature of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education scholarship. CRT adds to this work the theoretical lens to unapologetically forefront race and racism while also taking into account the intersectionality of other forms of oppression found in schools and classrooms. Finally, this paper will end with how each of these traditions shape the working definition of Critical Race Pedagogy (CRP) and humbly suggest seven key tenets of CRP.

At the forefront of CRP is the notion that racism is endemic to American life and that instead of seeking to ignore the permanency of racism to the U.S. and around the world (Bell, 1993) we must confront issues related to race head on. To do so demands a contextual/historical analysis of the way power maintains itself in the U.S. and around the world. Bringing this relationship to light allows us to understand how students and educators resist the domination that lay hidden within the traditional structures of schooling. Through a critical race pedagogical approach education can be a site for a sustained critique of racism, capitalism, imperialism, colonial subjectivity and heteronormativity. It is with a clear sense of the oppressive forces at work that CRP then seeks to provide an avenue for healing.

The healing process in CRP is itself a social justice mission. CRP means using education to initiate the process of liberation. Schools created under colonial rule can no longer be seen as neutral. CRP sees the act of teaching as a political act that can create spaces that promote academic literacy and college readiness while also addressing inequalities in our communities.

This conceptual framework is a call for a paradigm shift that breaks from an outcome based, standardized view of public education and learning, situated within a positivist western tradition. Instead, CRP seeks to understand learning as a process, a philosophy rooted in Indigenous and Afrocentric epistemologies. It is from here CRP is defined theoretically and begs the question, “What does it means to employ a Critical Race Pedagogy?”

Author

• Antonio Nieves Martinez, University of California - Los Angeles